The PUBMET conference held in Zadar, Croatia, celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Originating as a small, initially local conference, it has grown into an internationally significant forum for open publishing discussions, attracting influential speakers in the field every year.
Changing Research Publications from Commodities to Public Goods
The highlight of this year’s conference was the first keynote address by Kathleen Shearer, CEO of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). She offered a unique perspective on the development of the international repository community. Shearer’s presentation, titled “Reorienting scholarly communications from private commodity to public good,” envisioned a world where scientific outputs are treated not as market-priced consumer goods but as public goods.
Shearer’s vision aligns with FUN’s own openness strategy. The new paradigm she advocates for relies on FUN’s supported dual model, where open publishing is grounded in repositories and diamond open access (OA). Thus, the overall framework of scientific publishing should lead to a model where open publication series and platforms, not charging author fees, serve as the primary basis for scholarly publications. Any publications released on other platforms should be self-archived and immediately made accessible in suitable repositories.
Questionable Product in the Scientific Publishing Market: Transformative Agreements
The markets and demands for openness in scientific publishing, as mentioned by Shearer, have directed the field toward transformative agreements. In these agreements, publication fees are included in the contract, with the organization entering into the agreement having already paid them in advance, relieving individual researchers of these financial concerns.
It is evident that a significant portion of the world’s countries and researchers will be excluded from such agreements due to financial constraints. In Finland alone, over 20 million euros are spent annually on transformative agreements. Although these agreements have increased the number of open publications in certain publishers’ journals, their costs have escalated to unsustainable levels. Furthermore, they have exacerbated inequality among researchers from different countries and organizations, contrary to intended purpose of open access publishing.
Three Steps towards a Better World (of Scholarly Publishing)
The model proposed by Shearer and supported by FUN is not straightforward. However, alternative open publishing models are not simple either. Transforming scientific publications into public goods requires at least three steps and changes. Key among them is the responsible development of current peer-review assessment and the actualization of both the DORA declaration and the CoARA agreement. This necessitates a shared understanding within the scientific community, shifting the focus from publication channels to the publications themselves.
Secondly, the scientific community must redirect the current funding model that disproportionately benefits large publishers to support platforms operating on a diamond basis. This, too, requires building a common understanding and breaking away from accustomed operational models.
The third essential aspect is the development of self-archiving. This not only demands technical enhancements in repository solutions but, more crucially, the collective development of copyright legislation to ensure authors always have the right to immediately open their scientific publications in repositories. It is simply a matter of willingness to change, as is the case across the entire field of open science development. Everything is possible; it’s just a question of how strongly we desire change.
Repositories in the Publishing Ecosystem
In her opening speech at the conference, Shearer emphasized the significance of repositories in the open publishing ecosystem, as they create and maintain bibliodiversity. Institutional repositories and self-archiving provide a viable alternative to the legitimate concern raised by Shearer regarding the increasing prevalence of paid open publishing and the resulting inequality.
Natalia Manola, CEO of OpenAIRE AMKE, also addressed the scientific publishing ecosystem in her speech. She highlighted the importance of understanding how various actors, systems, and infrastructures are interconnected in open science. Manola emphasized the need to see beyond research publications and comprehend the research lifecycle to effect change. She particularly stressed the FAIR principles, highlighting the ideal of interoperability.
The development of repositories should, in our opinion, prioritize their interoperability with other factors shaping the open science ecosystem. Repositories incorporate several crucial elements for promoting open science, such as publishing and archiving various research outputs, responding to the openness requirements of research funders, providing high-quality and openly licensed metadata, and increasing the visibility of research. In the future, repositories should integrate even more seamlessly into the open science ecosystem and science communication. They could serve as windows and platforms showcasing research conducted at universities and should seamlessly interact with other systems, such as other publication and data repositories, research information systems, and publisher systems.
Does Artificial Intelligence Exists?
The burning topic of the day, artificial intelligence (AI), was also discussed multiple times at the PUBMET conference. Ivana Kunda, a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Rijeka, reminded attendees that using AI-generated information in science can be problematic. This is because it can eliminate essential information about the process of scientific inquiry, making it crucial to know whose thoughts and writings have been used as sources. The use of AI can obscure this information, as the data it processes may come from various sources, some of which may be unscientific. Responsible researchers may hesitate to add AI-generated conclusions and summaries from questionable sources to their research outputs.
In the final presentation of the conference, Predrag Pale, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Zagreb, broadened the discussion beyond scientific publishing, providing a comprehensive perspective on our approach to new technologies such as AI.
Pale not only encouraged thinking outside the box but considered breaking the box, or the rigid models, a prerequisite for coping with modern technology. He even questioned the existence of AI as we commonly understand it, pointing out that what we currently perceive as AI is merely data-processing automatons that operate according to human-made definitions and algorithms. It is not independently thinking intelligence.
Pale did not see significant threats in artificial intelligence. Instead, he perceived risks primarily in how we, as humans, approach it and whether we accept the new technology as part of the future. While AI will inevitably change job roles and might replace some tasks entirely, this has always been the case in technological development. Technology will inevitably alter established patterns and models, and adapting to this change is easier the better we can think beyond our established frameworks.
Breaking Free from the Rigid Traditions of Scholarly Publishing
We consider scholarly publishing a prime example of a complex system entrenched in traditional patterns and models that we hope to see breaking free from its established norms. Traditional publication formats and channels persist year after year, but are the same journals and publishers genuinely superior for reporting research outputs, science communication, and overall scientific endeavors?
Does the scientific community operate within the confines of its conservative box, maintaining these practices solely out of habit and tradition? Are we willing to pay almost anything for them, even though a small portion of the funds used could employ numerous researchers and additional experts to facilitate their work?
In the first presentation at the PUBMET conference Shearer expressed a desire for a new attitude toward scientific publications as a common good – a capital from which everyone could benefit more. In the concluding words of the conference Pale offered understanding and acceptance of technology as one remedy for breaking free from traditional thought patterns.
When it comes to changing the scholarly publishing culture, the collective human intelligence of the scientific community seems to adapt slowly. Could AI accelerate this process? Could AI help bypass external and secondary factors related to publishing and extract the essential aspects from research publications, such as research quality and impact?
Pekka Olsbo
Director
Open Science Centre
University of Jyväskylä (until September 30th, 2023)
Arto Ikonen
Service Manager
Open Science Centre
University of Jyväskylä
Chat GPT has been used for this translation.
