Pay-what-you-want APC model Bryan Vickery Director, Cogent OA COASP, September 2015

About Cogent OA Launched at 2013 COASP meeting in Riga Putting authors at the heart of everything we do Passionate about bringing OA to all disciplines Determined to be professional and cost effective Part of Taylor & Francis Group

Cogent Series launches: 2014 January February March April May June July August September Cogent OA portal

Cogent Series launches 2014 (cont.) September October November December

Launching (OA) journals Digital publishing does carry costs, and APCs pay for: Rigorous and constructive peer review of all manuscripts submitted to Cogent OA The provision and maintenance of state-of-the-art digital systems to enable: – Manuscript submission – Peer review – Editorial assessment and decision making, including CrossCheck plagiarism screening Production of the article in multiple formats Delivery of the article on a searchable, reader-friendly platform Article-level performance metrics Indexing in major databases, including CrossRef, to facilitate forward citation linking Archiving to ensure future availability of all content Friendly and professional staff to support our authors, editors and reviewers Reduced fees for reviewers to recognise their invaluable contribution to the peer review process Global marketing and promotion of articles

Affordability of APCs Do we know who can afford to pay APCs? – Which regions? – Which disciplines? – At what career stage? What amount? What value do they put on our publishing services? Do APCs still put authors off moving to OA? – Is that holding us all back? Are we stifling greater openness? What have we really been doing to encourage authors to discuss funds with their institution or funder?

Getting the $ balance right “X Publisher’s article-processing charges (APC) lie between £418/$665/€500 and £1256/$1996/€1500. They vary from journal to journal” “Y Publisher’s fees range from $800 - $4500 with discounted ‘transfer’ pricing” Many journals launch with all APCs waived, to build reputation and copy-flow, the increase APCs in a step-wise fashion over 2-3 years Example pricing for a single OA title over time Waivers are available using different, confusing, rules and criteria per publisher – Case-by-case basis requiring staff to assess and grant/deny

The Cogent Series Marketing / promotion Submission / Peer review Production / copy editing PublicationDistribution Marketing / promotion Submission / Peer review Production / copy editing PublicationDistribution Marketing / promotion Submission / Peer review Production / copy editing PublicationDistribution Marketing / promotion Submission / Peer review Production / copy editing PublicationDistribution Marketing / promotion Submission / Peer review Production / copy editing PublicationDistribution

Freedom APCs Gives authors the opportunity to choose the price of their own article publishing charge – pay what you can/want Makes academic publishing affordable for everyone, with or without funding Authors should ask their departments, institutes and funders about available funds Recommended APC is $1250/£781/€977

Freedom APC Launched mid-March 2015 Authors see a range of price options, on submission – Member – $1500 – $1250* – $1000 – $800 – $600 – ‘other’ After choosing ‘other’ authors can then state the price they are able to pay – We ask for authors to give us a reason for selecting that amount

Findings so far … it’s still early days, 6 months in Submissions initially decreased by 75%! – They have since recovered 55% of authors are opting to pay, something Some authors are paying more than the recommended APC We are seeing authors engaging with their institutions and funders 28 authors stated they were at a Member institution, but were not 1 author changed pledge after publication

ecancermedicalscience “We are not charging a blanket author fee, rather we are asking authors, on publication of their article, to transfer the open access publication fee which is part of their funding to us in return for providing a professional publishing service. We will still publish articles from authors for free who do not have access to this funding, as long as they pass the peer review process.”

The Surgery Journal “This journal implements a "Pay What You Want" model for article publication fees. This means that once your manuscript has been accepted for publication and it comes to paying the processing fee, you decide how much to pay. We are giving you the choice to pay any price you feel appropriate”

Research We’re not the only publisher trialling this, but we are the only one experimenting across disciplines Cogent OA will publish results of the Freedom APC trial in April 2015

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