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Open Access Business Models

As part of our OA Week 2024 celebrations, we hosted a discussion on October 23rd about various open access topics. I’ll be recapping those discussions here on the OA blog.

Today, I’ll share what we discussed related to open access business models.

There are many types of OA business models. I’ll summarize just a few.

  • Subscribe to Open (S2O): OA model that converts traditional subscription journals to open access one year at a time using existing library relationships and payments. Institutions subscribe in the traditional manner and when a target revenue is reached, the journal is published OA. If the revenue goals are not met, that year’s content stays subscription access only.
  • Diamond OA: Free immediately upon publication and with no charges to readers or authors. These journals are typically supported by volunteers and may have institutional or organizational funding to cover any publication costs.
  • Read and Publish: OA model that bundles payment for reading access and payment for publishing into a single contract. These are sometimes called transformative agreements. Frequently there is a limit on the number of articles that may be published OA, but some publishers are starting to offer an unlimited OA publication model that works much better for research intensive schools like UT.
  • Article processing charge (APC): A charge levied per article to cover the costs of publication. APCs can be charged for fully open access journals or for hybrid journals. In a hybrid journal, most of the content is available by subscription only, but authors have the option of paying an APC to make their one article OA. APCs can vary widely from just a $100-$200, up to more than $12,000 per article. This model shifts the access problem from readers to authors.
  • OA monograph models: Several models exist to support the publication of OA monographs. The most common models depend on getting enough libraries to pay a fee to cover the cost of publication of X number of monographs. Typically, the fee also includes access to a publisher’s backfile as an incentive to participate.\

Our group discussed some benefits associated with the different models:

  • Subscribe to Open (S2O) uses already established workflows which makes participating in the program really easy for libraries.
  • S2O avoids costs to readers and to authors, and as long as publisher revenue targets are met, the work is OA for everyone.
  • S2O is ideal for libraries because it gives the library flexibility in continuing to subscribe only to the journals they want (i.e. there isn’t typically bundling of multiple subscriptions together).
  • The incentives to participate early in S2O make the free-rider problem less of an issue.
  • Diamond OA is an ideal model, but will really require centralized infrastructure and funding to make it more viable on a large scale.

We also discussed some things we wish were different:

  • There is lots of confusion related to the proliferation of business models. We wish there was a relatively simple way to talk about this with our university community.
  • Some of the Read & Publish deals require a lot of workflow help – for instance, in approving discounts or APCs for individual authors.
  • Read & Publish deals are sometimes only available for an entire database or an entire publisher’s output. This makes it more expensive and harder to customize.
  • Many Read & Publish deals include caps on the amount of OA articles from a given institution. This creates an unfair situation for authors who publish later in the fiscal year.
  • For authors who want to comply with federal funding agency policies, the S2O model might be a bit confusing. Authors likely wouldn’t know if their article would be OA right at the time of publication; they’d need to wait to find out if that year’s revenue target is met. It’s likely that authors publishing in S2O journals will need to use self-archiving in a disciplinary or institutional repository to ensure OA.

If you are interested in reading more, here are some selected resources (not comprehensive):

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