SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING & ACADEMIC RESOURCES COALITION
www.sparceurope.org
SPARC EUROPE
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Myths and Realities: Open
Access Business Models
David Prosser • SPARC Europe Director
(david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk)
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The Situation Today –
Dissatisfaction at All Levels
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Authors
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Readers
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They cannot view all the research literature they need – they are
less effective
Libraries
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Their work is not seen by all their peers – they do not get the
recognition they desire
Despite the fact they often have to pay page charges, colour
figure charges, reprint charges, etc.
Often the rights they have given up in exchange for publication
mean there are things that they cannot do with their own work
Cannot satisfy the information needs of their users
Society
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We all lose out if the communication channels are not optimal.
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SPARC Europe
Scholarly Publishing &
Academic Resources Coalition
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Formed in 2002 following the success of
SPARC (launched in 1998 by the US
Association of Research Libraries)
Encourages partnership between libraries,
academics, societies and responsible publishers
Currently focused on STM, but coverage
expanding
Has over 110 members in 14 countries (and is
growing)
By acting together the members can influence
the future of scholarly publishing
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A Road Map – The Budapest Open
Access Initiative
Two complementary strategies:
 Self-Archiving: Scholars should be able
to deposit their refereed journal articles in
open electronic archives which conform to
Open Archives Initiative standards
 Open-Access Journals: Journals will not
charge subscriptions or fees for online
access. Instead, they should look to other
sources to fund peer-review and
publication (e.g., publication charges)
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Open Access
What is it?
Call for free, unrestricted access on the public
internet to the literature that scholars give to the
world without expectation of payment.
Why?
Widen dissemination, accelerate research, enrich
education, share learning among rich & poor
nations, enhance return on taxpayer investment
in research.
How?
Use existing funds to pay for dissemination, not
access.
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Content
Institutional
Repositories
Author
Disciplinary
Repositories
Interoperability Standards
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How the pieces work together
Services
Registration
e.g.: by
institutions
Certification
e.g.: peer review
Reader
Awareness
e.g.: search
tools, linking
Archiving
e.g.: by library
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Myth: ‘We Don’t Need Open
Access!’
" In Europe and the USA, however, access is
already very open, and it is a myth that
researchers and private individuals
cannot obtain STM [Science, Technical,
Medical] articles easily."
Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President,
Strategy, Elsevier, Learned Publishing,
Vol. 18, pp.51-55, 2005
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Myth: ‘We Don’t Need Open
Access!’
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The average UK university library subscribes to
approximately 8000 peer-reviewed journals.
There are between 15,000 to 24,000 peerreviewed titles in total.
So, the average UK university has access to
between a third and a half of all titles.
Figures are higher for some large publishers
with massive market dominance.
Inter-library loan and pay-per-view are
available, but these are no subsitute for the
immediate online access of open access.
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Myth: ‘Open Access Encourages
Low Quality’
"If you are receiving potential payment for
every article submitted there is an
inherent conflict of interest that could
threaten the quality of the peer review
system and so on"
Oral evidence to UK House of Commons
Science & Technology Inquiry, March
1st 2004, Sir Crispin Davis (CEO, Reed
Elsevier)
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Myth: ‘Open Access Encourages
Low Quality’
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Journals are made by their reputation – if they get a
reputation of accepting low-quality papers then authors
will not submit their papers and so they will not survive.
Evidence from ISI is that the impact factors of open
access journals are comparable to those of subscription
journals, e.g.,
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New Journal of Physics, 3rd highest IF of all IOP Journals
Arthritis Research & Therapy, IF of 5.03 (2nd of 21 titles in the
rheumatology field)
Breast Cancer Research, IF of 2.93, placing it on even footing
with its direct competitor, Breast Cancer Research & Treatment,
which was established more than 20 years ago.
BioMedCentral have an average rejection rate of over
50%
Traditional publishers justify subscription price increases
by increases in number of papers published!
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The Power of Open Access – Self
Archiving
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For 72% of papers published in the
Astrophysical Journal free versions of the paper
are available (mainly through ArXiv)
These 72% of papers are, on average, cited
twice as often as the remaining 28% that do not
have free versions.
Self-archiving gives authors an advantage, even
for journals where ‘everybody already has
access’!
Figures from Greg Schwarz
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The Power of Open Access –
Journals
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Limnology and Oceanography, published by the
American Society of Limnology and
Oceanography
Uses hybrid model to offer authors the chance to
purchase open access
Open Access papers published in 2004 have
been downloaded almost 4 times more often
than non-open access papers
For papers published in 2003, 199 of the 200
most-downloaded papers were open access
http://aslo.org/lo/information/freeaccess.html
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Myth: ‘Societies will be destroyed
by Open Access’
“A number of the smaller learned societies
would be unlikely to survive without their
publishing income and the work of the
larger ones would be reduced.”
Written evidence to UK S&T Inquiry,
February 2004, The Royal Society
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Myth: ‘Societies will be Destroyed
by Open Access’
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Some societies do make significant ‘surpluses’ from publishing.
However, many do not, and their activities would not be threatened
by a transfer to open access. For example:
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An ALPSP and Blackwell’s survey showed that 1/3 of societies asked
did not make a surplus and of those that do, for the majority the surplus
contributes less than 20% of the society’s total revenue.
Some very large societies manage to engage in extensive programmes
without any income from publishing – e.g., the American Physical
Society, which operates its publishing programme at cost.
Even in an open access environment it is still possible to make a
surplus – open access is not anti-commerce – but the levels may be
lower than it in the current model.
A greater threat to societies may be from ‘Big Deals’ from large
commercial publishers squeezing them out of the library market.
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Myth: ‘Societies will be Destroyed
by Open Access’
Some of the most interesting experiments in open access
have come from societies:
 Indian Academy of Sciences has made their 11 journals
available free online
 A number of society publishers are transforming their
closed access journals into open access journals:
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Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS)
Oxford University Press
Company of Biologists
American Physiological Society
Florida Entomological Society
Entomological Society of America
Journal of Experimental Botany
American Society of Limnology and Oceanography
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Myth: ‘Authors from Transitional and
Developing Countries Will Not be Able
to Publish in Open Access’
“The author-charge is a barrier to
publication which will favour richer
countries and organisations and make it
difficult to publish a journal with authors
from, say, Eastern Europe and the
Developing World.”
Written evidence to UK S&T Inquiry,
February 2004, Blackwell Publishing
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Myth: ‘Authors from Transitional and
Developing Countries Will Not be Able
to Publish in Open Access’
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Many publishers who operate under publication charges
waive the fees to those (from whatever countries) who
cannot pay.
Not all open access journals are based on publication
charges, e.g., the Indian Academy of Sciences makes no
charge to authors. No charge to authors or readers for
Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and
Beams (Many others in http://www.doaj.org/)
Could the organisations that currently arrange access to
selected developing countries shift to arranging payment
of publication charges?
Institutional repositories work with open access journals
so there will always be a way to get good research into
the hands of the world-wide community.
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A Note on Costs
“Current Open Access Models would
penalize specialized research institutions
with a large article production”
Magaly Bascones Dominguez, ELAG
2005, CERN
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A Note on Costs
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Journal publishing is a $7billion a year industry.
A move to Open Access would call for the
redistribution of this money to promote
dissemination, not access.
Costs of production may be reduced (Wellcome
Trust Report – 30% reduction) and increased
competition may reduce prices and create
efficiencies
However, there will be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’
when viewed at an institute-by-institute level.
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A Note on Costs – ‘Publication
Costs are Research Costs’
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In a highly productive year (e.g. 2000), CERN publishes 2250 peerreviewed papers
Assume all these papers are published in open access journals that
charged CHF 3750 per paper. (Approx. $3000 per paper, cf.
Springer)
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Total cost to CERN:
CHF 8.5 million
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BUT, Total CERN budget (2004):
CHF 1325.5 million
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So, to ensure that all its papers appeared in open access journals it
would cost CERN, at most, 0.64% of its annual budget!
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(The Wellcome Trust has estimated that for the biomedical research
it funds the cost would be 1-2% of total research costs.)
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Open Access – Appealing to All the
Major Stakeholders
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To the funders of researcher – both as a public service
and as an increased return on their investment in
research
To the authors – as it gives wider dissemination and
impact
To readers – as it gives them access to all primary
literature, making the most important ‘research tool’
more powerful
To editors and reviewers – as they feel their work is
more valued
To the libraries – as it allows them to meet the
information needs of their users
To the institutions – as it increases their presence and
prestige
To small and society publishers – as it gives them a
survival strategy and fits with their central remit
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…And When we have Arrived!
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“The public good [made] possible is the
world-wide electronic distribution of the
peer-reviewed journal literature and
completely free and unrestricted access to
it by all scientists, scholars, teachers,
students, and other curious minds. ”
Budapest Open Access Initiative, Feb. 14, 2002
Contact SPARC Europe: david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk
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