SUSTAINING THE KNOWLEDGE
COMMONS: OPEN ACCESS
SCHOLARSHIP
Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor & Principal Investigator
Jihane Salhab
Research Assistant
University of Ottawa School of Information Studies
http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
Presentation to IDRC Open Access Group, September 9, 2015,
Ottawa
KNOWLEDGE COMMONS
•Public
interest
•Collective
knowledge of
humankind
•
Everyone can freely draw from our collective
knowledge (open access)
• Everyone qualified to welcome to contribute
BUDAPEST OPEN ACCESS (BOAI, 2002)
VISION
“Removing access barriers to [scholarly] literature
will accelerate
research,
enrich education, share the
learning of the rich with the
poor and the poor with the
rich…and lay the foundation
for uniting humanity in a
common intellectual
conversation and quest for
knowledge”.
“Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free
of charge, and free of most copyright and
licensing restrictions” (Suber, 2004).
WE HAVE THE RESOURCES FOR A FULLY OA
SCHOLARLY JOURNAL PUBLISHING SYSTEM
MORRISON (2013)
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, Jihane Salhab,
Alexis Calvé-Genest, Tony Horava
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
Resource requirements
for small scholar-led
journals
RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS FOR SMALL
SCHOLAR-LED PUBLISHERS: SPONSORSHIP
MODEL (ONE SCENARIO)_
Small journal, about 20 articles / year
 $8,000 course release for senior academic
 $12,000 part-time support staff
 $3,000 journal hosting (érudit or OJS)
 $2,000 other costs (graphics, translation)
 Total $25,000 ~ $1,250 / article

THE DIVERSITY AND VALUE OF SMALL
SCHOLAR-LED JOURNALS
Esoteric / academic, professional, hybrids
 Social media very important to not relevant
 Some hybrid print / online, others online only
 Article level a few pages to monograph length
 Innovations, e.g. hybrid journal / archive service
 Local leadership opportunities
 Community engagement

OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE PROCESS CHARGES
(APCS): MAY 2014 DOAJ SURVEY (MORRISON,
SALHAB ET AL, 2015)
26% (2,567 journals) in DOAJ have APCs
 Surveyed 1,432 journals stratified random
sample
 > 61% journals are commercial
 Skewed publisher size – 50+ journals with APCs
or 9 or fewer (1 most commons), not much in
middle
 Volatile sector – average $964 USD, $0 most
common
 Exact APC usually varies

PRICING VARIATIONS BASED ON WORK
INVOLVED
Pricing by article type (e.g. less for case reports,
more for research articles)
 Pricing by length of article (page charges or page
limit with pricing for extra pages)
 Language editing services (sometimes optional)
 Discounts or waiver for high quality work
 Discount for submitting work in publisher’s
preferred format or template
 Discount for manuscript transfer
 Extra charge for fast track

DISCOUNTS AUTHOR OR INSTITUTIONAL
CONTRIBUTIONS
Membership in society
 Organizational publisher memberships
 Discounts for peer review and/or membership in
Editorial Board
 Loyalty discount

DISCOUNT BASED ON INCOME / NEED
Low / medium income countries
 Author hardship
 Student discount

LIBERTAS ACADEMICA AVERAGE PRICE INCREASE
MAY 2014 – MAY 2015
56%
21%
18%
USD
EUR
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
JPY
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
BIOMED CENTRAL
APC: PRICE CHANGE % - 2014-2015
(GBP, EUR & USD)
-1%
AVERAGE
12%
7%
% change 2015/2014 - USD
% change 2015/2014 - EUR
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
% change 2015/2014 - GBP
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
BIOMED CENTRAL
BMC PSYCOLOGY, BMC MEDICINE & MOBILE DNA
APC: % OF PRICE CHANGE - 2014-2015 (USD)
-16%
-2%
-3%
Mobile DNA
BMC Medicine
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
BMC Psychology
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
IMPACT OF CURRENCY FLUCTUATIONS
Loss of major currencies to the Dollar in 2015
25%
21%
20%
R
a 15%
t
e
%
10%
18%
Series1
10%
5%
5%
0%
CAD
JPY
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
GBP
EUR
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
DOES SAME PRICE MEAN SAME COST?
PLOS ONE CASE
1350 USD TO CAD
2000
1500
1620
1470
1795
1000
500
0
May-14
May-15
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
Sep. 2015
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
PUBLISHER CASE STUDY:
HINDAWI
Frequency – May 2015
Frequency – December 2013
250
350
200
300
150
250
200
100
150
100
50
50
APC 2013
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
A SSHRC Insight Development Project
Heather Morrison, & Jihane Salhab,
$2,250
$2,000
$1,750
$1,500
$1,250
$1,200
$1,000
$800
$600
$500
$300
0
0
$1,750
$700
$400
$1,500
$800
$1,200
$300
$1,000
$600
$500
0
0
APC 2015
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
École des sciences de l’information / School of
Information Studies http://arts.uottawa.ca/sis/
NEXT STEPS AND OPEN RESEARCH
APPROACH
2015 and beyond: trends
 Impact factor / DOAJ & APC
 SKC follows an open research approach. We
invite you to follow developments on the project
blog sustainingknowledgecommons.org download
and work with data posted in the dataverse
http://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dvn/dv/oaapc/
, or build on the open bibliography prepared by
Jihane
http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/sustaini
ng-the-knowledge-commons-skc-selectedbibliography-on-open-access/

QUESTIONS? CONTACT:
Heather Morrison
Heather.Morrison@uottawa.ca
Jihane Salhab
jderg011@uottawa.ca
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
REFERENCES





Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) (2002).
http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read
Morrison, H. (2013). The economics of scholarly
communication in transition. First Monday 6:3
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4
370
Morrison, H.; Salhab, J.; Calvé-Genest, A.; Horava, T.
Open Access Article Processing Charges: DOAJ
Survey May 2014. Publications 2015, 3, 1-16.
doi:10.3390/publications3010001
Research Councils UK (RCUK) 2014. 2014
Independent Review of Implementation.
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/openaccess/2014revie
w/
Suber (2004). Open Access Overview
http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm