Pay-what-you-want APC model
Bryan Vickery
Director, Cogent OA
COASP, September 2015
www.CogentOA.com
About Cogent OA
• Launched at 2013 COASP meeting in Riga
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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
www.CogentOA.com
Cogent Series launches: 2014
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
Cogent OA portal
www.CogentOA.com
Cogent Series launches 2014 (cont.)
September
October
November
December
www.CogentOA.com
www.CogentOA.com
www.CogentOA.com
Launching (OA) journals
Digital publishing does carry costs, and APCs pay for:
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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
www.CogentOA.com
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?
www.CogentOA.com
Getting the $ balance right
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“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
$700
$600
$500
$400
$300
$200
$100
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Waivers are available using different, confusing, rules and$0criteria per publisher
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– Case-by-case basis requiring staff to assess and grant/deny
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www.CogentOA.com
Marketing /
promotion
Marketing /
promotion
The Cogent Series
Submission
/ Peer
review
Distribution
Submission
/ Peer
review
Distribution
Production
/ copy
editing
Publication
Production
/ copy
editing
Publication
Marketing /
promotion
Marketing /
promotion
Distribution
Publication
Distribution
Submission
/ Peer
review
Publication
Production
/ copy
editing
Submission
/ Peer
review
Production
/ copy
editing
Marketing /
promotion
Distribution
Publication
Submission
/ Peer
review
Production
/ copy
editing
www.CogentOA.com
www.CogentOA.com
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
www.CogentOA.com
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
www.CogentOA.com
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
www.CogentOA.com
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.”
www.CogentOA.com
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”
www.CogentOA.com
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
www.CogentOA.com
Thank you
and please contact me at:
bryan.vickery@CogentOA.com
www.CogentOA.com