This taxonomy combines the Freemium models suggested by Ch.Anderson and applies them in the open access context to better understand the transitional business models that publishers and journals are facing today.

1. Free 1 Free 2 Free 3 Free 4
Direct cross-subsidy get one thing free
pay another. Products and price some
at zero (or close to it) to make the
other products more attractive. Pay-one-
get-one; hide the price or betting
you will buy something.
Ad-Supported; third party subsidezes
second party. The most common: a third
party pays to participate in a market
created by a free exchange between the
first two parties. 'Selling' attention (or
readers). The primary cost feels free.
Freemium'; a few people subsidize everyone
else. For every user who pays for the premium
version of the site, nineteen others get the
basic free version.
Gift economy; people give away things for non-monetary
rewards. Onclude a range of possibilities
from reputation and attention to less measurable
factors such as expression, influence, visibility,
leadership, and simply self-interest. Free labour or
donation.
Community publishing: They are
published online for free (Open
Access) and in addition they are
sometimes sold on subscription in
print. [F3 is also applicable]
Journals supported by advertising or
sponsorship advertising can help to defray
any unavoidable overheads expenses.
Advertising sales can help to support Open
Access, and although the great majority of
journals cannot hope to attract sufficient
advertising revenue to support an
operation with substantial overhead costs
(advertising can be a partial solution).
Priced editions:The model is for a journal to
provide OA to one edition and sell access to
another edition. The OA edition should contain
the full text and other information (charts,
illustrations, links, etc.), but the priced edition
may appear earlier in time or include extra
features, such as print.
Fund-raising: The model is to solicit donations,
periodically or continuously.
Hard copy sales: Some journals
support their Open Access publishing
model wholly or partly by sales of the
print version. [F3 is also applicable]
The model is to use advertising on the
journal's web site or article pages in order
to generate income to help support the
journal.
A a "premium content search engine that is
useful to both users and publishers". The
model requires users to register. Then
"provides users with controlled and
measurable access into premium content"
from participating publishers, which would
otherwise be toll access, while ensuring
publishers "maintain full control over their
valuable content."
The journal offers the OA option without any fee at
all (or at a discounted fee), for authors in certain
categories, for example, authors who are members of
a certain society, authors who are employees of a
subscribing institution, authors who serve as an
editor or referee for one of the publisher's journals,
and so on.
‘Hybrid’ Open Acces(+) In some cases,
publishers reduce their subscription
prices as revenue from the Open
Access option rises( but in most cases
this does not happen and publishers
benefit from the Open Access article-processing
fee as extra income).
There are many forms of university
subsidies for OA journals: in-house
publication of OA journals; funds to pay
publication fees at fee-based OA journals;
and provision of facilities, equipment, or
personnel.
Temporary OA: The model is for a publisher to
offer free online access to a work for a
restricted period, after which the work
becomes toll access. The OA period may occur
just once or periodically.
The model is for an institution to subsidize an OA
journal, in whole or part, directly or indirectly. It may
provide cash, facilities, equipment, or personnel. The
institution may be of any kind, for example, a
university, laboratory, research center, library,
learned society, museum, hospital, for-profit
corporation, non-profit organization, foundation, or
government agency. [F2 is also applicable]
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2. Free 1 Free 2 Free 3 Free 4
Direct cross-subsidy get one thing free
pay another. Products and price some
at zero (or close to it) to make the
other products more attractive. Pay-one-
get-one; hide the price or betting
you will buy something.
Ad-Supported; third party subsidezes
second party. The most common: a third
party pays to participate in a market
created by a free exchange between the
first two parties. 'Selling' attention (or
readers). The primary cost feels free.
Freemium'; a few people subsidize everyone
else. For every user who pays for the premium
version of the site, nineteen others get the
basic free version.
Gift economy; people give away things for non-monetary
rewards. Onclude a range of possibilities
from reputation and attention to less measurable
factors such as expression, influence, visibility,
leadership, and simply self-interest. Free labour or
donation.
The model is for an OA journal to offer
branded products for sale, either
internally or through a vendor (e.g.,
Cafe Press).
Government subsidies. There are many
forms of government subsidies for OA
journals: direct grants to OA journals or
publishers; grants to researchers which
they may use for publication fees or page
charges at OA journals; in-house
publication of OA journals; tax deductions
for non-profit publishers of OA journals;
budgetary support for public universities
which the institutions may use to publish
OA journals, subsidize OA journals, or hire
faculty who spend part of their work-time
editing OA journals. [F4 is also applicable]
Value-added services: The model is to offer
extra services on top of OA content. A range of
services is possible, for example, article alert
services and site customization
Volunteer effort:The model is to use unpaid
volunteers for some of the work in producing the
journal. All scholarly journals (OA and non-OA) use
volunteers to some extent, as authors, referees,
and/or some kinds of editors.
The journal charges one fee for OA
articles that also appear in the non-OA
edition available to subscribers, and a
lower fee for OA articles that do not
appear in the non-OA edition.
Article-processing charges: Many Open
Access journals levy a charge at the ‘front
end’ of the publishing process. This article-processing
charge (APC) is paid by authors,
their institutions or their research funders.
(The long-term outcomes – that is, the
long-term sustainability – of such
initiatives are as yet unclear.) [F1 is also
applicable]
The notion of a book can be deconstructed so
that there is a basic product – the text – plus
various levels of added value. Examples could
be extensive hyper-linking, additional graphics,
linked datasets, teaching aids, translations and
so forth, with buyers opting to pay extra for
whichever extras they want.
Repositories sell nothing, at least for cash, but they
return value in other ways to the institution or
community that supports them (There is concern that
some or most of these may not be sustainable in the
long term)
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3. Free 1 Free 2 Free 3 Free 4
Direct cross-subsidy get one thing free
pay another. Products and price some
at zero (or close to it) to make the
other products more attractive. Pay-one-
get-one; hide the price or betting
you will buy something.
Ad-Supported; third party subsidezes
second party. The most common: a third
party pays to participate in a market
created by a free exchange between the
first two parties. 'Selling' attention (or
readers). The primary cost feels free.
Freemium'; a few people subsidize everyone
else. For every user who pays for the premium
version of the site, nineteen others get the
basic free version.
Gift economy; people give away things for non-monetary
rewards. Onclude a range of possibilities
from reputation and attention to less measurable
factors such as expression, influence, visibility,
leadership, and simply self-interest. Free labour or
donation.
Publication fees:The model is to charge
a fee upon acceptance of a OA article
for publication. The idea is for the fee
to cover the costs of production.
Because rejected articles pay no
publication fee, the publication fee
must cover the costs of publishing the
accepted article plus the cost of
reviewing the number of submissions
rejected for each accepted submission.
Membership dues: The model is for a
membership organization, like a learned
society, to use membership dues to
support an OA journal, in whole or part.
[F4 is also applicable]
Sponsorship: for an occasional volume where a
sponsor wishes to support the publication for
philanthropic reasons or to increase the reach of a
particular message. [F2 is also applicable]
‘Hybrid’ Open Access is the situation
where article- processing charges are
paid to make individual articles Open
Access within otherwise subscription-based
journals.
Subsidy: This is a model used by some
university presses whose parent
institution recognises the value of
dissemination of research outputs (books)
even though there is a cost to the
institution in doing this.
Crowdfunding: The model is for potential projects to
be pitched online; the broader community—the
“crowd” —may then choose to fund the submitted
work with financial donations, which cover
production costs.
Hybrid OA journals: The model is for a
journal to publish some OA articles and
some non-OA articles, when the choice
between the two is the author's rather
than the editor's. Authors who choose
the OA option must typically pay a
publication fee or find a sponsor to pay
a fee. Alternatively, the journal could
promise to reduce the subscription
price in proportion to author uptake of
the OA option
Institutional membership schemes: Some
Open Access publishers have also
introduced an institutional membership
scheme. A number of variants have been
introduced so far, including: schemes
where institutions pay a lump sum in
advance to cover the cost of articles that
their authors will publish.
Collaborative purchasing models: a collection of
institutions, research laboratories and scholarly
societies that, together with national research
funders, will pay certain sums to the publishers of
journals in return for making the entire contents of
those journals Open Access. [F2 is also applicable]
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4. Free 1 Free 2 Free 3 Free 4
Direct cross-subsidy get one thing free
pay another. Products and price some
at zero (or close to it) to make the
other products more attractive. Pay-one-
get-one; hide the price or betting
you will buy something.
Ad-Supported; third party subsidezes
second party. The most common: a third
party pays to participate in a market
created by a free exchange between the
first two parties. 'Selling' attention (or
readers). The primary cost feels free.
Freemium'; a few people subsidize everyone
else. For every user who pays for the premium
version of the site, nineteen others get the
basic free version.
Gift economy; people give away things for non-monetary
rewards. Onclude a range of possibilities
from reputation and attention to less measurable
factors such as expression, influence, visibility,
leadership, and simply self-interest. Free labour or
donation.
Hard copy sales: Publishers make the
digital version of their books Open
Access online and earn revenue from
print sales.
Institutional subsidy: Institutions formally
subsidise journal publishing wherever they
are supporting, even if it is by subventing
overhead costs, Open Access journal
publishing operations by a university press
or by the library. (Although the
sustainability of this model may seem
unclear at this stage).
Endowments: The model is for an OA publication to
build an endowment and use the annual interest to
cover its expenses.
Colors taxonomy
Institutional model: the operation is supported by the institution.
Community model: the operation is supported by the community by cash donations or in-kind support
Public sponsors model: the operation is supported by ongoing sponsorship from a public body such as a national ICT organisation
Subscription model: the operation trades, and is supported through subscription payments from its users
Commercial model: the organisation trades, and is supported through cash payments from users and/or advertising
By Cristóbal Cobo, phd (Oxford Internet Institute) v.01 October 2014
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