Informationsplattform Open Access: Publishers

Useful information for publishers

Publishers play an important role in the supply of scientific and scholarly information. By offering science-friendly conditions, they can significantly support their authors in communicating their research results. Open Access publishing models offer excellent possibilities in this regard. Already quite a few publishers in the natural sciences and humanities have integrated Open Access (OA) into their existing business models, while others have committed themselves entirely to Open Access.

These companies include book and journal publishers, small publishing houses and large international media concerns.

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Book publishers

Especially when it comes to lengthy texts, it is not enough to make the work openly accessible in a repository. While the provision of free access via a repository makes the text available to a wide audience, this alone does not guarantee adequate visibility or ensure the reception of the work by the scientific community. Therefore, it is essential that authors also distribute printed review copies of the online text. In addition to the online version, which can be immediately viewed, searched and checked for relevance, readers appreciate it when a print edition of the text is also available. Many people still find it unsatisfactory to read lengthy scholarly works from a screen, yet consider it too impractical or expensive to print the work out themselves (cf. UCL study: What do faculty and students really think about e-books? PDF, 600 KB).

 

Hybrid publishing as a publishing model for monographs

 'Hybrid publishing' refers to an Open Access model which combines an online Open Access version with a priced print edition. This model has proved very advantageous, especially for monographs: the freely accessible online version increases the visibility and distribution of the work, and this, in turn, raises sales figures – or so it is hoped. Moreover, print-on-demand services allow publishers to react flexibly to demand. This model is practised especially by university presses, for example  Weimar University Press, and by scholarly publishers such as the Verlagshaus Monsenstein und Vannerdat. Thus, hybrid publishing is both an Open Access strategy and an OA business model. However, it should not be confused with the  hybrid business model which is practised, for example, by Springer in its Open Choice Program (cf. Steinhauer, Eric W. (2007). Hybrides Publizieren als Marketing-Mix: Erfolgsmodell zur Verbreitung von Hochschulschriften und wissenschaftlichen Monografien  [Hybrid publishing as a marketing mix: a successful model for distributing dissertations and scholarly monographs]; Herb, Ulrich: Online oder unsichtbar [Online or invisible] Telepolis, 5 October 2007)


Publishers are valued partners for Open Access because of their competence in producing and marketing printed books. Experience has shown that commitment to Open Access is financially worthwhile. Especially in the case of very specialised scholarly literature such as dissertations and conference papers, Open Access in combination with a print-on-demand option genuinely promotes sales, provided the printed book is offered at a price that even private readers can afford. Numerous German-language university presses and the U.S. National Academies Press have already had positive experiences using the OA version of their books as a full-text teaser. For the publishers, the calculation is simple: Open Access is financially worthwhile once the number of readers who decide to purchase the book after viewing the online version, and who might not otherwise have noticed it, is higher than those who forgo the purchase because the text is freely available on the Internet. 

A decisive share of the sales of scholarly works is accounted for by libraries which have a mandate to collect such literature. If subject specialists and the head of acquisitions can check the quality of a publication quickly and comprehensively, then they will acquire the print edition even if a free online version is available. Experience at university libraries has shown that the accessibility of the online version frequently prompts a suggestion to acquire the print edition. In many disciplines, the fact that a monograph is published with an ISBN and is sold via bookshops is still considered to be an indicator of publication quality. Scholars and scientists who read the openly accessible version of the work on screen usually mention the publisher when citing the book and refer, where appropriate, to the online version. As a result, the time it takes for a work to be noticed, reviewed and recognised by the scientific community can sometimes be reduced by years.

Moreover, experience has shown that Open Access can increase sales enormously.

The following are two examples of increased sales due to Open Access:

  • Sources of Innovation, Oxford University Press 1988 has been freely available on the author's website since 2005, but not on the publisher's website. OUP reserved the right to compensation by the author if sales dropped. However, sales actually rose by over 75% in the first year after the work was made openly accessible. 
  • MIT Press also reported much higher sales figures than expected for the book Democratizing Innovation. This book, which appeared in 2005, is freely available under a Creative Commons licence on the publisher's and the author's website. 

The members of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitaetsverlage [Working Group of the University Presses] are publishers which focus on book publishing and are especially committed to the Open Access idea. For example,  Hamburg University Press, Karlsruhe University Press and Mannheim University Press oblige authors to make their work freely accessible online in parallel with print publication. In the case of Ilmenau University Press, this obligation is laid down in a special statute passed by the University Senate. Other university presses, such as those in Goettingen and Kassel, expressly encourage their authors to make their work openly accessible. These publishers finance their book projects in a variety of ways.

In Germany, there are a number of other book publishers which are completely or partly Open Access. Meine-Verlag in Leipzig makes articles and essays available online free of charge, while Centaurus-Verlag in Freiburg is planning to introduce hybrid publishing for its monographs by making an OA version available online. 

Within the framework of the O’Reilly Open Books Project, O'Reilly, a computer book publisher of international standing, makes some in-print works and numerous out-of-print books available under a Creative Commons licence. Another well-known computer book publisher, Heise-Verlag, has also published  a number of monographs under a Creative Commons licence. In September 2008,  Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter books, launched its series Bloomsbury Academic, in which research-led titles from the humanities and social sciences are published under a Creative Commons licence.

The European Commission also supports Open Access in the area of book publishing. For example, the OAPEN project, which is supported within the framework of the eContentplus programme, aims to develop an Open Access publishing model for scholarly monographs from the social sciences and the humanities. The OAPEN consortium comprises seven university presses, some of which have experience of Open Access publishing. Other publishers from the humanities which are testing Open Access models are collaborating with the OAPEN project.

The green road to Open Access: also suitable for books

The green road to Open Access refers primarily to the self-archiving of articles and other contributions in Open Access repositories in parallel with publication. This strategy can also be an interesting option for book publishers. The German education portal pedocs cooperates with book publishers which archive complete monographs or individual articles from collective volumes in its repository. The fact that these publishers also make out-of-print works available via the repository is particularly helpful for users. On the basis of the access figures, the publishers can assess how high the demand for the title still is, and can decide whether it is worthwhile to reissue it (cf. Verlage beim Workshop “Open Access Erziehungswissenschaften” [Publishers at the "Open Access in educational science" workshop]).

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Journal publishers

Open Access can prove to be a decisive marketing instrument for the journal sector. Scholarly authors are especially interested in visibility. Journals which impede or prevent the free dissemination of publications on the Internet by handling rights of use restrictively could find it difficult to compete in the medium term. If journal publishers wish to hold their own in a science culture which is essentially shaped by the Internet and the enormously accelerated digital exchange of information, they are well advised to offer Open Access options, be it in the sense of the green or the golden road to OA. Scholars and scientists are likely to continue to cite the version which enjoys the highest reputation, regardless of how they acquired the information in the first place. Hence, parallel versions on personal websites or in repositories ultimately increase the citation rates and the prestige of the priced version. 

Examples of the golden road to OA  

Two of the most well-known journal publishers to have chosen the golden road to Open Access are BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science (PLoS). However, there are also many publishers which, although still committed to the classical, toll-access distribution channels, offer Open Access options for individual journal articles (cf. hybrid business model). These publishers include  Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, de Gruyter and Oxford University Press. Springer, in particular, is currently expanding its Open Choice Program. Leading Open Access journal publishers (for example PLoS, BioMed Central, Hindawi corporation and Copernicus) and SPARC Europe have formed the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA, to support the interests of Open Access publishers by setting standards and advancing the development of business and publishing models that support OA journal publishing. Copernicus, the only exclusively Open Access publisher in Germany, has a current portfolio of 22 journals. 

Other OA journals are operated by institutions and their university presses. For example, Karlsruhe University Press founded its own Open Access journal in May 2009, and Goettingen University Press has also launched an Open Access journal (GoJIL).

A growing number of Open Access journals are indexed in directories and portals such as DOAJ and Open Journal Gate. 

Conversion of closed-access journals to Open Access

The German scholarly publisher Pabst Science Publishers has successfully converted some of its toll-access journals to Open Access. On 1 August 2007, the journal Forum Gemeindepsychologie (Community Psychology Forum) was made openly accessible, thereby bringing to four the number of Open Access journals in its portfolio. In cooperation with Hamburg University Press, the publishing house of Hamburg State and University Library, the entire GIGA (German Institute of Global and Area Studies) journal family, a series of hitherto closed-access journals, has been converted to Open Access. The conversion was completed in June 2009. 

Examples of the green road to OA

The SHERPA/RoMEO listings provide (legally non-binding) details of publishers' policies with regard to the green road to Open Access, in other words the self-archiving of preprints and postprints in OA repositories. The listings are now   available in German. The SHERPA/RoMeo listings also provide publishers with an opportunity to advertise their own author-friendly conditions. There is no indication that an increase in the archiving of preprints and postprints in OA repositories leads to the cancellation of journal subscriptions, for example by libraries. This is not even the case in disciplines, such as high energy physics, which have a well-established preprint culture. A survey of librarians to determine whether self-archiving is a factor in journal cancellation, which was conducted by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), revealed that high prices are still the main reason that libraries cancel subscriptions, and that the availability of a free online version of priced journals is not a significant factor in journal cancellations at present. 

Within the framework of a cooperation with the German Education Portal pedocs, a number of hitherto closed-access publishers in the field of education science have made part of their portfolios available for digital archiving. As a result, they are now classified as green publishers in the SHERPA/RoMEO listings.

The PEER research project is a collaboration between publishers, repositories and researchers, which is investigating the effects of self-archiving (the green road) on closed-access journals. To this end, the development of the usage and dissemination (citation) of large quantities of peer-reviewed articles in repositories is being analysed. In a joint press release (PDF, 15,3 KB), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and the International Publishers Association (IPA) stressed "that the concerns of academic authors must be at the heart of this debate".

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Reservations about Open Access

Some publishers continue to have certain reservations about Open Access:

In the past, publishers' reservations about Open Access have given rise to intense debate. Discussions reached an initial climax in the summer of 2007 when it emerged that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) had launched a campaign against Open Access. The campaign entitled Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine (PRISM) cost millions of dollars. Its aim was to equate Open Access with state censorship in order to turn public opinion against it. Details of the campaign were revealed when the British journal New Scientist published an internal strategy paper. Protests ensued. Earlier that year, the journalist Jim Giles had drawn attention to the publishers' strategy in an article in Nature (see Nature 445, 347 (25 January 2007 and Steve Mount in Nature Networks).

In Germany, the Heidelberg Appeal, which was issued in March 2009, took a stand against Google's scanning of copyrighted material (see Google Book Settlement) and against Open Access. The Heidelberg Appeal has led to greater confusion about the goals and strategies of Open Access. Open Access has been portrayed as something which forces authors to publish and which weakens their position and their copyrights. Open Access has even been equated with the "expropriation" of authors and publishers. Many authors, scholars and scientists have vehemently opposed this portrayal of OA. The Heidelberg Appeal does not differentiate between scholarly and belletristic publications and appears to have been mainly motivated by fear on the part of publishers that Open Access could endanger their publishing models. Therefore, the publishers' lobby is endeavouring to have new ancillary copyrights embodied in publishing law (cf. Peter Muehlbauer, Hubert Burda), so that, for example, quoting from newspaper articles would be subject to a charge (cf. "Die vierte Gewalt ist jetzt im Netz" [The fourth estate is now on the Net]).

Critics of the Heidelberg Appeal point out that it is not in the interests of education and science. (cf. interview with the Munich-based Professor of Economics, Dietmar Harhoff). An account of the controversy sparked by the Appeal, and a detailed overview of the press coverage it has given rise to, can be found on our web page devoted to the current discussion on Open Access and copyright. 

Open Access: new avenues for scholarly publishers

A closer look reveals that many of the fears and reservations about Open Access are either exaggerated or unfounded. The reception of their publications by the scientific community is of vital importance to scholars and scientists. As a rule, the visibility and reach of their publications is more important than potential earnings. Such earnings are not usual anyway. If a publisher can offer its author Open Access conditions, this is tantamount to an extra customer service and is thus a potential image enhancement. 

Fair handling of authors' rights

Open Access does not expropriate authors or limit their freedom to publish. On the contrary, it leaves authors more room for manoeuvre when granting rights of use.  Under a standard publishing agreement, the publisher acquires exclusive rights of use in the work. By contrast, a publishing agreement which provides for publishing under an open-content licence grants the publisher merely non-exclusive rights of use. Hence, as a result of the open-content licence, authors are entitled to grant any other parties a non-exclusive right of use, thereby increasing the reach and visibility of their publications. In Germany the freedom to research and publish is guaranteed by law. Therefore, authors cannot be forced to make their work openly accessible.   The term 'expropriation', which is employed in this connection mainly by the initiators of the Heidelberg Appeal, is based on a particular view of the right to publish. According to this view, the right to publish mainly encompasses the right to grant exclusive rights of use to a publisher, and to decide against Open Access publishing and self-archiving options. From this perspective, the fact that the major German science organisations and a number of universities urge their authors to reserve non-exclusive rights of use in their works is regarded as a limitation of the freedom to publish and of authors' copyrights.

The frequently criticised "shifting of the costs to the author" (cf. Brussels Declaration on STM Publishing) happens anyway - in the STM journals at least: in most closed-access journals, authors or their institutions are obliged to pay fees, for example for colour illustrations. For instance, the publication of a single article in the high-ranking journal Cell costs the author 2100 US$ on average. Moreover, in almost all academic disciplines it is customary for authors to have to pay all or part of the printing costs. Many employers, libraries and research funding agencies willingly provide their authors with financial support for the fees for Open Access publishing.  Research funders and libraries frequently take the view that this is just a redistribution of costs: funds which would otherwise be spent on purchasing journals and articles are invested instead in the publishing of the articles, thereby enabling them to be freely disseminated and made accessible to all users. Although this model offers many publishers new business opportunities, it is to be expected - and it is intended - that boundaries will be set for the hitherto practised price policy with its profit margin of up to 30%. However, the transition situation, in which both Open Access publication fees and subscriptions have to be paid, is a challenge to institutes' budgets. Overall, it cannot yet be foreseen whether a complete conversion of the scientific publishing system to Open Access can be achieved, even though some studies have come to the conclusion that Open Access is an economically viable basis for the information supply and is considerably less expensive than the present system. Studies on the cost-benefit-ratio of Open Access include:

The debate on the economic impacts of Open Access is not yet over. The assumptions and variables on which the above-mentioned studies are based vary. This fact must be taken into account when assessing and classifying the investigations. However, even if the transition to Open Access did not have any money-saving potential at all, the fact alone that scholarly and scientific literature is made freely accessible worldwide is an achievement of inestimable value to libraries, the scientific community and the public at large.

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Links for further reading

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