This document summarizes the current status of open access to scholarship in Japan. It discusses the growth of institutional repositories and open access journals in Japan, reaching over 1.5 million full texts. Several major developments in open access policy are noted, including mandates from the Ministry of Education and funders like JSPS. While about half of researchers report publishing in open access journals, their understanding and opinions on open access vary, with some concerns about predatory journals. Overall, Japan has made progress in open access through a collaborative "step-by-step" approach, but further policy implementation and cultural changes may still be needed.

1. The Current Status of
Open Access to Scholarship
in Japan
Shinji Mine (Mie University)
mine.shinji@mie-u.ac.jp/@openaccessjapan
2015 European Association of Japanese Resource Specialists Conference:
Breaking barriers ̶ unlocking Japanese resources to the world
This slide is available at http://www.slideshare.net/smine/

2. Today’s Talk
1. Scientific Activities & Open Access
1. Rationales for Open Access to Scholarship(esp. Journals)
2. Current trends: How far we’ve come?
2. Open Access to Scholarship in Japan
1. Current Status of OA Movements
1. Institutional Repositories(IRs)
2. OA Journals
3. Policy Developments
4. Researchers and OA
3. Prospectives

3. Scientific Activities & Scholarly Communication
• Scientific Activities’ aim
•To make original contributions to the body of knowledge
• “Communication is the essence of science” (Garvey 1979)
•Research results need to be obtained and communicated
throughout the process of research
•Gift exchange (Hagstrom 1965): Impact rather than money
• Scholarly Journals: Content as King/Kingmaker
•Registration, Certification, Awareness,Archiving
•Integration in the system of Journals
Garvey,W.D. (1979) Communication:The Essence of Science. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press.
Hargstrom,W, O. (1965).The Scientific Community. NewYork: Basic Books,

4. Body of Knowledge
in the field
Research Plan
Experiments
Observations
Surveys
Publishing
Results
Scientific Community
Source：Kurata, K. (2007) Scholarly Communication and Open Access. Tokyo, Keiso Shobo.

5. Scholarly Communication Goals (Shieber 2014)
• Sustainability
•scholarly communication system should be financially sound
• Openness
•widest possible distribution consistent with sustainability
• Freedom
•scholar choice in how to communicate should be upheld
consistent with sustainability and openness
• Efficiency
•lowest cost consistent with sustainability, openness and freedom
Source: Shieber, S. M. How scholarly communication goals affect the design of open access policies. "Institutional Open Access Policy : toward the development of Japanese models”. 2nd SPARC
Japan Seminar. National Institute of Informatics. 2014/9/26.

6. Dysfunction in Scholarly Communication
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Chemistry
Physics
Engineering
Biology
Astronomy
Food Science
Botany
Geology
Zoology
Technology
Math & Comp Sci
Health Science
General Science
Agriculture
Geography
Source：Library Journal Periodical Price Survey, 1997-2015

7. Open Access
• Open Access means free online access to scholarly
information (esp. peer-reviewed scholarly journals)
• Old tradition + New technology = Open Access
• Open access to scholarship may lead (e.g. Borgman 2015)
•To improve the flow of information
•To minimize restrictions on the use of intellectual resources
•To increase the transparency of research practice
•To demonstrate social return
The Internet
Willingness to publish research results in scholarly journals without payment
Source: Borgman, C(2015). Big Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World. MIT Press

8. Open Access Matrix
Vehicles
Green Gold
Barriers
Gratis
Self-archiving in
repositories
No Price Barriers
OA Journals
No Price Barriers
Libre
Self-archiving in
repositories
No Price Barriers
Some Permission Barriers
OA Journals
No Price Barriers
Some Permission Barriers
How open is it?
How is it delivered?
Based on Suber, P. Open Access. MIT Press, 2012

9. OA Tipping Point
Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry
Biology
Biomedical Research
Built Environment & Design
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Communication & Textual Studies
Earth & Environmental Sciences
Economics & Business
Enabling & Strategic Technologies
Engineering
General Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
General Science & Technology
Historical Studies
Information & Communication Technologies
Mathematics & Statistics
Philosophy & Theology
Physics & Astronomy
Psychology & Cognitive Sciences
Public Health & Health Services
Social Sciences
Visual & Performing Arts
0 25 50 75 100
Green OA Gold OA Other OA
Proportion of OA per field for papers published between 2011 and 2013
Source:Archambault , E. et al (2014). Proportion of Open Access Papers Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals at the European and World Levels—1996–2013.
http://science-metrix.com/files/science-metrix/publications/d_1.8_sm_ec_dg-rtd_proportion_oa_1996-2013_v11p.pdf

10. Implementation of OA Policy
• Sweep for OA among institutions, funding agencies
and governments
Year and Quarter
NumberofPolicies
Policies Adopted by Quarter
Research organisation
Funder
Sub-unit of research organisation
Funder and research organisation
Multiple research organisations
2005-1
2005-2
2005-3
2005-4
2006-1
2006-2
2006-3
2006-4
2007-1
2007-2
2007-3
2007-4
2008-1
2008-2
2008-3
2008-4
2009-1
2009-2
2009-3
2009-4
2010-1
2010-2
2010-3
2010-4
2011-1
2011-2
2011-3
2011-4
2012-1
2012-2
2012-3
2012-4
2013-1
2013-2
2013-3
2013-4
2014-1
2014-2
2014-3
2014-4
2015-1
2015-2
2015-3
0
200
400
600
800
Highcharts.com Source: ROARMAP

11. Open Access to Scholarship
in Japan

12. Institutional Repositories: Numbers
0
175
350
525
700
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
NII IR Program
JAIRO Cloud
Univ. based IRs
Source: National Institute of Informatics
47.9%
Japan
USA
UK
Germany
Spain
France
0 175 350 525 700
Source: National Institute of Informatics, OpenDOAR
Percentage of Japanese University adapted IRs
140MNumber of full text downloads in 2013
Source: MEXT
World No.1 or 2?
Source: MEXT
1.5MNumber of full text in 2015
Source: NII

13. 0
400000
800000
1200000
1600000
Institutional Repositories: Contents
Others
Departmental
Bulletin
Source: National Institute of Informatics
Journal Articles
Thesis
Data/Datasets
Articles
151413121110090807

14. OA Journals
• Major OA Journal Platforms by gov/public institution
• JST J-STAGE & NII ELS(-2015) w/ CiNii Articles
•1.8k(J) +1.4k(N) journals = 2.7M + 4.2M fulltext
•J-STAGE Lite will take over NII-ELS
• Digitization of Japanese Scholarly Journals (Kurata & Ueda, 2013）
• Rate of
•Digitization：49.3%
•OA：20.1%
• Reached the limits to growth?
Source: Kurata, K & Ueda, S. Digitization of Japanese Scholarly Journals and its Hindrance: Survey of scholarly journals and Kiyo. Proceedings of Spring Research Meetings of the Japanese Society of
Library and Information Science. 2013.

15. Policy Developments
• Clear Endorsement of OA/Open Science
MEXT
JSPS
CSTI
Cabinet
Office
JST University
Promotion of Open Access/Open Science
Government
Funder
Instititution

16. Government OA policy
• MEXT*(2013.4-) *Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
•Doctoral Dissertation OA mandate policy (within one year)
•Federated search via CiNii Dissertations (cinii.ac.jp/d/)
• Cabinet Office (2015-)
• Expert Panel on Open Science Report
• Promoting Open Science in Japan-Opening up a new era for the
advancement of Science
•The core principle of promoting open science in Japan is to enhance
the utility of publicly funded research, including research papers and
research data.
• Each ministries to develop an OA policy for publications and data

17. Funder’s OA policy
• JST (2013.4)
•Green OA policy & Recommended
• JSPS/MEXT KAKENHI
• Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (2015-)
•OA recommendation for funded research results
•“In order that anyone can freely read scientific papers without
charge using the internet, we are encouraging the Open Access
publishing of papers that were written with KAKENHI funds”
• Grant-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Research Results(2013-)
•Funds for supporting or launching OA journals
•5 years contract

18. University’s OA policy
• Pioneers
•Hokkaido U.（2008, Strongly Recommended）
•Okayama U.（2011, Intramural Research, Mandates）
•Nitech（2012,Articles, Deposit in principles）
• Kyoto Univ. OA policy (2015.4)
• First university-wide OA mandate policy in Japan
•mandates faculty members to publicize in principle their academic
articles on the Internet by depositing them in IR
• Kyushu Univ. & Nagoya Univ. will follow soon?

19. Researchers and OA
• SPARC Japan 2013 Survey
•2,500 responses from 44 universities in Japan
• Main results
•46.7% of respondents have ever published in OA journals in
the past three years
•Titles published in
•PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports, Optics Express, Molecules, Journal of
Veterinary Medical Science, etc.
•11.4% of titles: predatory journal(?)
•Reasons to publish in OA journals
•Reputation, journals’ scope and readership, integrity of peer review

20. Researchers and OA
• Pros
•“Needs and importance of OA journal will be increasing”
•“I appreciate major scholarly journals will be open
access and can be accessed from office or at home”
• Cons
•“I will work hard to publish in long-established, low
acceptance, top journals rather than pleased to be
accepted in OA journals”
•“OA journals have a harmful influence on society by
producing scientifically unsound articles”

21. Milestones of Japanese OA Movements
• Success of Library community “Hita-hita” approach
•“to be tenacious, persevering and to work step by step
without giving up” (Tsuchide et al 2012)
•(2nd) largest number of IRs in the world
• Policy developments
• Government, funder and university OA policies
• OA Adaption & confusion among researchers
• About half of researchers published in OA journals
Source:Tsuchide, I. et al. (2013). Hita-Hita: open access and institutional repositories in Japan ten years on.Ariadne. issue 71,
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue71/tsuchide-et-al

22. Prospectives

23. Promoting Open Science in Japan
ds, images and visual data.
bilities of Institutions Engaging in Research
ctive institution must formulate regulations on
science plans by posting them on its websit
activity will be monitored by the Cabinet Off
the Council for Science, Technology and Innov
Correlation diagram of policy making and implementation
Source: Promoting Open Science in Japan -Opening up a new era for the advancement of Science-
S&T Basic Plan
MEXT OA policy?

24. Acknowledgements
• This talk is supported by;
• Scholarly Information Usage in the age of digital
environment (No. 25280119, PI:Yoshinori Sato)
• Knowledge Infrastructures and Scholarly Communication
in the age of Open Science and Digital Environment (No.
26280121, PI: Keiko Kurata)
• Study on Developments of Open Access Movement
Based on General Theory of Scientific/Intellectual
Movement (No. 26330364, PI: Shinji Mine)