Open Access Archivangelism

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SUMMARY: Martin Osborne, the managing editor of the Open Access Journal Theoretical Economics, points out that the publication fee ($75) for his journal is an order of magnitude lower than what I called the "going rate" for Gold OA journal publishing fees. He also points out that if institutional subscriptions were all cancelled and publishing costs were of the order of those charged by his journal, then there would be considerable net savings. I reply that he is quite right to point out that there are Gold OA journals that charge less than the going rate (indeed there are many that do not charge at all). I also agree that the fee his journal charges, though a bit on the low side, is much closer to what will prove to be the true per-article cost of OA publishing, once journals all convert to OA publishing. But the reality is that only about 10% of journals are OA today, and the publishing charges are what they are, today. And with most of the potential funds for paying them still tied up in institutional subscriptions, those publishing charges are an unaffordable burden for most authors, today. They are also an unnecessary burden, if the goal is to provide OA to every published article, to maximize its accessibility, usage and impact, for that can be done through Green OA self-archiving, by the research community, for itself. In contrast, converting journals to Gold OA, and at an affordable price, is not something the research community can do for itself. The research community can, however, mandate Green OA self-archiving, and thereby provide 100% OA, today. That Green OA itself might in turn eventually generate cost-cutting, downsizing, and conversion to Gold OA by journals, at a fair price, paid for out of the institutional subscription cancellation savings. Meanwhile, it is folly for the research community to just keep waiting for Gold OA, when providing 100% Green OA is already fully within its reach.

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Martin J. Osborne (MJO), Department of Economics, University of Toronto, wrote in the American Scientist Open Access Forum:

SH: "...This journal will charge about $1000 to publish, which is within the current going rate for OA journal publication fees."

MJO: The "going rate" surely depends on the field. Theoretical Economics, an Open Access journal (of which I happen to be the Managing Editor) charges a submission fee of $75 and no publication fee for authors who use the software standard in our field (LaTeX).

You are quite right. In fact, as Peter Suber frequently points out, the majority of the Gold OA Journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) do not charge for publication at all. They either continue to cover publishing costs out of subscriptions, while making their online version freely accessible to all, or they have other sources of funding, such as subsidies or voluntarism.

The (unidentified) journal under discussion here, however, as well as all of the high-profile journals usually associated with OA (such as the PLoS and BMC journals) do charge for publication, and in the same range as the (unidentified) journal under discussion (not yet listed in DOAJ). In addition, there is now a very large number of hybrid-Gold OA journals that offer OA as an option to the author, likewise in the price range in question. (Those journals, not being OA journals, but merely offering an extra OA option to the author are, rightly, not covered by DOAJ.)

So I think the description "current going rate for OA journal publication fees" was quite representative and accurate.

Please note that although I of course endorse publishing in Gold OA journals for authors who can afford to do so today, and I also happen to believe that one day all journals will convert to Gold OA, I am not an advocate of publishing in Gold OA journals as the means of providing OA today. There are nine reasons for this, the decisive three being (3) - (6).

Publishing in OA journals in order to provide OA to one's research output, is nonoptimal and premature today because:

(1) Most journals (90%) are still subscription-based journals today.

(2) Hence institutions' potential publication funds are still tied up in paying for ongoing journal subscriptions today.

(3) OA publishing charges are still far too high today; they need to be reduced to just the true costs of implementing peer review alone (and the price you quote, though on the low side, is much closer to those true costs).

(4) 100% OA can be achieved, immediately, today, through (Green) OA self-archiving, by authors, in their own Institutional Repositories (IRs), depositing their own articles, published in today's conventional, subscription-based journals (90%).

(5) Green OA self-archiving can be, and is being, mandated by researchers' institutions and funders worldwide, in order to maximize research usage and impact, and thereby research productivity and progress.

(6) 100% OA is urgently needed today, indeed it is already greatly overdue; research usage and impact, productivity and progress are being lost daily, and cumulatively, as long as we delay mandating Green OA self-archiving (e.g., waiting instead for Gold).

(7) 100% Green OA may also force cost-reduction and downsizing to the true essentials on the part of conventional subscription-based journals, eventually.

(8) 100% Green OA may also force conventional subscription-based journals to convert to Gold OA, eventually, thereby also freeing the subscription cancellation funds to pay for it.

(9) 100% OA, however, is needed today, not eventually, and Green OA mandates can and will provide it, today, without continuing to wait and hope for an eventual, affordable conversion to Gold OA by all journals, perhaps, some day.

SH: "...This means that for now OA publishing charges are over and above what is already being spent on subscriptions."

MJO: I don't understand the meaning of this claim. Suppose journal X charges a subscription and then journal Y, which is OA, enters the scene. If everyone who used to submit to X switches to Y, the subscription fees will be replaced by submission/publication fees. If X charged $500 per volume to 300 libraries and Y publishes 40 papers per volume, even with a publication fee of $1000, the scientific community will save $110,000 (= 300x$500 - 40x$1000).

Your calculation is absolutely correct -- and I have made it many, many times before: apologies for not posting the links to the Forum this time: they were included in the blogged version of the same posting. "

The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)"

"Hypothetical Sequel" [after 100% Green Self-Archiving]

However, that calculation misses the critical elements for this transition:

(a) Subscriptions are paid by user-institutions; publication fees are paid by author-institutions.

(b) Individual authors, not institutions, decide, article by article, which journal to publish in and when.

(c) Institutions, collectively guided by their users, decide which journals to subscribe to, yearly, journal by journal.

(d) Publishers decide whether and when to convert to Gold OA publishing fees, and at what price, journal by journal.

Hence one can do the hypothetical a-priori arithmetic all one likes, but that does not convert journals to OA, let alone Gold OA at a price that reflects its true costs; nor does it convert committed institutional subscription budgets to institutional publication-fee budgets for paying those true costs, across all subscribing institutions.

The downsizing and transition to Gold OA is likely to happen eventually, but only after it has first been preceded (and driven) by the transition to 100% Green OA. The transition to Green OA, however -- unlike the transition to Gold OA -- is entirely within the hands and reach of the research community (researchers, their institutions and their funders) today: It merely has to be mandated.

The good news is that the transition to Gold OA -- which is not in the research community's hands -- is far less urgent or consequential than the transition to Green OA, which is in their hands. And the transition to Green OA will already provide the 100% OA that the OA movement is all about, and for.

OA is not about journal affordability; it is about research accessibility. Although it will not solve the journal affordability problem, 100% Green OA will reduce it to a far more minor problem, lacking the urgency it has today, when it is still wrapped up with the research accessibility problem. Research accessibility is the true motivation for OA, for the research community, who are the only ones who can provide OA, and are also its primary beneficiaries.

"The Green and the Gold Roads to Open Access"

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum