Leabharlann UCD

An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile

Átha Cliath,

Belfield, Baile Átha Cliath 4,

Eire

UCD Library

University College Dublin,

Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

The right to Open Access - obtaining copyright for institutional repositories in Ireland and abroad

Joseph Greene (Not a solicitor!)

5 March 2009

Outline

• The service– OA basics and legality– Summary IPR activity by numbers– Number of items annually– IPR activities, general & local– Irish publishers

• Outputs– Summary number of items per year– Publisher response rates, UCD– Success rate, UCD

• Risk

• Improving the service

Sources

• Jones, Mark. Intellectual property rights survey, University of East Anglia, October, Sept. 2008.– 73 respondents from UK, Ireland, Australia, South

Africa, USA, Norway, et al.

• Telephone interviews with 4 Irish IRs (conducted February 2009)

• UCD IR statistics, 2008 to present

The changing service relationship-- procuring copyright for deposit in Open Access (institutional) repositories

• Collecting and organising scholarly materials for deposit in IRs, providing free, open access to publicly funded research– Peer-reviewed articles– Conference proceedings– Books and book chapters– Reports (technical and government agencies)– Working papers

How is this legal?

• Deposit licenses obtained from authors

• The Post-print (accepted version, author’s final version, final version after peer-review, etc.)

• Asking for permission

London School of Economics, Versions Toolkit. February 2008.http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/versions/

SHERPA RoMEO

http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php

Publishers: 63%

Journals: 95%

Summary IPR activity by numbers

• 96% of institutions actively manage IPR (4% do nothing!), the majority of which (86%) is done by the library rather than allowing individual academics or schools/faculties.

• 94% of these activities are carried out by 2 or fewer staff (46% of institutions with less than 1 staff member!)

• When publishers fail to respond to copyright request, 71% do not proceed with deposit, but 39% do!

Intellectual property rights survey, University of East Anglia

Number of items annually

11%

8%

17%

29%

17%

20%

0 - 50 51 - 100 101 - 200 201 - 500 501 - 1,000 Over 1,000

Number of items per year

Intellectual property rights survey, University of East Anglia

IPR activities

• Check publisher requirements (SHERPA/RoMEO database and publisher websites)

• Contact publisher for permission and/or clarification

• Contact author for alternative version of deposit object

• Add publisher statements to metadata

• Enforce embargoes where necessary

• Provide links to publisher's sites where necessary

• Add acknowledgement of publisher and source where necessary

Intellectual property rights survey, University of East Anglia

Local opinions on IPR practice

SHERPA/RoMEO

Pros:

• Sherpa/Romeo is mostly comprehensive, tend not to contact publishers directly.

• When publisher policy is not amenable, have had good results asking authors to contact publishers as publishers are more willing to grant copyright to authors.

• Pre- and post-prints widely available, Romeo is very helpful. Checking publishers websites is too time-consuming

• Links to publishers' policy on websites is very helpful

Local opinions on IPR practice

SHERPA/RoMEO

Cons:

• Sherpa/Romeo is the only tool available, and it is partial. An improvement would be a forum to discuss particular IPR issues

• Sherpa/Romeo is mainly geared towards articles; few conferences, books/chapters, reports, government bodies

• Not always enough information in Romeo, 'safe' or ambiguous information

• Irish publishers are not in Sherpa Romeo -- though Romeo may allow additions to be made from outside institutions in future

Other IPR activities in Ireland

• Publisher's websites are checked extensively

• Contact publishers when required

• Possibility of negotiating an institutional agreement with publishers including royalties

A word on Irish publishers

• Mostly positive experiences, successes with book chapters

• No policies available, but no refusals when asked for permission

• Some success obtaining blanket institutional permission

Outputs, results

UCD's success rate for copyright request, publisher versions

Explicit No, 15%

Granted, 85%

From 351 responses to direct requests. However…

Response rates

24%

16%14%

11% 10%

25%

2 days 1 week 2 weeks 1 month Morethan 1month

Never

Publisher response rates for copyright requests, UCD

100 unique publishers contacted

Risk

'An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or a negative effect on at least one project objective...'1

1 A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3rd edition. 2004 Project Management Institute, Newton Square, PA.

Image: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/dcgpubs/RiskManagement/giffs/RiskMgmtModel.gif

Risk: Local opinion

• Opportunity: journal publication is too slow and is being bypassed, particularly in engineering; though publication is still important and prestigious

• Often there is no precedent, nothing clear to indicate proper action. Written law is behind the times

• A matter of limitation of risk -- mostly we don't know what might happen as very little has yet happened

• Risk of litigation rather than risk of breaking a law

Risk management: Local opinion

• Most risk management effort put into journal articles, large (publisher sponsored) conferences

• More risk taken for small conferences

• Checking Romeo, publisher website and sending email to publisher where necessary constitutes due diligence

• Work in good faith and maintain an instant take-down policy

Risk averse

Risk neutral

Risk tolerant

High risk tolerance

No Open Access support

Due diligence-- Checking RoMEO and/or publisher website and sending copyright request to publisher where necessary; not posting until given permission

Due diligence; archiving after set period of non-response (39% surveyed)

Open Access risk tolerance

‘…Self-archive all papers immediately, and consider whether or not to remove them only if/when there should ever be a request from the publisher’1

or

Simply not checking copyright (4% surveyed)2

2 Intellectual property rights survey, University of East Anglia

1 Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's Paralysishttp://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12094/1/harnad-jacobsbook.htm

Open Access risk actions, summary of local opinions

• Risk avoidance– Do not post until permission is positively granted

(SHERPA/RoMEO or direct contact with publisher)

• Risk mitigation– Work in good faith (academic organisation, not-for-profit,

due diligence)– Have an instant take-down policy

• Risk transferral– Asking authors to obtain permission, e.g. when post-print

is not available (obtain record of permission)

Things that could improve OA IPR services – local opinion

• HEA, IRCSET, SFI mandates removing many barriers (require at least pre-prints be deposited)

• Educate authors on their rights; authors not handing over copyright (though this is sometimes required by publisher)

• Reduce the ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ with authors; clear policies from publishers are the answer

• SHERPA RoMEO service for Ireland

• Items other than articles may be of more interest such as datasets and case studies

• 'Post-print' is hard to define and difficult to obtain from authors – improve upon this

• Dispel OA misinformation

• A dedicated OA advocacy person

• Is a culture of openness better than (current funder) mandates?