Presentation by Demmy Verbeke at Open Belgium 2018 - http://2018.openbelgium.be/session/open-access-terrible-idea-unless-it-done-right

1. Open Access is a terrible idea*
(*unless it is done right)
Demmy Verbeke

2. Introduction
What is Open Access?
Why should we care?
How do we do it?
2

3. What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) literature is:
digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and
licensing restrictions
OA removes
price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees)
permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions)
Academic publications
articles in scholarly journals
monographs with scholarly publishers
3
Peter Suber, Open Access Overview [https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm]
Peter Suber, Open Access (MIT Press, 2012)

4. Why should we care?
1. Ethical reasons
2. Academic reasons
3. Financial reasons
4

5. Why should we care?
1. Ethical reasons
 results of scholarly research available to general public
 results of scholarly research available for scholars all over the world
regardless of whether they are affiliated with a university or not
regardless of whether they are affiliated with an institution which can afford to buy a lot of
academic publications or not
5
Stephen Curry, ‘Open access: the beast that no-on could - or should - control?’, in Nerlich et al., eds., Science and the politics of
openness – Here be monsters (Manchester UP, 2018), pp. 33-53

6. Why should we care?
2. Academic interests
 better for scholarship, better for the scholar
 proven increase in visibility and use
 proven positive effect on alt-metrics: research picked up easier by
journalists, companies & policy-makers
 academics are more or more obliged: OA mandates from
funders/governments
6 The Open Access Citation Advantage [https://www.scienceopen.com/collection/OA_cite]

7. Why should we care?
3. Financial reasons
Cost of academic publishing
Focus mostly on subscription cost (“serials
crisis”)
Rise in cost of monographs considered less
problematic (but of course: if subscription costs
rise, there is no budget for monographs)
7

8. Why should we care?
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/9905.htm
Paul Jung, ‘Spending on subscriptions to journals rises by up to 50%’, THE, 2014
pace Kent Anderson, ‘Revisiting: Have Journal Prices Really Increased Much in the Digital Age?’, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2016
8
The amount of
money paid by UK
universities to
subscribe to some
large publishers’
journals has risen by
almost 50 per cent
since 2010

9. Why should we care?
9
Close to home:
Arts Faculty library of
KU Leuven
€ 0.00
€ 50,000.00
€ 100,000.00
€ 150,000.00
€ 200,000.00
€ 250,000.00
€ 300,000.00
€ 350,000.00
2004 2005 2006 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012
Budget vs. Subscription Cost
Budget
Subscription Cost

10. How do we do it?
1. Green OA
2. For-profit Gold OA
3. Non-profit Gold OA
10
Terminology in following slides partly based on R. Johnson, M. Fosci, A. Chiarelli, S. Pinfield and M. Jubb, Towards A Competitive And Sustainable OA Market In Europe – A
Study Of The Open Access Market And Policy Environment (OpenAIRE, 2017) [doi:10.5281/zenodo.401029], pp. 20-23
Photo: Philip Bouchard

11. Green OA
old paradigm
solution for some, but not all problems
11

12. Green OA
12
Author him/herself deposits version in a digital archive
(“repository”)
Green OA version is rarely the only published version, it is an alternative
version, next to the commercial one
quite often: Green OA version is inferior to the commercial one (pre- or post-
print)
quite often: embargo (Green OA version is made available later than commercial
version)

13. Green OA
13
• Ethical reasons for OA
 Green OA provides solution
• Academic reasons for OA
 Green OA only provides partial solution
=> in most fields not really a challenge for the
traditional publication model
• Financial reasons for OA
 Green OA does not provide a solution
Photo: Howard Ignatius

14. Green OA
14
the old paradigm
high hopes, e.g. Stevan Harnad: “the inevitable success of transitional Green OA”
when no-embargo Green OA is universally mandated and provided, there will be a transition to Fair Gold
OA, with peer-review being the only remaining service provided by publishers, and paid for by institutions
out of a fraction of their subscription cancellation savings
but also criticism, e.g. Michael Eisen: “the inevitable failure of parasitic Green OA”
fundamental logical flaw: subscription publishers only give their blessing to Green OA so long as they
don’t see it as a threat; proof: subscription publishers limit author self-archiving much more than they used
to do, for instance by lengthening embargo periods
in any case: high hopes not (yet) fulfilled, Green OA is no game-changer but in most
cases an alternative next to the traditional publication model
for Harnad vs. Eisen see Mike Taylor, ‘Green and Gold: the possible futures of Open Access’, 2015 [https://svpow.com/2015/05/26/green-and-gold-the-possible-futures-of-open-
access/]
Bo-Christer Björk – David Salomon, Developing an Effective Market for Open Access Article Processing Charges, 2014 [https://wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/developing-
effective-market-for-open-access-article-processing-charges-mar14.pdf]

15. For-profit Gold OA
OA mandates risk making this the new paradigm
(extremely) costly if not managed well
15

16. For-profit Gold OA
16
Author immediately publishes in OA
Gold OA version is the final version, no reason to distribute inferior versions
APCs/BPCs : producer pays (sometimes in combination with payment by consumer)
1. Gold Hybrid
fee for OA article in a subscription-based journal or OA chapter in a commercial book
“double dipping”: consumer and producer pay
“the hybrid model, as currently defined and implemented by publishers, is not a working and
viable pathway to OA”
Gold Hybrid was explained away as a “transitional model” but don’t believe everything they
tell you
2. Gold APC/BPC
only producer pays
Science Europe: Principles to Open Access to Research Publications, 2015 [http://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SE_POA_Pos_Statement _WEB_
FINAL_20150617.pdf]
Bo-Christer Björk, ’Growth of hybrid open access, 2009–2016’, PeerJ , 2017 [https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3878]

17. For-profit Gold OA
17
academics are driven to for-profit Gold OA by OA mandates at great cost
Example:
state of OA publishing in the UK after “the spectacularly bad Finch report”
“a clear policy direction towards support for publication in open access or hybrid journals,
funded by APCs, as the main vehicle for the publication of research, especially when it is
publicly funded”
Green OA is permissible if the embargo period is <6 months for STEM and <12 months for
HASS; otherwise funds are provided to pay for Gold OA
Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications: publications, 2012 [https://www.acu.ac.uk/research-information-network/finch-report-final]
Danny Kinsley, ‘So did it work? Considering the impact of Finch 5 years on’, 2017 [https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/269913]
Gavia Libraria, ‘Finland joins the fray’, 2016 [https://gavialib.com/2016/12/finland-joins-the-fray/]

18. For-profit Gold OA
Sounds good at first, but:
more Gold Hybrid compared to the rest of the world
80% of the spend is on Gold Hybrid; the “flipping” plan has failed
“publishers adapt their policies to maximise the ability of their
journals to capture the additional funds being injected into open
access, by either imposing non-compliant embargo periods or
charging more for mandated licences”
centrally-managed APC expenditure has continued to rise steeply
(555% since 2012), 2017-18 RCUK block grant allocations to
support the RCUK Policy on OA add up to more than £8 million
largest number of payments was made … to commercial
publishers; Elsevier and Wiley, i.e. two traditional subscription-
based publishers, represent 40% of the total APC spend
university libraries act as the middle men transferring government
funds to commercial publishers – similar to the subscription model,
but this time around it concerns even more money and they have
more administration costs themselves
18
Monitoring the transition to Open Access, 2015 [https://www.acu.ac.uk/research-information-network/monitoring-transition-to-open-accessl]
Danny Kinsley, ‘So did it work? Considering the impact of Finch 5 years on’, 2017 [https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/269913]
André Sartori – Danny Kinsley, ‘Flipping journals or filling pockets? Publisher manipulation of OA policies’, 2017 [https://unlockingresearch-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=1726]

19. 19
any deal that stimulates Hybrid Gold OA is clearly no good but maybe we
should offset APCs against subscription costs?
only if:
1. offsetting agreement is transitional
2. offsetting deal is transformative
3. offsetting deal comes at the same cost or cheaper than the subscription deal
4. offsetting deal does not come at the expense of disciplines where the big publishers
currently have a very limited market share
5. offsetting deal does not come at the expense of non-profit Gold OA initiatives
Offsetting deals
LERU statement "Christmas is over. Research funding should go to research, not to publishers!" - Moving forward on Open Access, 2015 [https://www.leru.org/files/LERU-
Statement-Moving-Forwards-on-Open-Access2.pdf]
https://oa2020.org/

20. 20
in order to get a deal like that:
 only enter negotiation if fully prepared (extensive and detailed analysis of publication
and usage data)
 failure (no deal) MUST be an option
and remember:
1. offsetting deals are “complex, uneven and difficult to manage”
2. offsetting deals hold the risk of strengthening the oligopoly in fields where there
already is a oligopoly and threatens to introduce an oligopoly in the few fields where
there is still none (so introduce countermeasures)
3. it is extremely difficult to get a good deal, so you only stand a chance if you let your
best and brightest spend a lot of time on this
4. every “victory” risks being a short-term victory
Offsetting deals
https://oa2020.org/
Danny Kinsley, ‘So did it work? Considering the impact of Finch 5 years on’, 2017 [https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/269913

21. 21
do not expect a for-profit market for
academic publishing funded by APCs/BPCS
to be better than a for-profit market funded
by subscriptions/book sales
“The APC OA market is evolving rapidly and growing
at about 30% a year. The overall APC revenue was
estimated to be approximately 182 million USD in
2012 and growing at about 34% a year …
Among the established OA publishers with journals
listed in Scopus, the average APC grew by
about 5% a year over the last two years.”
For-profit Gold OA
Bo-Christer Björk – David Salomon, Developing an Effective Market for Open Access Article Processing Charges, 2014 [https://wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/developing-
effective-market-for-open-access-article-processing-charges-mar14.pdf]
Photo: The Waving Cat

22. For-profit Gold OA
22
• Ethical reasons for OA
 For-profit Gold OA provides solution
(possibly at great cost)
• Academic reasons for OA
 For-profit Gold OA provides solution
(possibly at great cost)
• Financial reasons for OA
 unregulated for-profit Gold OA will not
provide a solution (quite the opposite)
Photo: Howard Ignatius

23. For-profit Gold OA
23
Conclusion (so far):
 traditional publication model (despite rising costs) seems better than non-regulated for-profit Gold
OA model
 add Green OA, but:
o either only if it remains un-threatening
o or with a strong international OA mandate for no-embargo Green OA
 (for-profit) Gold OA is Fool’s Gold OA if we’re not careful
 (for-profit) Gold OA is a terrible idea if it is not done right (so please, please, please, no more OA
mandates without no-embargo Green OA provisions, with extra for-profit APC/BPC funding
stimulating Hybrid Gold OA)

24. Non-profit Gold OA
let’s try to make this the new paradigm (perhaps only the legal version?)
cost-effective
24

25. Non-profit OA
25
 Illegal distribution of scholarly publications
e.g. Sci-Hub: “the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to
tens of millions of research papers”, willful copyright infringement, Sci-Hub provides
access to scholarly literature via full text PDF downloads, coverage in some disciplines
>90%
 Abandon academic publishing as we know it
e.g. Herbert Van de Sompel’s researcher’s pods: contributor-centric instead of
document-centric
 Fair Gold OA
Author immediately publishes in OA
Gold OA version is the final version, no reason to distribute inferior versions
either cost-effective APCs/BPCs, or third party pays for (real) cost of publishing
D.S. Himmelstein et al., ‘Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature’,eLife, 2018 [https://elifesciences.org/articles/32822]
Herbert Van de Sompel, ‘Scholarly Communication: Deconstruct and Decentralize?, 2017 [https://youtu.be/o4nUe-6Ln-8]

26. Fair Gold OA
Strict conditions preventing commercial exploitation of the
publication of research results, ensuring that researchers remain in
full and total control of the dissemination of the results of their
research
• The title is owned by the author, editorial board or by a learned society
• Authors retain copyright and a CC-BY license applies
• All articles/books are published in Full OA (no costs on the side of the
consumer, no subscriptions, no “double dipping”)
• Publishing costs are low, transparent, and in proportion to the value
added by the publisher
26 https://www.fairopenaccess.org/

27. Fair Gold OA
27
Martin Paul Eve, Saskia C.J. de Vries and Johan Rooryck, “The Transition to Open Access: The State of the Market, Offsetting Deals, and a Demonstrated Model for Fair Open
Access with the Open Library of Humanities,” in: Expanding Perspectives on Open Science: Communities, Cultures and Diversity in Concepts and Practices, eds. L. Chan – F.
Loizides (IOS Press, 2017), 118–128 [doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-769-6-118]

28. Fair Gold OA
Why would all pre-Green Gold OA be Fool’s Gold? (cf. Harnad)
Why wait for the commercial publishers? (who would be fools to work against their own interests)
Fair Gold OA university presses or even academic libraries: “Libraries have the potential to become the
crucial nexus for knowledge flows on campus, working both—as they have long done—to collect the
knowledge produced around the world for study on their campus and—as they are increasingly doing—to
disseminate the knowledge produced on campus around the world.”
Why would it be cheaper to produce a Fair OA publication?
exactly the same attention to quality control: same efforts in organising peer review, in providing professional
lay-out, professional archiving, professional distribution, etc.
but intention is not to make (as much as possible) profit, but to work cost-effectively
but you save money on subscription management, digital rights management, legal fees for licensing,
marketing
28 Peter Suber, Open Access (MIT Press, 2012)
Dan Cohen and Kathleen Fitzpatrick in Getting the Word Out: Academic Libraries as Scholarly Publishers, edited by Maria Bonn and Mike Furlough (ALA, 2015)

29. Non-profit Gold OA
29
• Ethical reasons for OA
 Non-profit Gold OA provides solution
• Academic reasons for OA
 Non-profit Gold OA provides solution
• Financial reasons for OA
 Non-profit Gold OA provides solution
Photo: Laura Sangha

30. Coda
not only words
30

31. OA at KU Leuven
Officially (until 2018):
- investment in Green OA: both infrastructure (Lirias) and staff (OA support
desk and student workers in KU Leuven Libraries)
- very moderate support for Fair Gold OA (no APC/BPC): e.g. Open Library of
Humanities
- no support for for-profit Gold OA
31

32. OA at KU Leuven
In reality:
yearly spend on for-profit Gold OA (mostly APCs) estimated between
€375.000 and €500.000
N.B. on top of (no OA) collection budget spent by KU Leuven Libraries – c.
€8.000.000/year
N.B. on top of other costs for academic publishing (e.g. submission fees) –
cost unknown
32
Carl Demeyere et al., Analyse APCs 2015 KU Leuven, 2017
Photo: Alex Proimos

33. OA at KU Leuven
strengthening the support for Fair Gold OA (no APC/BPC)
e.g. not only Open Library of the Humanities but also Language Science Press
KU Leuven Fund for Fair OA (since March 2018)
BPCs for Fair Gold OA monographs published by Leuven University Press
APCs for Fair Gold OA journal articles (regardless of publisher)
33 https://bib.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/open-access/kulfondsfairoa

34. BPC of c. €6.500, representing real cost of publishing
scientific value guaranteed: assessment for OA support completely
separated from peer review assessment of manuscript
open to all (not only authors from KU Leuven):
KU Leuven-affiliation: 1/3 own means* + 2/3 from fund
No KU Leuven-affiliation: 1/3 from fund + 2/3 own means
* fee waiver possibility
34
KU Leuven Fund for Fair OA
https://bib.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/open-access/kulfondsfairoa

35. APCs based on real publishing cost (typically less than €1.000)
publication in full OA (no hybrid, no geo-blocking)
copyright remains with author
scientific value needs to be guaranteed (DOAJ, WoS/VABB-SHW)
only open to authors from KU Leuven
35 https://bib.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/open-access/kulfondsfairoa
KU Leuven Fund for Fair OA

36. 36
demmy.verbeke@kuleuven.be
bib.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/open-
access/kulfondsfairoa
@viroviacum