Perceptions of Bioinformatics Researchers regardingCopyright Issues under the Open Access Environment

Duk-Hyun ChangPusan National University, Busan, South Korea dchang@pusan.ac.kr

Ryu-Ha RohKorea Education & Research Information Service, Seoul, South Korea

Open access is considered an alternative model for the promotion of scholarlycommunication, and much research has been done for the introduction andimplication of it. Open access, however, is a relatively a new concept and requiresauthors’ voluntary participation such as transfer of copyrights and providing thepublic with his/her research outcomes. In terms that authors are the majorstakeholders for the open access initiative, it is very important to investigate theresearchers’ perceptions on copyright issues in terms of the open accessenvironment. The purpose of this study is to investigate researchers’ perceptionson copyright issues which may be one of the primary issues for the open accessinitiatives. Through a literature review and a survey, this research portrays manyissues surrounding copyright and open access. They may vary depending on thetypes of research outcomes such as preprints, research reports and postprints. Italso surveys many conditions, especially in terms of copyright issues, thatresearchers demand when s/he decides to put their research outcomes to use bythe public.

Background

The scholarly communication structure is in transition. Journal prices, mainly in the fieldsof science, medicine and technology (STM), have been ever increasing over years. As aresult, as library budget is shrinking, the high subscription costs make it difficult forlibraries to enable information seekers to use scholarly information as needed. It broughtabout dysfunction that hinders the production and the promotion of research.

As a possible solution to this problem, open access has been suggested as a new modelfor the promotion of scholarly communication, and much research has been done for theintroduction and implication of it. Open access, however, is a relatively a new concept andrequires authors’ voluntary participation such as transfer of copyrights and making their

research outcomes freely on the web. In terms that authors are the major stakeholders foropen access initiative, it is very important to investigate the researchers’ perceptions oncopyright issues, and on permissions and restrictions they would want to impose whenthey either use or have others use open access materials. Situated on this, the study iscarried out to determine the current state of play with respect to author’s perception onsuch open access issues as self-archiving, copyright, and use of information.

Problem

This study strives to scrutinize the copyright issues under the open access environment.Specifically, the study sheds light on such issues as follow;

Researchers’ awareness on the open access initiative, and its attributes.1.Researchers’ willingness to participate in the open access activities, and the degreeof the participation

2.

Researchers’ perception about the copyright issues in the open accessenvironment, including the conditions and the degree of making of their work openaccess.

3.

Objectives

The purpose of this study is to investigate researchers’ perceptions on copyright issuesand usage issues which may be one of the primary issues for the open access initiatives.Through an exhaustive literature review and a survey, this research portrays many issuessurrounding copyright and open access. They may vary depending on the types of resultssuch as pre-reports, research reports and post-reports. It also surveys many conditions,especially in terms of copyright issues, that researchers demand when s/he decides toput their research outcomes to use by the public.

Research Methods

A descriptive survey method is employed to investigate researchers’ awareness andrecognitions about copyright and the open access issues.

Respondents

104 randomly selected researchers among almost 200 members of the KoreanSociety for Bioinformatics (KSBI) are selected for the questionnaires. The totalresponded population is composed of three subpopulations including professors,research staff, and graduate students.

Distribution of Respondents

Procedures

Currently there are more than 200 active members in KSBI. The survey was carriedout during the 2005 BIOINFO (World Bioinformatics Conference) which was held inSeptember 2005 at the BEXCO, Busan, South Korea. About 200 questionnaires weredistributed and a total of 104 of them were collected, 102 were analyzed.

ResultsCopyright of Research outputs

Respondents were first asked to indicate whom they think the copyright of researchoutputs belongs to. Regarding preprints, the majority of researchers consider thecopyright of the research outputs belongs to him/herself. As far as research reportconcerns, however, more than thirty per cent respondents think that the fundingagencies reserve the copyright. Employer institutions were thought to have copyrightof postprints as well. In either case, the largest group of respondents thinks that theauthors reserve the copyright. The result for this question is shown below.

Figure 1 Copyright of preprints

Figure 2 Copyright of research reports

Figure 3 Copyright of postprints

Open Access Concerns

Respondents were asked what their main concerns were about making theirresearch outcomes freely on the web. Four options were given. From the resultshown below, it can be seen that most researchers presumably have concerns thatmaking their work freely on the web would render some problems. The largest groupof respondents was concerned about plagiarism regarding making their work openaccess.

Figure4. Open access concerns

However, it can also be seen that majority of respondents were willing to participate the Open Access Initiative of any kind if only a certain condition is fulfilled. The results are illustrated in Figure 5 below

Figure 5. The conditions imposed by authors to participate open access

Permission

Respondents were asked “what would you consider to be acceptable use of anyarticles you made freely available on the web?” and were given the list of eightpermissions. They were requested to indicate for each permission whether theywould be satisfied for others to perform that activity with their work “freely,” “withlimits,” or “not at all.” The results are given in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Activities researchers would allow with their own research outcomes

Response rates for each permission varied. The response rates may themselvesindicate the importance or relevance of a particular activity to researchers. Thepermission on which most respondents agreed was “Excerpt.” 64% of respondentsfelt this should be allowed freely. “Display,” “Copy,” and “Print” were the next mostcommonly agreed upon terms. The majority of respondents (81%) were not happywith the idea of others selling their works without permission. Similarly, “Modification”was not a popular activity among respondents. Seventy-two per cent felt that thisshould not be allowed.

Usage of open access research

Respondents were asked how that expected to use other peoples’ freely availableresearch papers. They were given the same matrix of activities and options as in aprevious question regarding how they would want to protect their own works. Figure 7shows that most respondents expected to be able print and display either freely orunder limits or conditions, while more than ninety per cent respondents recognizedthat there were likely to be restrictions on sale and modification of others’ work. Theresults are shown below.

Figure 7. How respondents expect to use others’ research papers

Discussion

The discussion in this study concentrate on the issues around author’s willingness toself-archive his/her own work that forms the foci of resistance to the practice and whichneed to be overcome by proponents of open access if the whole research literature is tobe made free. Authors have cited the issues of copyright, especially with concerns aboutplagiarism, as a major stumbling block to open access. They want to enjoy the benefits ofopen access such as the enhanced citations, but they are at the same time anxious of thepossible abuse of their work once they go open access. A comparison of data on howresearchers expected to use others’ works with the data from a question as to howresearchers (authors) expected others’ to use their works shows a similarity, althoughsome research has claimed that researchers as authors tended to be more liberal aboutthe permission they would allow others to perform with their works than researchers asusers did. Except for this, the finding reported here with respect to open access held nosurprises because they had matched those that arose in previous studies.

The principle of free access is the strongest imperative for publishing in an open accessjournal and institutional repositories. The result of the study will provide useful informationfor researchers, funding agencies, academic societies, and institutional repositories. It willbe useful implication toward building an open access based institutional repository,considering the fact that the focus of the repository is to lower the barrier against acopyright and to facilitate access to information seekers and information providers.

References

SwanSwan, Alma & Brown, Sheridan (2005) Open Access self-archiving: An author study Key Perspectives Limited

Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., Yves, G., Charles, O.,Stamerjohanns, H. & Hilf, E. (2004) The green and the gold roads to Open AccessNature Web Focus

Gadd, Elizabeth, Chalres Oppenheim, & Steve Probets (2003) Project Final RoMEO http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanitieshttp://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishinghttp://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm#definition

BioMed Central(BMC) http://www.biomedcentral.com

Budapest Open Access Initiative http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess