APCs – Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model?
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Nina Schoenfelder Bielefeld University With the ongoing open-access transformation, article processing charges (APCs) are gaining importance as the dominant business model for scientific open-access journals. This paper analyzes which factors determine the level of an APC by means of multivariate linear regression. The results show that the journal’s impact and the hybrid status are the most important factors. However, the relationship between APC and SNIP is different for open-access journals and hybrid journals. The journal’s impact is crucial for the level of APCs in open-access journals, whereas it little alters APCs for publications in hybrid-journals.
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APCs – Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model?
- 1. APCs Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model? UKSG Annual Conference Telford, 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder
- 2. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE National Contact Point Open Access OA2020-DE Project goal: Create prerequisites for the large-scale open access transformation in Germany Working Package 4: Analysing financial flows, shaping financial models, and consultation with funders
- 3. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Steps Focus here: Analysing the determinants of APC-levels Schönfelder, N. (2018). APCs — Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription- based model? Bielefeld: Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld. doi:10.4119/unibi/2931061 Follow-up study 1: Projecting APCs for currently hybrid or closed-access journals Follow-up study 2: Comparing projected total APC-spending with libraries budgets‘ after a hypothetical full journal flipping for each German university and research institute
- 4. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Agenda Data Method Results Conclusion
- 5. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Data OpenAPC data set (from 2018-02-06) • Aggregates data from Jisc yearly collections of cost data and the Wellcome Trust publishing yearly reports of all their funded articles, among others • APCs actually paid (in contract to catalogue prices) • Country, period, journal type (hybrid/oa), journal title, publisher CWTS Journal Indicators 2016 (calculated by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies based on the Scopus bibliographic database produced by Elsevier) • “Source Normalized Impact per Paper” (SNIP) • Subject area of the journal
- 6. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Summary statistics country GBR :24572 DEU :14054 AUT : 4244 SWE : 1532 NOR : 1171 CAN : 929 (Other): 1240 institution UCL : 4526 FWF : 4205 Wellcome Trust : 3782 MPG : 3465 University of Cambridge : 2044 University of Oxford : 1506 (Other) :28214 period 2016 :16210 2015 :12892 2014 :11178 2013 : 3253 2012 : 1472 2017 : 905 (Other): 1832 publisher Elsevier BV : 6838 Springer Nature : 6484 PLoS : 5690 Wiley-Blackwell : 4265 Springer S+B Media : 3627 Frontiers Media SA : 2718 (Other) :18120 SNIP Min. : 0.000 1st Qu.: 1.050 Median : 1.230 Mean : 1.435 3rd Qu.: 1.620 Max. :15.870 NA's :5013 journal_full_title PLOS ONE : 4789 Scientific Reports : 1388 New Journal of Physics : 983 Frontiers in Psychology: 680 Nature Communications : 630 BMJ Open : 437 (Other) :38835 is_hybrid Mode :logical FALSE:26755 TRUE :20987 Subject.area Health Sciences :10616 Life Sciences :20312 Physical Sciences : 9462 Social S. & Humanities: 2339 NA's : 5013 euro Min. : 40 1st Qu.:1255 Median :1738 Mean :1924 3rd Qu.:2450 Max. :9079
- 7. Total sample APC in euro Frequency 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 020004000600080001000012000 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Histogram of APC in euro Article Processing Charges range mostly between 1,000 – 3,000 EUR. but amount sometimes to 5,000 – 6,000 EUR.
- 8. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Box plots of APC in euro for open-access and hybrid journals FALSE TRUE 02000400060008000 Total sample Hybrid APCineuro Article Processing Charges range mostly between 1,000 – 3,000 EUR. but amount sometimes to 5,000 – 6,000 EUR. are (on average) more expensive in hybrid journals.
- 9. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Box plots of APC depending on publisher other ElsevierBV FrontiersMediaSA PublicLibraryofScience(PLoS) SpringerNature SpringerScience+BusinessMedia Wiley-Blackwell 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 Total sample APCineuro Article Processing Charges range mostly between 1,000 – 3,000 EUR. but amount sometimes to 5,000 – 6,000 EUR. are (on average) more expensive in hybrid journals. are quite different depending on publisher.
- 10. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Scatter plot of APC vs. SNIP Article Processing Charges range mostly between 1,000 – 3,000 EUR. but amount sometimes to 5,000 – 6,000 EUR. are (on average) more expensive in hybrid journals. are quite different depending on publisher. are related to the citation impact (SNIP).
- 11. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Share of articles published in open-access vs. hybrid journals hybrid other ElsevierBV FrontiersMediaSA PublicLibraryofScience(PLoS) SpringerNature SpringerScience+BusinessMedia Wiley-Blackwell FALSE TRUE 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Total sample Articles are published often in hybrid journals at Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell. often in open-access journals at Springer and Nature.
- 12. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Histogram of SNIP for openAPC-records Total sample Source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) Frequency 0 5 10 15 05000100001500020000 Articles are published often in hybrid journals at Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell. often in open-access journals at Springer and Nature. rarely in high-impact journals.
- 13. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Box plots of SNIP for open-access or hybrid journals FALSE TRUE 0.00.51.01.52.02.5 Journals in 2016 Hybrid SNIP Journals that are open access tend to have lower impact. hybrid tend to have higher impact.
- 14. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Method and statistical model Multivariate linear regression of Ordinary least squares (OLS) Heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors Software: R Sub-sample: UK, 2014‒2016, without outliers (1%-quantile< X <99%-quantile)
- 15. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 (Intercept) 1797.19 (19.95)*** 1800.70 (10.39)*** 727.92 (40.98)*** 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 320.42 (12.98)*** 788.60 (31.82)*** 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 702.61 (12.42)*** 1475.81 (43.96)*** 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −603.29 (33.19)*** −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Adj. R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 23818 22310 22310 RMSE 888.05 878.87 818.79 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1
- 16. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 (Intercept) 1797.19 (19.95)*** 1800.70 (10.39)*** 727.92 (40.98)*** 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 320.42 (12.98)*** 788.60 (31.82)*** 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 702.61 (12.42)*** 1475.81 (43.96)*** 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −603.29 (33.19)*** −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Adj. R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 23818 22310 22310 RMSE 888.05 878.87 818.79 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1
- 17. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 (Intercept) 1797.19 (19.95)*** 1800.70 (10.39)*** 727.92 (40.98)*** 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 320.42 (12.98)*** 788.60 (31.82)*** 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 702.61 (12.42)*** 1475.81 (43.96)*** 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −603.29 (33.19)*** −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Adj. R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 23818 22310 22310 RMSE 888.05 878.87 818.79 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1
- 18. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 (Intercept) 1797.19 (19.95)*** 1800.70 (10.39)*** 727.92 (40.98)*** 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 320.42 (12.98)*** 788.60 (31.82)*** 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 702.61 (12.42)*** 1475.81 (43.96)*** 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −603.29 (33.19)*** −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Adj. R2 0.10 0.12 0.24 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 23818 22310 22310 RMSE 888.05 878.87 818.79 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1
- 19. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 4 (Intercept) 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.31 Adj. R2 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 RMSE 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1 Base groups Year: 2014 Publisher: other / smaller Subject area: health sciences Journal type: open access Equation for PLoS-articles in life sciences in 2016 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 519 − 328 + 179 + 283 + 728 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 653 + 728 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 for Elsevier hybrid-journal, else as above 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 519 + 225 + 179 + 283 + 1,396 + 728 − 540 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 2,602 + 188 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃
- 20. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Example for in-sample prediction (SNIP=1, life sciences, 2016) PLOS ONE article in life sciences in 2016 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 653 + 728 = 1,381 € Article in “Journal of Neuroscience Methods” (Elsevier hybrid-journal) 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 2,602 + 188 = 2,790 € Equation for PLoS-articles in life sciences in 2016 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 519 − 328 + 179 + 283 + 728 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 653 + 728 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 for Elsevier hybrid-journal, else as above 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 519 + 225 + 179 + 283 + 1,396 + 728 − 540 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃 𝐴𝑃𝐶 = 2,602 + 188 × 𝑆𝑁𝐼𝑃
- 21. 0 2 4 6 8 10 10002000300040005000 Estimated, linear relationship Source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) APCineuro Life Sciences; 2016; other publisher Open-Access Hybrid 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Results Model 4 (Intercept) 519.38 (40.96)*** SNIP 728.07 (29.74)*** is_hybrid 1395.93 (43.07)*** SNIP:is_hybrid −539.69 (31.32)*** Elsevier BV 225.06 (15.76)*** Frontiers Media SA −114.05 (31.03)*** Public Library of Science (PLoS) −328.48 (20.28)*** Springer Nature 235.59 (22.34)*** Springer Science + Business Media 145.00 (20.60)*** Wiley-Blackwell −29.11 (15.19)* Life Sciences 179.48 (13.62)*** Physical Sciences −146.77 (15.10)*** Social Sciences and Humanities −374.95 (26.47)*** period 2015 312.13 (14.28)*** period 2016 283.40 (13.45)*** R2 0.31 Adj. R2 0.31 Num. obs. 22310 RMSE 777.41 ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1
- 22. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE In-sample APC-prediction
- 23. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Actual and predicted total amount of APCs
- 24. 08–10.04.2019 Dr. Nina Schönfelder – OA2020-DE Conclusion APCs – Mirroring the impact factor? • In open-access journals! • At genuine open-access publishers! APCs – Legacy of the subscription-based model? • In hybrid journals! • Often at Elsevier, Springer and co.!
- 25. Questions? Dr. Nina Schönfelder National Contact-Point Open-Access OA2020-DE Bielefeld University Library Universitätsstr. 25 | D-33615 Bielefeld Tel.: +49 (0) 521/106-2546 | email: nina.schoenfelder@uni-bielefeld.de www.oa2020-de.org @oa2020de Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International Lizenz.
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Do you want to save 8 Mio EUR? Does anybody of the librarians here want to save 8 Mio EUR? Anyone? You?! Ok, let’s start! Hello! My name is Nina Schönfelder and I am from the National Contact Point for Open-Access in Germany
- The strategic goal of the Contact Point is to create requirements for the large-scale open access transformation in Germany. In contrast to the global OA2020 Initiative, we focus on national implications. We support the transformation process by extensive publication and cost data analyses for German universities and research institutes. Moreover, we develop open-access financial models and business models. [OA2020-DE is part of an established OA2020 community, and is working closely with DEAL.] [The project is funded by the Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany for three years.]
- My presentation here is the first step to assess whether the large-scale open-access transformation of scientific journals is a financially viable way for German research and higher-education institutions. Today, I will present my analysis on the determinants of APC-levels, which is already published as a working paper and you can find online and in the conference app. It is called: APCs — Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model? In a follow-up study, we are going to project APCs for currently hybrid or closed-access journals. Then, we will take these projected APCs, multiply them with the publication output and compare it with the libraries budgets‘. We will do this for each German institution individually.
- My presentation is divided in four parts: First, I am going to briefly discuss the data I used and the method that I applied. Then, I will present the results of the empirical analysis. Finally, I will give a conclusion.
- For analyzing the APC-determinants, I used the OpenAPC dataset from February 2018. The OpenAPC initiative releases data sets on fees for open-access journal-articles paid by universities, funders and research institutions under an open database license. It is a project at the Bielefeld University Library in Germany and currently funded by the German Research Foundation. The Open APCs data set aggregates… It contains data on … I merged the OpenAPC data set with the CTWS Journal Indicators compiled at the Leiden University (The Netherlands). They contain the so-called “source normalized impact per paper” (SNIP), a measure for the average citation impact of the publications of a journal, -- as well as the subject area of a journal. The SNIP is similar to the well-known Journal Impact Factor (IF) of Clarivate Analytics, but the SNIP corrects for differences in citation practices between scientific fields. Moreover, the SNIP is freely available.
- We will first look at some summary statistics describing the data set. Most APC-payments are reported from UK, followed by Germany with huge distance. At that time, the last completed reporting year was 2016. In that year, about 16,000 APC-funded articles were registered. The reports from 2017 were incomplete at that time. Most APC-funded articles reported to OpenAPC were published by Elsevier, Springer Nature and Public Library of Science - two of them being traditional subscriptions-based publishers. However, the genuine open-access mega-journal PLOS ONE published most articles, followed by Scientific Reports. About half of the APCs were paid to publish an article in a hybrid journal, the other half for the publication in an open-access journal. The journals’ subject areas confirm the practical experience that social sciences and humanities play a minor role in the APC-based open-access journal publishing. However, whether these statements hold true for the total publication market—not only for OpenAPC—can only be assessed via in-depth bibliometric analysis. We now turn to a detailed description of the APCs in euro.
- Article Processing Charges range mostly between 1,000 – 3,000 EUR. but amount sometimes to 4,000 – 6,000 EUR.
- Breaking down APC-payments for publication in pure open-access and hybrid journals, one can see that APCs in hybrid journals are much more expensive than in open-access journals.
- Here, we can see that there are wide differences in APCs-levels between the publishers. APC-payments are the highest for Elsevier, followed by Wiley-Blackwell. This means that these two publishers charge often expensive APCs. APCs are relatively low at PLoS, and they do not vary as much as at the other big publishers.
- This is a scatter plot between APCs and the associated SNIP values. Each point represents an article with its combination of APC and SNIP. The line shows the correlation between the two variables. Although the positive correlation seems to be weak it is statistically highly significant. Hence, there is a some kind of positive relationship between the citation impact and APCs.
- This figure presents the share of reported articles published in hybrid or open access journals for each (“big”) publisher. Within the group of “other publishers", about half of the articles were released to the public in hybrid journals. The picture is quite different for the “big" publisher. Either (almost) all articles where published in open-access journals (Frontiers, PLoS and Springer), or almost all articles were published in hybrid journals (Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell).
- This is a histogram of the SNIP. Very few articles recorded in OpenAPC were published in high-impact journals.
- Moreover, hybrid journals tend to have a higher citation impact compared to pure open-access journals.
- Now, I will briefly introduce to the method and the statistical model. I performed a multivariate linear regression, where APC are explained by the “source normalized impact per paper” of the journal whether the journal is hybrid or open-access to which publisher the journal belongs and to which subject area Moreover, I expect that the explanatory power of SNIP is different for hybrid and open-access journals. That is why the estimation equation contains an interaction term between SNIP and Hybrid. The Equation is estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS). I did not use the total sample, but the sub-sample of British data from 2014 to 2016.
- So, here are the results: The first model is a simple regression of SNIP on APC that already explains 10 per cent of the total variance.
- In the second model, APC-level is explained by whether the article was published in a hybrid or open-access journal. Indeed, APCs in hybrid journals are more expensive. This variable alone explains 12 per cent of the total variance.
- Combining both variables (incl. their interactions term) represents Model 3 In this model, 24 per cent of the total variance is explained and all coefficients are statistically significant. The coefficient of SNIP is about 800 EUR, which means that (on average) an open access journal with a SNIP-value of two charges about 800 EUR more than an open-access journal with a SNIP-value of one (other things being equal). Likewise, a hybrid journal charges (on average) about 1,400 EUR more than an open-access journal (again, other things being equal). However, a hybrid journal is less sensitive to the impact factor. For each additional SNIP-score, it charges just about 200 EUR more. To sum up, hybrid journals tend to be more expensive and less sensitive to their citation impact than open-access journals.
- In Model 4, the total set of variables is included to explain APC-levels. Publishing in Elsevier-journals is quite expansive (on top to the fact that most Elsevier-journals are hybrid), and least expensive in PLoS-journals. Publications in life sciences are much costlier than in social sciences and humanities.
- For the better understanding of the results, I present two equations here: one for PLoS-articles in life sciences in 2016 and the other one for articles in Elsevier-hybrid journals, also in life sciences in 2016. We take the relevant coefficients from here and arrive at these two equations. You can see that the “fixed part”, that part of the APC that is not related to the citation impact, is much higher for Elsevier hybrid-journals compared to PLoS. And the APC depends much less on the citation impact of the respective journal.
- The finding that a hybrid journal is less sensitive to its impact does not mean that it is cheaper than open-access journals. Here are two journal examples for an in-sample prediction: Both journals (PLOS ONE as well as the „Journal of Neuroscience Methods“ had a SNIP-score of one in 2016. Both publish in life sciences. The predicted APC for PLOS-One is about 1400 EUR. The predicted APC for the Elsevier-journal is about 2800 EUR. I think this result confirms well our personal experience with APCs. Considering that an author could choose to publish an article in one of two alike journals—in a hybrid one for EUR 2790 or in an open-access one for EUR 1380, I wonder what kind of “value” do hybrid journals deliver to researchers for the additional EUR 1,400? I would suggest: Save them!
- This figure shows the estimated, linear relationship between SNIP and APC. The blue line represents the prizing-pattern for OA-journals, and the red one for hybrid journals. The blue line is much steeper than the red one which means that APCs in hybrid journals are less sensitive to their citation impact than open-access journals. Here, you can see at which SNIP value journals with different publication modes charge comparable APCs: The red line is crossing the blue line at approx. SNIP=2.5.
- This is another table for a more general example of an in-sample APC-prediction. It presents predicted APCs for PLoS-journals and Elsevier hybrid-journals in life sciences with varying levels of citation impact. A SNIP-value of one corresponds approximately to the 1st quartile of the OpenAPC data set as well as the UK sub-sample. The median of the UK sub-sample is 1.37 and 1.81 its 3rd quartile. A SNIP-value of 15 is about the highest impact a journal has in the OpenAPC data set (“The Lancet"). However, no open-access journal has comparable impact. You can see that the predicted APCs vary greatly for PloS journals along the citation impact, but only slightly for Elsevier-hybrid journals. To sum up, hybrid journals tend to be more expensive and are less sensitive to their citation impact than open-access journals. The vast bulk of articles appear in zero to average-impact journals. For them, APCs in hybrid journals are much costlier than in the open-access counterparts.
- To get an idea on what the two pricing patterns imply for the financial aspects of the open-access transformation, I calculated two hypothetical scenarios. What would have been the total APC-amount if all articles recorded in OpenAPC had been charged as if they were published in open-access journals? And what would have been the sum if they all were published in hybrid journals (other journal characteristics leaving unchanged)? This table present the hypothetical amounts in euro for the UK sub-sample and the total sample and compares it with the actual sums. The calculations show that the UK higher education and research system would have saved almost EUR 8 million if all journals had charged according to the open-access pricing-pattern. Make you researchers publish in OA-journals! That way you can save 8 Mio EUR! In contrast, all countries would have spent about EUR17 million more on APCs, if all articles had been charged according to the hybrid-pattern. Which pricing behavior will dominate in the future after a full journal flipping, is crucial. If the pricing behavior of the traditional, subscription-based publishers wins through, the open-access transformation will come at a much higher cost than expected today from libraries, higher education and research institutions. Therefore, provisions to introduce competition between publishers and journals are of utmost importance.
- Let‘s draw a conclusion: Are APCs mirroring the impact factor? Yes, they do! But more in open-access journals and at genuine OA-publishers. In hybrid journals (often at Elsevier, Springer and co.), APCs are a legacy of the subscription-based model! ----- So today I showed you how to save 8 Mio EUR. You don’t know where to spend them elsewhere?
- Here is my contact data. Thank you!