1. Towards 100% Open Access at the UT
Leo Waaijers
at the event
Towards 100% Open Access at the UT
21 February 2018

2. The article publishing industry
The article is submitted
The article is published
The article is used
Research, education,
society at large
Academic research
Production
Reviewing, editing,
indexing, publishing
Consumption
Discovering, accessing, using, monitoring
Public & private
domain
< Private domain >
Public domain
Worldwide € 7.6 billion.
Netherlands € 44 million.
About all public money.

3. Two business models The article is submitted The article is published
The article is used
Research, education,
society at large
Academic research
Production
Reviewing, editing,
indexing, publishing
Consumption
Discovering, accessing, using, monitoring
Payment models
Subscription model
Publishing is ‘free’
Usage is charged
Open Access model
Publishing is charged
Usage is ‘free’
At the end of the day the institution pays everything,
either via the library budget or via the research budget

4. Comparing prices
Publishers obstructed price comparisons via non-disclosure clauses. (But that might be changing.)
Academics ignored prices, because everything was free to them. (But that might be changing.)
A meaningful price comparison covers the complete content supply chain: from submitting to reading.
So, an institution asks a publisher, “Quote me a price for publishing the articles of our researchers in open access and giving our readers access to your journals.”
The amount per published article (the publication fee) is a good first order measure for a price comparison between publishers.

5. Publication fees No fee: 70% of the OA journals.
▪ Published by the academic community (universities, learned societies).
€ 1143: Average publication fee for charging OA journals (in 2014).
▪ PLoS ONE: € 1203 ▪ MDPI: CHF 0 - CHF 1548 ▪ Ubiquity Press: € ▪ Copernicus: € 75/page ▪ BioMed Central € € 2420.
€ 2197: Average publication fee for hybrid journals (in 2014).
▪ Oxford University Press € € 2815 ▪ Elsevier US$ 0 - US$ 5000
▪ Springer € 2200 ▪ Sage € 2407 ▪ Wiley € € 4163.
US$ 5200: Nature Communications.

6. Rationale for price differences
Publishing articles in open access is a simple process: organizing peer review, editing, circulating, indexing, archiving. The bare production costs are similar among publishers, apart from efficiency margins.
Cost differences come from:
Profit margin (from non-profit to 40 %)
Rejection rate (from 10% to 90%)
Branding
Lobbying & sponsoring
Add-ons (even unsolicited)
Legal actions (vs ResearchGate, SciHub, 50+ page contracts in legalese)
Third party advertisements (mostly in paper versions)

7. Elsevier’s rationale

8. Ubiquity Press’s rationale

9. Dutch offsetting deals I
In 2015/2016 VSNU (Association of Universities in the Netherlands) asked the 10 main scholarly publishers: “Quote us a price for publishing all articles of Dutch corresponding authors in open access and giving all Dutch academics access to your journals.” All but one did. The resulting contracts were secret but could be made public via the Dutch Freedom of Information Act (WOB). I analysed the four biggest ones. Outcome for 2018:
Publisher
Amount
# OA articles
# non OA articles
# journals
Elsevier
M€ 12
1800
4200
2500
Springer
M€ 2.8
2200 -
2000
Taylor & Francis
M€ 2.0
1340
1350
Wiley
M€ 4.0
1450

10. The Elsevier anomaly
Uniquely, Elsevier required a continuation of their subscription deal, amounting to M€ 12 per year. As a give away they offer open access to 1800 articles of Dutch corresponding authors in 420 of their journals. Every year, Dutch authors publish 6000 articles in 2500 Elsevier journals. So, 4200 articles stay behind a paywall. These articles can be published in open access for a surcharge of € 2900 per article, totalling to M€ 12,2. For M€ 24,2 Elsevier offers the same product as their competitors: open access to the articles of Dutch corresponding authors plus access to their journals for the Dutch academic community. Which means € 4000 on a per article basis.

11. Dutch offsetting deals II
Publisher
Price per OA article via offsetting deal
List price per article
Elsevier
€ 4000
€ 0 - € 5000
Springer
€ 1300
€ 2200
Taylor & Francis
€ 1500
€ 2150
Wiley
€ 1600
€ € 4163

12. Dutch offsetting deals III
Pros
100% open access comes in sight.
Author’s paradise (free for them, also in high impact journals).
Downward pressure on average publication fees
Cons
Distortion of the publishing market.
Wicked Elsevier deal.
My conclusion:
The offsetting deals are a step in the right direction, but we must proceed.

13. What could academia do? Mental steps:
Publishing is a vital component of research (max. 1,5% of the budget).
Publishers are service providers, no longer copyright monopolists!
No publisher is indispensable; a no-deal is an option (not the apocalypse!)
Actions:
As a funder,
Bundle negotiation power, also on an international scale.
Refuse non-disclosure clauses (otherwise, use the FOI act).
Require cost and process transparency (as the EC will).
As an institution, sign the Declaration on Research Assessment.
As an author or a librarian, use the Quality Open Access Market.

14. ‘The times they are a changing’
Times Higher Education. 27 Dec (Elsevier vs German Academia. 5 min.) The Verge. 8 Feb (Elsevier vs SciHub. 20 min.) science-papers-lawsuit American libraries. 31 May (A balanced library viewpoint on SciHub; 5 min.) Science. 6 Oct (Elsevier and American Chemical Society vs Researchgate. 3 min.) massive-copyright-infringement