I would like to discuss some of the impressions that I, as an editor at JSBBA’s secretariat, got from three lectures and a panel discussion at the 1st SPARC Japan Seminar 2011. By the way, just for information, Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, an English-language journal published by JSBBA, has received 967 submissions, published 527 manuscripts on total 2,626 pages, and circulated a total of 1,700 copies in 2010. All manuscripts published in and after 1998 are made available free of charge via the Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic (J-STAGE). Those published before 1998 are also offered as Archive Issues.

Impressions from lecturers

・ Publication fees charged per article

All of various e-journals introduced at the seminar charge publication fees of 1,000 dollars or more per article. This should be no wonder considering the fact that subscription fees for them are also charge per article. However, although print journals also charge publication fees, the amount of fees is typically set per page and thus proportional to the number of pages. Such publication fees for print journals include the cost of paper and ink for printing journals and offprints, printing expenses, and personnel costs. Charging the same amount for a 1-page article and a 10-page article is unthinkable in the case of print journals.

Even in the case of online publishing, articles are not published as submitted. Since they must be reviewed, (copyedited,) and file-checked before publication, I think that the amount of work involved in these processes should be reflected in the amount of publication fees. It is considered reasonable to charge publication based on the size of files in the future.

・ Review fees

In his lecture, Professor Saitou said that review fees should be paid to reviewers. Although I personally support this idea, making such payments to all reviewers will be difficult in practice. For instance, in the case of making payments in Japan to overseas reviewers, fees for sending money—whether money orders or bank transfers—are expensive and procedures are cumbersome. It will be wonderful if we could introduce a point payment system similar to those used in convenience stores in Japan, whereby reviewers would be able to earn points by reviewing articles submitted by others and use them to pay publication fees when submitting their own articles.

Steps JSBBA needs to take to enable Open Access in the future

・ Open choice

One of the primary advantages that Open Access has brought to researchers is that they can see the content of research conducted by others without taking copies of journals at libraries and contacting individual authors using a special postcard requesting a separate print. Instead, they can access journals of their interest and save articles in the PDF or other formats in their own PCs. Authors and publishers used to pay the costs of printing and delivery of hundreds of copies but no longer. Open Access has also enabled viewers to search journals easily.

On the other hand, however, Open Access meant a huge revenue loss for publishers and academic societies, for which fees for journal subscriptions and separate copies have been the main source of revenue. They prevented this by charging pay per view charges.

While authors are concerned about the impact factor of journals in which their articles are being published, only few care about the number of citations of their articles. Some authors are satisfied with just having their articles published or accepted. I would like them to think about how they can make more readers read or cite their articles.

Even in the case journals charge viewers, they offer an option such as Open Choice which effectively provides many people free-of-charge access to journals. Up until slightly more than 10 years ago, contributors used to purchase and distribute a large number of copies on their own. I think that Open Choice is the same idea in a different form. Japanese journals providing free access to all articles are virtually bearing the cost of Open Choice fees on behalf of authors. Going forward, it is highly likely that journal publishers will pass the Open Choice cost onto contributors by raising publication fees.

Journals released through the Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic (J-STAGE) are informed of the number of access and countries from which access has been made. Just as I was writing this article, Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry suddenly became No. 1 in the number of downloads in a country in which the journal had never been accessed before. There were similar incidents in the past. There is no denying the possibility that such a sudden rise in the number of access might have been the result of systematic efforts. Academic societies should seek to obtain not only the names of countries but also the names of organizations from which their journals have been accessed.

I attended the 1st SPARC Japan Seminar 2011 “Current Situation and Strategy of Open Access from Viewpoints of Journal Publishing” held on Friday, October 28, in Tokyo. I am asked to comment on the seminar from the viewpoint of a researcher. However, even though I am a researcher, my background is a librarian and the field of my research is the distribution and retention of academic information including Open Access. Thus, my viewpoint is somewhat different from those of researchers specialized in other academic fields.

The first lecturer, Professor Takigawa from the Physical Society of Japan introduced the latest trend in high-energy physics, the area closest to the realization of Open Access. What I found particularly notable was Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics or SCOAP3, which is an enormous initiative, financed by its members from all across the world, to realize the transition of all major commercial journals in the field of high-energy physics to Open Access all at once. This is not the first time SCOAP3 has been introduced to Japan. But the presentation this time with the use of an illustrative drawing of a bidding process was easy to understand and helped me deepen my understanding.

As noted by Professor Takigawa himself, I find this initiative an “experiment involving significant risk.” Will the bidding system work properly? What will happen on publishers’ price strategy when they shift to Open Access for only those journals in the field of high-energy physics? And most importantly, will SCOAP3 be able to continue to secure necessary budget in the future? In his lecture, Professor Takigawa said that most researchers in this field read research papers on arXiv and the significance of scholarly journals is only for peer review validation. Then, will it be possible under the current economic situation to continue to pay enormous amount of money only for that purpose? Of course, the same can be said for the existing subscription model. Even though the necessity of peer review validation remains unchanged, it will be inevitably questioned whether the benefit is worth the cost.

That was a bit of deviation from the point, but I personally hope that SCOAP3 will succeed, because if it does, there is a good chance that OA will become a common practice in the field of physics in general and further spread to other areas in the same manner.

Professor Takigawa introduced Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP), a new Open Access journal published from the Physical Society of Japan, and I would like to place great expectations on this journal. Its predecessor, Progress of Theoretical Physics (PTP), was a renowned journal and often cited in newspaper articles. Making such a distinguished journal available through Open Access has an extremely significant meaning for Japan.

Professor Takigawa lastly mentioned about the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Kakenhi) program—more specifically Grants-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Research Results under the program—as a possible source of financial support for OA journals. Indeed, grants-in-aid under the government’s Kakenhi program would be the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind as a financial source for supporting Open Access and it is hoped that the program will be further enhanced. At the same time, I believe that Open Access should be made mandatory for all papers written which are the results of research projects funded by grants-in-aid under the Kakenhi program.

The lecture by the second lecturer, Professor Saitou of the National Institute of Genetics was quite thought-provoking about the cost of peer review. According to his idea, if researchers create a new Open Access journal by themselves, there will be no need to charge expensive publication fees and reviewers will be properly compensated for their work. However, if such is really the case, it would mean that researchers have been just like the emperor in Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” paying massive amounts of money for getting nothing.

Discussion (From left to right: Jun Adachi, Professor and Director of Cyber Science Infrastructure Development Department, NII; Masashi Takigawa, Professor, Division of New Materials Science, The Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo; Naruya Saitou, Professor, Division of Population Genetics, National Institute of Genetics; and Tsutomu Tomotsune, Lecturer, International Center for Japanese Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

It is probably difficult for researchers to take care of all tasks involved in scholarly journals even in the case of online-only Open Access journals. They need some support staff with certain special knowledge and expertise. However, it is highly possible that the existing system, in which the distribution of academic information is supported by a large number of people, i.e., those at academic societies, publishing companies, bookstores, as well as libraries and research support sections within universities, will be found inefficient and urged to restructure. This is why those concerned need to prepare themselves.

Lastly, Mr. Tomotsune, lecturer at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, made a very important point. Though not directly related to Open Access, he said, the fact that Japan is slow to digitalize research materials has had a significant impact on overseas researchers on Japan. Because Open Access is predicated on the presence of e-journals and the Internet, the slow pace of digitalization directly leads to a delay in the transition to Open Access. There will be no returning to the world of paper-based distribution of scholarly information. Efforts must be made to promote digitalization efficiently and effectively in all specialized areas concerned.

On October 28, 2011, I attended the 1st SPARC Japan Seminar. Presentations by three lecturers were full of unknown words for me, someone who started working at a library less than one year ago. To be honest, following what was being told was about the best that I could do. At the same time, however, they provided me a precious opportunity to learn that Open Access is an activity that has international significance. Having a chance to hear about specific actions taken by those playing key roles and taking a glimpse into their enthusiasm, I took a strong interest in Open Access which seems to be an incredibly enormous and interesting project.

In what follows, I would like to discuss what I thought after listening to the three lectures and my own ideas as to what is required of libraries in order to realize transition to Open Access in the future.

The three lecturers take different approaches but they have equally strong enthusiasm for the realization of Open Access. In particular, I was impressed with Professor Saitou’s idea that Open Access can be realized by researchers forming a small community to publish e-journals, instead of joining a large-scale academic society. In the firm belief that Open Access is the first step toward the freedom of research, Professor Saitou has been engaged in an initiative since last year to launch a new Open Access journal. The initiative aims to revive a now-defunct journal that used to be issued by Shinkagaku Kenkyu-kai, which literally translate to “Evolution Science Society,” as an Open Access journal entitled Shinka. Specifically, it is planned that no publication fees will be charged in the initial stage and staff members will work on a voluntary basis. At the moment, there are seven editors including Professor Saitou himself. If more researchers follow suit and publish their own Open Access journals, those upon which they can publish their articles at low costs, research activities will become less affected by fund availability and sectionalism. And more researchers will be given a chance to contribute their articles and this may lead to the emergence of unique journals. These changes are filled with excitement and anticipation of something interesting to happen. In this regard, SCOAP3 introduced by Professor Takigawa is an enormous experiment aimed at realizing the transition of the entire field of high-energy physics to Open Access, while e-Japonology introduced by Mr. Tomotsune is a significant attempt to promote the currently delayed digitalization of research resources in the field of Japanology and link Japanese language learners in Japan and overseas by creating contents for Japanologists overseas and establishing necessary information infrastructure. Both initiatives are exciting and expected to bring huge changes to the ongoing movement toward Open Access. Of course, there will be many challenges such as how to secure operating funds and how to ensure sustainability. However, what is most important is the fact that there are projects aimed at realization of Open Access, there are many people who are promoting these projects, and they are trying to make changes happen. And I would like to think myself whether and how I, as a member of a library, can be part of such movements.

Presently, I am working at a workplace called “library.” However, I should not limit the scope of my work by being bound by what this word, “library,” might indicate. Indeed, I think that libraries, too, should take on new ideas and new challenges filled with exciting anticipation. For instance, in realizing Open Access, it is surely necessary to register research papers on the repository. However, in parallel with such steady efforts, libraries may as well consider offering support and having students involved in Open Access initiatives as part of their extracurricular activities. Needless to say, the ultimate goal of such activities should be the launch of an Open Access journal. If similar projects are undertaken in other university libraries, it may be possible to organize a nationwide Open Access journal contest for university students. For instance, as a possible form of inter-university collaboration (though collaboration does not need to be between universities), universities promoting Open Access can put out orange flags at their gates during the Open Access Week, in a show of their support to Open Access whose theme color is orange, or have their libraries offer free drinks to visitors wearing orange clothes. Though this is a very wild idea, it would be interesting to experimentally make all journals around the world available through Open Access during the Open Access Week. Putting any of the above ideas into practice will require enormous energy. My ideas might be turned down flatly and people might tell me that I am too optimistic promoting them simply for being exciting. However, excitement—i.e., feeling exited and making others feel excited—is what drives people to make changes. Therefore, what is required of libraries going forward is to work on Open Access initiatives in a forward-looking manner by always trying to provide exciting anticipation.

Conceptual Diagram of Services

In a bid to promote the development of institutional repositories to disseminate the results of education and research at universities and other institutions and to facilitate the transition to Open Access, the National Institute of Informatics (NII) will launch JAIRO Cloud services in fiscal 2012 as a common system environment for institutional repositories.

JAIRO Cloud assumes institutions—universities, junior colleges, technical colleges, inter-university research institutes, etc.—planning to develop institutional repositories as its primary customers and will be made available free of charge for the time being.

For details, please contact: JAIRO Cloud
URL: http://www.nii.ac.jp/irp/repo/
Staff in charge of institutional repositories, Scholarly and Academic Information Division, Cyber Science Infrastructure Development Department, National Institute of Informatics
Phone: 03-4212-2350 　E-mail: co_ir@nii.ac.jp

For the latest news of events, see the SPARC Japan website: （http://www.nii.ac.jp/sparc/en/event/）