Over the past few months, we’ve hosted several virtual events for society leaders and others across the research community. Open access (OA) continues to be a popular topic at these events, with the Covid-19 pandemic having really highlighted the importance of access to scientific research.

Our audiences at these virtual events are always engaged and interested, asking lots of great questions with not enough time to thoroughly answer them all. So, we’re answering your questions here, making sure that you have all the information you need when considering open access for your publications.

What are the major funding sources that support open access publishing?

Transitional agreements with national government consortia that include centralized open access accounts are a major source of open access funding, as are individual institutional and funder open access accounts. In addition, many authors have access to open access funding through a grant allocation. Open access funding comes from a variety of sources, not just government, academic, and philanthropic funding bodies. A recent study of open access publication across 21 pharmaceutical companies found that two-thirds of pharma-funded research included in the analysis was published open access. This represents a 20% increase since the previous study was conducted three years prior.

It should be noted, however, that there are regional and subject discipline-related differences that have an impact on the financial performance of individual journals. As Wiley adapts its sales models, we recognize these differences and adapt our agreements accordingly in order to protect subscription revenue for those journals that rely on that income and maximize the OA revenue potential for those that can benefit from the availability of OA funding in the subject discipline or the region.

What are the financial implications for open access?

In 2020, for the first time, open access publication output exceeded paywalled or subscription publication output. The financial implications of this trend are less straightforward, but it will have an inevitable impact on how publishing fees are allocated; accelerating a migration from subscription (read) spend to open access (publish) spend. This change is already being facilitated by the Transitional Agreement model, which is designed to transition a greater proportion of the total library budget from subscription to open access fees. At the same time, libraries are under enormous pressure to reduce the overall amount they spend with publishers. Results from a recent survey from 665 librarians indicate that budget cuts are a reality in many parts of the world: 70% - 80% of respondents say cuts have already been imposed in 2020 and more are expected between now and 2022. 25% expect budget cuts of 30% or more over the next two years. Budgets that include OA funding are still less widespread, but those allocations are more stable. Just under a third of respondents (32.9%) already have some OA deals and are considering more; but close to 50% of the respondents said they expect to add more within the next 2-5 years.

The net effect of these changes in the open access publishing landscape is that open access publication output and revenue from Article Publication Charges (APCs) will continue to grow but the proportion of money spent on subscription access may begin to decline. In fact, these trends are already surfacing at many institutions. Libraries will continue to negotiate for zero or level cost for any new agreements moving forward.

Funding policies and mandates are evolving; rapidly in some regions of the world, less so in others. Plan S is an example of one of the major influencers in the open access policy landscape. These policy changes and mandates will inevitably have an impact on the author’s publication choices. Wiley’s Open Research team is actively engaged in discussions with funders and policymakers in order to provide feedback, and represent our society partners and stakeholders, as new policies are drafted. Underlying every discussion is a motivation to maintain a business model that will not undermine the long-term sustainability of the journal or equitable publishing opportunities for authors.

What are the pros and cons of open access publishing?

Open access publishing emerged as a concept in the early 2000s. Today there are over 1000 open access policies in place around the world. As journal publishing moved online, there was an increasing frustration with the barriers to access imposed by subscription paywalls. In addition, authors became motivated to retain copyright to their work rather than handing it over to a society or a publisher as they had in the past. The evolution of the open access business model has exposed some unforeseen challenges for authors in certain regions of the world and in certain subject communities. Lack of funding to pay the APC is the most cited barrier to open access publication but we have seen a massive shift over time as government, philanthropic, academic, and even industry funders have evolved their research funding model to incorporate the cost of the APC into their publishing budgets.

Throughout the pandemic, we have witnessed firsthand the benefits of open access publishing and the impact open access to research has had on policy, public health interventions, treatment, and prevention. The rapid dissemination of results has enabled government officials and the public to make informed decisions about how to navigate the pandemic more efficiently.

Free access to research and unrestricted re-use has leveled the playing field for researchers around the world who previously may have encountered paywalls in front of the content they needed to inform their work. At the same time, some have argued that open access excludes authors from low- and middle-income countries who don’t have the funding to pay an APC. The Research4Life APC waiver and discount program has attempted to address this inequity and we’re working, along with other publishers, on ways to make this more visible to authors.

We have taken a measured approach to open access transition that maintains the hybrid subscription publication option for authors without APC funding, while increasing hybrid and gold open access publication opportunities for authors with funding. We also publish a small number of Diamond open access publications, and some journals that offer sponsored open access publication for an initial period before converting to the gold open access model.

Collective funding models like Subscribe to Open and Community Action Publishing are still in the early stages of pilot development but we are watching them carefully. There are some open access funding models that work better for native OA publishers, or small publishers with social sciences and humanities focused publishing programs. These funding models may not work for every publisher but there are elements we may be able to apply to the development of our own OA program.

What are the criteria for a journal to become open access? What informs the decision to flip?

Wiley is committed to a large-scale transition to Open Access. There is no single route to transition, and we have therefore adopted a multi-pronged approach that includes launching new open access journals; transitioning hybrid journals to open access (flipping); engaging in transitional and transformative agreements; and providing open access publishing opportunities to authors via referral networks. Our approach to transition takes into consideration market trends and the needs of the research community. While the core objectives remain the same, there are regional differences that must be taken into consideration. Government funding bodies, academic institutions, philanthropic funders, and industry approach the transition to open very differently, and the pace of change can vary greatly. We acknowledge these differences and adapt our policies accordingly.

When deciding whether to flip your journal to open access, you should first assess your market. Is there an appetite and push for open access from the community you serve? Is there funding for open access publishing in the subject discipline, and in the regional communities where your authors are based? Ultimately, the decision to flip should be aligned with trends in the market, funding trends, and author behavior/acceptance of the open access model. Careful consideration of the timing, and positioning of the journal vis-à-vis the competition, ultimately ensures that the business model will sustain the journal over the long-term. Knowing the difference between your revenue per article and your article publication charge will give you a general idea of the journal’s OA potential but there are other factors to consider including:

• Membership and editorial attitudes towards OA
• Geographical distribution of your authors
• Availability of funding
• Article types published
• Subject community acceptance of OA
• Content growth

Addressing Common Misconceptions about Open Access Publishing

Open access journals follow the same publication ethics guidelines as hybrid or subscription journals. All of Wiley’s open access journals are peer reviewed but many have also embraced open research policies that allow them to transparently share data, registered reports, and even conduct open or transparent peer review. Many open access journals support the publication of incremental results such as case reports, preliminary results, data, and other such research artifacts, and this provides an important publication outlet for early career researchers but also for authors who wish to share results that will have a positive impact on health and well-being of the communities that serve. These incremental results form the building blocks of follow-up studies and open access publication enables unrestricted re-use for the benefit of society.

If an article has been peer reviewed, and yet flaws are ultimately exposed following publication, the article would go through the same evaluation and potential retraction process as any other article. All Wiley journals follow standard COPE guidelines and workflows to address potential publication ethics violations regardless of the journal’s business model.

In many ways, open access journals are well positioned to allow a deeper level of transparency and access to every component that went into the final publication, the methods, the protocols, and the data. Preprint publication has the potential to improve a manuscript through public peer review.

Could you say more about Gold, Green, Bronze, and Diamond/Platinum OA?

The ways in which open access articles are hosted and funded has evolved over time. Terms like Gold, Green, Bronze, Platinum, and Diamond have been introduced into the open access lexicon to define the differences in funding and delivery models. There are important financial and copyright implications to each model. Many indexing platforms can now distinguish content that has been published in a Gold open access journal vs. a Hybrid open access journal, and some can even quantify the number of Bronze and Green open access articles a journal has published or deposited. Diamond or Platinum model journals are still not officially classified as such in traditional A&I sites, or even within the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Diamond/platinum articles are still classified as Gold open access in all of the publicly available indexes but a recent study commissioned by Coalition S attempted to measure the size of the Diamond OA market. This study estimates there are approximately 29,000 Diamond OA journals in circulation, publishing ~450,000 articles.

The primary difference, from a revenue perspective, between these models is that the Gold Open Access model is the only model where a single payment goes towards the publication of a single article. Bronze OA is subsidized through subscription income and the collective cost of open access publishing in a Diamond journal is paid for via sponsorship. Green OA sees a version of the article posted to a repository and made available to access free of charge, often after an embargo period. Again, this model is subsidized by the subscription model.

For detailed definitions, see below:

Gold

• The version of record of an article is immediately, freely available online on the Publisher/journal platform for all to read, download, reuse and share
• An Article Publication Charge (APC) is typically applied. This may be covered by an institution or funder
• Published under a Creative Commons (CC) license, author retains copyright

Green

• The author self-archives the author accepted manuscript version of the subscription article in an online repository or website
• Usually subject to a 12 or 24-month embargo period
• Authors retain the right to use their articles for certain purposes

Bronze

• Articles (usually in subscription journals) that are made free to read by the publisher
• Articles are not formally licensed for reuse
• No fee or charge, but publisher is not under any obligation to keep the article free to read

Platinum/Diamond

• The article is immediately, freely available online for all to read, download, reuse and share; author retains copyright
• No fees to publish – usually covered by the publisher, sponsor or not-for-profits

We hope this helped answer some lingering questions from our virtual seminars. Have additional questions? Send us an email at societypublishing@wiley.com.