Science should be open, right?A survey conducted by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) on the use of academic literature and

open science

Aleš PogačnikZRC SAZU, general manager and editor in chief of Založba ZRC

Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti / Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU)

Established in 1981 by Slovenian Academy of Science(SAZU); 1992 independent

18 institutes3 research stationsAdministration + Založba ZRCPostgraduate school ZRC SAZU

Bookshop Azil + Atrij ZRC,Up to 12 employees

12 scientific journals, 3 on popular science, up to 29 numbers/year.

More than 50 book-collections, up to 93 p-monographs/year.

Google Books 712 monographs (31. 12. 2018), 18,9 million pages read (from may 2012).

Free access (31. 12. 2018): 9 journals (OJS), 351 monographs (pdf).0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

l. 1994 l. 1995 l. 1996 l. 1997 l. 1998 l. 1999 l. 2000 l. 2001 l. 2002 l. 2003 l. 2004 l. 2005 l. 2006 l. 2007 l. 2008 l. 2009 l. 2010 l. 2011 l. 2012 l. 2013 l. 2014 l. 2015 l. 2016 l. 2017 l. 2018

Number of titles published (1993-2018)

journals p-monographs e-monographs audio-video

As to academic publishing in Slovenia ….

• In Slovenia, science funding is somewhat strongly linked to certain bibliometrics applied by Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) as a combination of its own method, data from Scopus and WoS, as well as data from the Slovene national library catalogue;

• Almost half of the scientific texts written by Slovene authors are published by foreign journals/publishers, and, according to ARRS, Slovenia “has, since 2004, been among the top 10 percent of countries with the most frequently cited publications per million inhabitants, which is above the EU average”;

• For a number of years now, the state has allocated twice as much funding for the purchase of foreign content as compared to the subsidies granted to Slovene publications;

• Due to the publishing tradition, funding from subsidies and other sources, Slovene publishers of academic literature do not charge APCs/BPCs;

• In Slovenia, academic publishing is strongly integrated into general trade publishing, to which it is comparable as regards the number of copies published (rarely exceeding 300) as well as pricing; however, publishers of academic literature cannot survive merely by selling their publications, as such are sold almost exclusively within Slovenia;

• Digital content is not a product that can be sold by Slovene general trade publishers, let alone academic publishers;

• Since at least 2010, Slovene academic publishers have striven to ensure free access to as much of Slovene content as possible.

Survey respondents129 completed surveys,out of 263 questionnaires sent to researchers from ZRC SAZU

1. Academic literatureReading: 45.41 hours/month (minimum being 4 hours and the maximum 300 hours)

15

49

68 70

5943

28

113

76

31 28

7 8 5

English Slovene German Slavic French Other Spanish

4 Research Languages

Never Sometimes Frequently

4552 54

81 72 68

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Print Book/Journal Screen

7 Medium

Never Sometimes Frequently

17,05%

62,79%

10,85%

9,30%

8 Availability of secondary literature

No special problems

Have to be resourceful

Takes too much effort

Sometimes unsuccessful

7,75%

13,18%

13,18%

27,13%

51,16%

60,47%

76,74%

84,50%

24,81%

54,26%

37,98%

6,20%

20,93%

5,43%

7,75%

1,55%

Free-access sites

ZRC SAZU network (subscriptions)

Social networks

Author of the article or a collegue

Pirate portals

Slovene libraries network

Network of a foreign institution

Payable sites

9 Sources

Never Sometimes Frequently

39

35

33

103

62

82

82

89

91

94

23

18

2

5

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Journals/Books

Internet

Bibliography

Notified by a colleague

Other

Traditional media

Social media

6 Sources of information about new literature

Never Sometimes Frequently

• the great majority of respondents never pay for access to a paper;

• more than half of the respondents in every age group frequently use the ZRC SAZU network, through which they can access the content ZRC SAZU subscribes to;

• slightly more than half of the respondents never search for academic papers on pirate portals; 50% of the respondents in the youngest age group, i.e. “30 and below”, use pirate portals frequently;

Although ZRC SAZU’s subscription packages of ZRC SAZU represent an important source of academic literature, the answers to Question 10 reveal that most respondents possess insufficient knowledge about the existence of such collections in the ZRC SAZU network. The groups that stand out in this respect are the two youngest age groups (“30 and below” with 64.29%, and “31–39 years old” with 51.52%) and the oldest age group, i.e. “above 60”, with 44.44%.

41

36

51

1

10 The ZRC SAZU network and subscription package

Regular usage

Occasionally

Do not have enoughknowledge about them

Unnecessary cost

Science Direct47%

SpringerLink31%

SAGE journals12%

JSTOR9%

EbscoHOST1%

Downloads from the ZRC SAZU subscriptionpackage (2017)

The most useful subscription packages of ZRC SAZU:• JSTOR (3,36)• SpringerLink (3,03; the only package with e-books)• ScienceDirect (3,02)• Sage (2,6)• EbscoHOST (2,18)

2. Open science

93

11

214

8

1

15 Support for open science

Yes (personal reasons)

Yes (due to the agenda of EUand Slovene policymakers)

Yes (other reasons)

No (due to the unstablefinancing of Slovene science)

No (cannot say why)

No (other reasons)

19

3476

19 Publishing outside Slovenia for APCs/BPCs

It is sometimes feasible.

Could be possible, but Icannot afford it.

I am against it in principle.

Adaptation

Commercial use

Translation

Reuse

Data mining

Copying and sharing

Free access (no charge for anyone)

12,40%

34,11%

39,53%

41,86%

82,17%

18 What would you permit the publisher of your paper to do?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Free accessible publications

Publicly funded science

Open access publishing and publicly accessible research…

Anything published with a CC licence

Open access publications of public employees

Anything published financed by public funds

Anything published where the contract says so

Anything published on OpenAIRE

16 What is open science?

3. Publishing, peer-reviewing, and editingRespondents are of the opinion that the average length of the reviewing procedure for the publication of an article in a scientific journal should not exceed 2.6 months (responses ranged from a maximum of 6 months to a minimum of 1 month). With regard to reviewing monographs, the average length should be 4.36 months (with a maximum of 12 months and a minimum of 1 month).

19,38%

34,88%

25,58%

35,66%

14,73%

33,33%

37,98%

32,56%

26,36%

21,71%

15,50%

9,30%

12,40%

14,73%

26,36%

31,01%

11,63%

66,67%

... should be paid.

... should be bibliometrically valued.

... should be taken into account for promotion.

... should be blind.

... is better outside Slovenia.

... is unnecessary.

20 Peer-reviewing ...

Strongly agree Agree | Disagree Strongly disagree

292

539

313234

211

768

309

173

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

up to 30 years 31–39 years 40–49 years 50–59 years over 60 years

Number of published and peer-reviewed articles in the last 5 years by age group

Published articles Peer-reviewed articles

• papers published: a total of 1,429, with the average per respondent being 11.08 (the maximum was 70) = an average of 2.2 papers per respondent annually; respondents in the “40–49” age group published the highest average number of papers (14.18);

• peer-reviews of academic papers published in journals and proceedings: a total of 1,483, with the average per respondent being 11.5 (the maximum was 150) = an average of 2.3 papers per respondent annually; respondents in the “40–49” age group reviewed the highest average number of papers (20.21);

• monographs published: a total of 195, with the average per respondent being 1.51 (the maximum was 10) = approximately one monograph per respondent every three years; respondents in the oldest age group, i.e. “above 60”, published the highest average number of monographs (2.17);

• monograph peer-reviews: a total of 130, with the average per respondent being 1.01 (the maximum was 10) = approximately one per respondent every five years; respondents in the oldest age group, i.e. “above 60”, reviewed the highest average number of monographs (1.78);

• editing a journal or monograph: the average per respondent was 3.32 (the maximum was 30) = approximately 1.1 per respondent every three years; respondents in the “50–59” age group edited the highest average number of journals or monographs (5.08).

4464

46 39

8

48

4232

52

169

132

71

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

up to 30 years 31–39 years 40–49 years 50–59 years over 60 years

Number of published, peer-reviewed and edited monographs in the last 5 years by age group

Published monographs Peer-reviewed monographs Edited monographs

Conclusion

INCONSISTENCIES OR STATE of the AFFAIR?

easy accessibility to academic literature | resourcefulness

subscription packages | insufficient knowledge

yes to open science for personal reasons | no to licences like CC-BY

Slovene language | twice as much invested in foreign literature

OMITED in this PRESENTATION

• use of digital tools (13),

• acceptable embargo period (17),

• publications of the Založba ZRC publishing house (23)ales.pogacnik@zrc-sazu.si