1. UK negotiations for the total cost of publication
Anna Vernon

2. Agenda
Context
Current Jisc open access activity
Why do we want agreements?
The approach taken by Jisc Collections
Experiences from negotiations
Challenges
Next steps

3. Jisc Open Access Support Service
Support throughout an article’s lifecycle from submission to use
Submission
Select journal
Check compliance
Acceptance
Pay publisher
Deposit in repository
Policies
Decision support
Negotiations
Notification
Publication
Report on compliance
Maximise impact
Use
Record impact
Report
Discovery and access
Reporting tools
Usage reports
Community professional support
Open Access

4. Why does the UK want agreements?
UK HEIs create significant number of OA articles as a result of UK policies
OA is expanding its scope, scale and reach
However, any transition to OA is lumpy—fast in some areas, slower in others
Initially, there will be minimal impact on global subscription levels for hybrid journals from UK APCs
Total cost of journals system to UK universities will increase
RCUK and other funding will only cover part of the cost for some of the future
As open-access (OA) publishing funded by article-processing charges (APCs) increases, institutions face increases in the ‘total cost of publication’, we define as subscription costs + APCs + admin costs. Most APC payments are made to large ‘traditional’ commercial publishers who also received ahem considerable subscription income. We’re asking publishers to introduce offset systems that will reduce this extra cost to UK higher education. These principles are drafted for publishers of hybrid journals (these are subscription journals in which some of the articles are open access). They aim to provide these publishers with an understanding of the requirements of their customers from the UK academic sector. They follow the spirit of the Finch Report, which was informed through dialogue with scholarly publishers, universities, and research funders. It is expected that publishers will adhere to these principles in their design of offset systems. Following the recommendations of the Finch Report, UK Higher Education institutions are in the vanguard of a transition to open access. Although many of these institutions have received some funding to support the transition, collaboration with publishers is required in the form of offset systems to ensure affordability and sustainability. These principles are also designed to provide a checklist for higher education institutions (and Jisc Collections when negotiating on their behalf) when evaluating proposals from publishers for offset systems.
What are we doing now to make this manageable?
03/04/2019

5. Jisc Collections approach
Two distinct issues
The cost of APCs in pure and hybrid gold OA journals
The combined cost of APCs and subscriptions in hybrid journals
“Total cost of publication”
We targeted number 2 first
03/04/2019

6. Theoretical rise in Combined Costs
What happens when we just add APC costs to subscriptions without overall control mechanism
03/04/2019

7. Government Response to Finch Report
The Government “….looks to the publishing industry to develop innovative and sustainable solutions“ :
“….a meaningful proportion of an institution's total [article processing charges] with a publisher to be offset against total subscription payments with that publisher".
"Government welcomes efforts by Jisc Collections to develop sustainable funding models that establish a relationship between the payment of APCs (and the costs of administering them) and subscription fees for an institution.“
Letter from Rt Hon David Willetts MP to Dame Janet Finch, 23 January 2014
- Demonstrated support of policy makers
- Clearly linked APCs and Subscriptions together in the context of implementation of Finch
- Emphasised the role of Jisc Collections
- Provided a timeframe for action with the expectation of progress by the time of RCUK’s review of it’s policy later in 2014
03/04/2019

8. Total APC expenditure 2010–14 for 23 HEIs
The growth in APC payments has continued to rise year on year, with 2014 seeing 2.7x more expenditure than Even removing a high-spending outlier, the increase was 2x. Trend for 2015 indicates a slower rate of growth, but still 40-50% for most institutions
Collecting the information is a challenge, Jisc services in this area are improving the capacity of the sector and indeed Jisc to track spend and make rational decisions about what to spend, what to negotiate, where to spend it.
So currently Jisc, globally has taken the lead in collecting this information, and Jisc’s activity is actually dependent on us successfully developing these services.
(Source: Jisc Collections)

9. Experiences from negotiations

10. Experiences from negotiations

11. Negotiation objectives
Priorities for negotiations on the combined cost of subscriptions and APCs:
Cost efficiency - minimise/remove additional costs to institution
Compliance - help/enable institutions to comply with funder policies regardless of whether they are choosing gold or green
Administrative efficiency - minimise the burden on institutions of implementing and managing OA payment schemes
Transition - implementing schemes that facilitate a real and sustainable transition to open access
Open Access

12. Working on offsetting proposals since start of 2014
Experiences
Working on offsetting proposals since start of 2014
Agreements are pilots
Need to monitor changing environment
Need to see how effective the agreements are
A range of agreements in place:
Institute of Physics
Royal Society of Chemistry
Sage
Taylor and Francis
Wiley
Springer from October
A variety of schemes
Models have different impact based on publisher

13. Offsetting APC costs against Subscriptions
Based on global % of OA articles publisher offers a sliding scale of allocation of APC spend against local & global subscription costs.
Low level of global OA = high local offset of subs
And vice versa
Advantages
Transparent, scalable, high discounts
Disadvantages
High administrative burden
Relies on high take up of offer

14. Credits against APCs based on total expenditure
Offset based on total spend on subs & APCs
Higher the spend, higher the offset available
Institution receives % of year 0 APC spend to be credited to account for use against future APC spend
Advantages
Recognises impact on biggest spenders
Disadvantages
Administrative burden
Offset not that high
Locks in subscription spend

15. Voucher schemes APC vouchers based on size of subscription spend
Value of voucher can be flexible
Advantages
Reduces cost to institutions
Large sub spend = large number of vouchers
Disadvantages
Administrative burden
Take up – especially when aimed at researcher
Time limits

16. Flipped model
Historical consortium sub and APC spend funds future consortium APCs
Additional transition fee covers cost of content
Advantages (in UK?)
Increases amount of OA & moves away from HPS
Simplifies administration/compliance
Ceiling on payments to publisher
Disadvantages
Lack of transparency?
Cost allocation across consortium in future years

17. Challenges and conclusions

18. Challenges
Complicated policy environment
RCUK, HEFCE, H2020
Uncertain research funding in UK
Reviews of UK policy outcomes
Managing expectations
Extra spend happening now
But only 1 negotiation cycle for journal agreements
How quickly can we achieve meaningful results?

19. Challenges, supporting a full transition to full OA vs institutional requirements.
Flipped models are predicated on a full transition of the subscription model with Springer from one where we pay for publication. I.e. what was once the UK’s subscription fee is now paying for APCs by corresponding authors in hybrid journals and there is an additional fee that pays for access to the subscribed content.
As a result for a fee equivalent to what the community as a whole paid for subs and apcs in 2015, the community now has a large pool of APCs on which to draw (much greater than the UK has ever published with Springer) and the community also has access to all of their journal content.
From a reporting perspective, it is important to note that this is a pilot, designed to effect a transition to OA as a whole in a cost effective way, not just for COAF and RCUK.
COAF will be supplying institutions in receipt of their grants with guidelines on how to report/use the block grant in this agreement.
RCUK has stated that institutions can use their block grant in support of this in whatever way they think is appropriate and since it supports OA, they would be unlikely to challenge it.

20. Challenges Hybrid publishers refusing offsetting agreements
Only works if all publishers do it?
Retreat from hybrid in absence of offsetting
Increase in support for Green route
Sustainability
Administrative burden & costs
New systems, workflows, data requirements
Incentivising researchers and publishers
Price sensitivity of authors?
Take up of offers by institutions and authors

21. Around 157,000 articles published by UK authors in 2014
Conclusions
Still much to do…
Around 157,000 articles published by UK authors in 2014
Percentages of UK articles available OA in 2014, up to 12 months after publication
Open access through repositories
11.7
Open access through wholly OA journals charging fees
9.3
Open access through wholly OA journals not charging fees
2.1
Open access though partially OA journals charging fees
6.5
Open access though delayed release by journals
8.7
Not open access
61.7
Open Access

22. Conclusions Open access is a journey not an event
Too early to be certain of implications and impact?
Data is sometimes contradictory
Try, learn and refine?
Ongoing interest in the progress of offsetting schemes
Some agreements show it can be done
Are the success of offsetting schemes and the fate of hybrid open access linked to each other?
Increased interest in supporting alternative models

23. Next steps
Once endorsed by the community we will raise the recommendations in the Open Access compliance document
This document outlines what publishers might do to help authors and institutions globally to implement (OA), reduce the administrative burden, and take some of the friction out of the current arrangements. 

24. Choose Your Affiliation IV