General cost analysis for scholarly communication in Germany : results of the "Houghton Report" for Germany

Management Summary: Conducted within the project “Economic Implications of New Models for Information Supply for Science and Research in Germany”, the Houghton Report for Germany provides a general cost and benefit analysis for scientific communication in Germany comparing different scenarios according to their specific costs and explicitly including the German National License Program (NLP). Basing on the scholarly lifecycle process model outlined by Björk (2007), the study compared the following scenarios according to their accounted costs: - Traditional subscription publishing, - Open access publishing (Gold Open Access; refers primarily to journal publishing where access is free of charge to readers, while the authors or funding organisations pay for publication) - Open Access self-archiving (authors deposit their work in online open access institutional or subject-based repositories, making it freely available to anyone with Internet access; further divided into (i) CGreen Open Access’ self-archiving operating in parallel with subscription publishing; and (ii) the ‘overlay services’ model in which self-archiving provides the foundation for overlay services (e.g. peer review, branding and quality control services)) - the NLP. Within all scenarios, five core activity elements (Fund research and research communication; perform research and communicate the results; publish scientific and scholarly works; facilitate dissemination, retrieval and preservation; study publications and apply the knowledge) were modeled and priced with all their including activities. Modelling the impacts of an increase in accessibility and efficiency resulting from more open access on returns to R&D over a 20 year period and then comparing costs and benefits, we find that the benefits of open access publishing models are likely to substantially outweigh the costs and, while smaller, the benefits of the German NLP also exceed the costs. This analysis of the potential benefits of more open access to research findings suggests that different publishing models can make a material difference to the benefits realised, as well as the costs faced. It seems likely that more Open Access would have substantial net benefits in the longer term and, while net benefits may be lower during a transitional period, they are likely to be positive for both ‘author-pays’ Open Access publishing and the ‘over-lay journals’ alternatives (‘Gold Open Access’), and for parallel subscription publishing and self-archiving (‘Green Open Access’). The NLP returns substantial benefits and savings at a modest cost, returning one of the highest benefit/cost ratios available from unilateral national policies during a transitional period (second to that of ‘Green Open Access’ self-archiving). Whether ‘Green Open Access’ self-archiving in parallel with subscriptions is a sustainable model over the longer term is debateable, and what impact the NLP may have on the take up of Open Access alternatives is also an important consideration. So too is the potential for developments in Open Access or other scholarly publishing business models to significantly change the relative cost-benefit of the NLP over time. The results are comparable to those of previous studies from the UK and Netherlands. Green Open Access in parallel with the traditional model yields the best benefits/cost ratio. Beside its benefits/cost ratio, the meaningfulness of the NLP is given by its enforceability. The true costs of toll access publishing (beside the buyback” of information) is the prohibition of access to research and knowledge for society

Green on What Side of the Fence? Librarian Perceptions of Accepted Author Manuscripts

INTRODUCTION There is a growing body of accepted author manuscripts (AAMs) in national, professional, and institutional repositories. This study seeks to explore librarian attitudes about AAMs and in what contexts they should be recommended. Particular attention is paid to differences between the attitudes of librarians whose primary job responsibilities are within the field of scholarly communications as opposed to the rest of the profession. METHODS An Internet survey was sent to nine different professional listservs, asking for voluntary anonymous participation. RESULTS This study finds that AAMs are considered an acceptable source by many librarians, with scholarly communications librarians more willing to recommend AAMs in higher-stakes contexts such as health care and dissertation research. DISCUSSION Librarian AAM attitudes are discussed, with suggestions for future research and implications for librarians

On "Open Access" Publishers Who Oppose Open Access Self-Archiving Mandates

The online age has made powerful new benefits for research possible, but these benefits entail a profound conflict of interest between (1) what is best for the research journal publishing industry and (2) what is best for research, researchers, universities, research institutions, research funders, the vast research and development (R&D) industry, and the tax-paying public that funds the research. What is at stake is (1) a hypothetical risk of potential future losses in subscription revenue for publishers versus (2) actual, ongoing losses in current research impact for researchers. How this conflict of interest will have to be resolved is already clear: Research publishing is a service industry; it will have to adapt to what is best for research, and not vice versa. And what is best for research is Open Access (OA), provided through research funders and universities mandating the OA self-archiving of all their researchers' peer-reviewed research output. The conventional (non-OA) publishing industry's first commitment is of course to what is best for its own business interests, rather than to what is best for research and researchers; hence it is lobbying vigorously against the many OA self-archiving mandates that are currently being adopted, recommended and petitioned for by the research community worldwide. But what is especially disappointing, if not deplorable, is when "OA" publishers take the very same stance against OA itself (by opposing OA self-archiving mandates) that non-OA publishers do. Conventional publisher opposition to OA will be viewed, historically, as having been a regrettable, counterproductive (and eventually countermanded) but comprehensible strategy, from a purely business standpoint. OA publisher opposition to OA, however, will be seen as having been self-deluded if not hypocritical. I close with a reply to Jan Velterop, of Springer's "Open Choice": Jan opposes Green OA self-archiving mandates, because they would provide OA without paying the publisher extra for it. But all publishing costs are currently being paid for already: via subscriptions. So opposition to Green OA self-archiving mandates by a hybrid Gold "Open Choice" Publisher sounds very much like wanting to have their cake and eat it too (even though that is precisely what they like to describe Green OA advocates as trying to do!)

Scientific journals, overlays and repositories: a case study of costs and sustainability issues

Publishing scientific research is an area of study that attracts interest from various stakeholders such as publishers, academic and research staff, libraries and funders. In the past decade increased journal subscription fees prompted calls for cheaper and more efficient means of accessing the scientific literature. Factors such as the expansion of digital repositories, the introduction of open source journal management software, an increasing awareness within the scholarly community at large of the issues around open access, and an increasing readiness within the publishing community to experiment with new models, suggest that the circumstances may now be right for new models of scientific publishing to be explored, as well as potential business models and sustainable solutions around them. This paper explores some of the issues around the costs and sustainability of a prospective journal model known as the overlay journal. We present estimates of initial start up costs for such a model, discuss the factors that would influence scientists in deciding whether to publish in a journal overlaid onto a public repository; and report their views on the relative importance of different features and functions of a journal in terms of funding priorities

Technical Services and Open Access : A Few Challenges

As a "new thing", Open Access bring issues for libraries, many of which relate to technical services. This paper briefly looks at some of these: licensing and Open Access; possible effects of the lack of a "purchase"; making Open Access content accessible to users; and dealing with non-OA journal material

ISC/OSI Journal Authors Survey Report

On behalf of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Open Society Institute (OSI) a survey of journal authors has been carried out by Key Perspectives Ltd. The terms of reference were to poll a cohort of authors who had published on an open access basis and another cohort of authors who had published their work in conventional journals without making the article available on open access. The survey’s aims were to investigate the authors’ awareness of new open access possibilities, the ease of identification of and submission to open access outlets, their experiences of publishing their work in this way, their concerns about any implications open access publishing may have upon their careers, and the reasons why (or not) they chose to publish through an open access outlet

Modelling scholarly communication options: costs and benefits for universities

The study modelled the economic benefits from a switch to Open Access via three different routes - by publication in Open Access journals ('Gold' Open Access), by providing Open Access through repositories ('Green' Open Access) while continuing with the traditional subscription journal system, and by providing Open Access through repositories with overlaid quality control (publishing) services

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models : exploring the costs and benefits. JISC EI-ASPM Project. A report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

A knowledge economy has been defined as: “…one in which the generation and exploitation of knowledge has come to play the predominant part in the creation of wealth. It is not simply about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge; it is also about the more effective use and exploitation of all types of knowledge in all manner of economic activities” (DTI 1998). In a knowledge economy, innovation and the capacity of the system to create and disseminate the latest scientific and technical information are important determinants of prosperity (David and Foray 1995; OECD 1997). Scholarly publishing plays a key role, as it is central to the efficiency of research and to the dissemination of research findings and diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge. But, advances in information and communication technologies are disrupting traditional models of scholarly publishing, radically changing our capacity to reproduce, distribute, control, and publish information. The key question is whether there are new opportunities and new models for scholarly publishing that would better serve researchers and better communicate and disseminate research findings (OECD 2005, p14)

Journal flipping or a public open access infrastructure? What kind of open access future do we want?

Open access debates are increasingly focused on “how” rather than “why”. Tony Ross-Hellauer and Benedikt Fecher present two possible scenarios for an open access future, consider the relative merits and viability of each, and invite your input to the discussion

Liquid Journals: Knowledge Dissemination in the Web Era

In this paper we redefine the notion of "scientific journal" to update it to the age of the Web. We explore the historical reasons behind the current journal model, and we show that this model is essentially the same today, even if the Web has made dissemination essentially free. We propose a notion of liquid and personal journals that evolve continuously in time and that are targeted to serve individuals or communities of arbitrarily small or large scales. The liquid journals provide "interesting" content, in the form of "scientific contributions" that are "related" to a certain paper, topic, or area, and that are posted (on their web site, repositories, traditional journals) by "inspiring" researchers. As such, the liquid journal separates the notion of "publishing" (which can be achieved by submitting to traditional peer review journals or just by posting content on the Web) from the appearance of contributions into the journals, which are essentially collections of content. In this paper we introduce the liquid journal model, and demonstrate through some examples its value to individuals and communities. Finally, we describe an architecture and a working prototype that implements the proposed model