Why go Open Access…

2 August 2015

Excerpts from a discussion with Martin Mueller, E-Research Coordinator and Database and Knowledge Manager

Should the rest of the world have unlimited, free, and unrestricted access to findings from our research through the Internet? What would be the implications for IITA and its science? The debate has lingered on for a very long time.

In a recent interview, Martin Mueller makes a case for Open Access (OA) by highlighting the benefits, the implications for future and ongoing research by the Institute, and the changes scientists must look forward to starting in September 2015.

In explaining OA, Martin said that it is a global trend, a movement that is already 20 years old but had become more pressing because of the numerous opportunities provided by the Internet in developing repositories (archives) that can harvest data from very distributed or dispersed sources and make data much more discoverable.

“If you ‘open’ data then you also open them for completely different user groups and research purposes; farmers, engineer, traders, and development agencies may have a deep interest in our data and publications. In all, they contribute piece by piece to change and that is what we want; we want impact. The donors do not fund research for the sake of doing research; they fund research to get impact. IITA is a research-for-development institution so our work is for a purpose. OA is able to unlock potentials by spreading information itself and by inspiring people in different knowledge contexts…going OA is also a signal to donor agencies that IITA st ands by its responsibility.”

“Let us imagine a situation 20 years from now,” he continued. “Let’s imagine that IITA has not gone for OA. All other agricultural research institutes would be having a strong sharing approach, not only by sharing data with one another but also by being supplied with data by all others. This might not be the case for IITA. I doubt that other research institutes would share their data with IITA if they did not receive the same from IITA.”

Martin further highlighted that most of the challenges restricting scientists from going OA can be effectively addressed by accompanying data with proper, informative metadata (additional accompanying data, e.g., source, date, venue, file type, etc.) and with a proper peer review.

Open Access was defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) as follows: “By ‘open access’ to literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”

“The world is changing rapidly and IITA will be missing the train if it does not go OA as well. So change is the price we have to pay to keep pace. There are challenges that we need to consider. For example, we need to react if a researcher has doubts that the ‘right’, knowledgeable people get the data or if the quality of further processing open data is adequate. This can be solved by accompanying open data with proper metadata. This ensures that the scientist is cited correctly. When we open our data, we do that bound by the restriction that users all over the world must cite us. If we don’t, then people will build their own interpretation and use the open data for an inadequate, ‘rough and dirty’ analysis, resulting in wrong recommendations and so to an anti-productive impact… What we get back when we give our data is visibility and visibility is the future currency in research.”

According to Martin, IITA is in the process of enlisting with the CG Space repository of OA. Several activities are ongoing, such as designing the workflows and communicating what must be done: setting up, data migration, adding metadata, training staff, etc. Once these activities are completed, hopefully in September, IITA will launch this platform together with a new version of CG Space.

For more information:

Andrea Gros, Head of Communication, IITA HQ, a.gros@cgiar.org

About IITA www.iita.org
IITA is one of the world’s leading research partners in finding solutions for hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. Its award-winning research-for-development (R4D) approach addresses the development needs of tropical countries. IITA works with partners to enhance crop quality and productivity, reduce producer and consumer risks, and generate wealth from agriculture. IITA is a non-profit organization founded in 1967 in Nigeria and governed by a Board of Trustees. IITA works on the following crops: cowpea, soybean, banana/plantain, yam, cassava, and maize. It is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future.