Is open access affordable? Why current models do not work and why we need internet‐era transformation of scholarly communications

Abstract

Progress to open access (OA) has stalled, with perhaps 20% of new papers ‘born‐free’, and half of all versions of record pay‐walled; why? In this paper, I review the last 12 months: librarians showing muscle in negotiations, publishers’ Read and Publish deals, and funders determined to force change with initiatives like Plan S. I conclude that these efforts will not work. For example, flipping to supply‐side business models, such as article processing charges, simply flips the pay‐wall to a ‘play‐wall’ to the disadvantage of authors without financial support. I argue that the focus on OA makes us miss the bigger problem: today’s scholarly communications is unaffordable with today’s budgets. OA is not the problem, the publishing process is the problem. To solve it, I propose using the principles of digital transformation to reinvent publishing as a two‐step process where articles are published first as preprints, and then, journal editors invite authors to submit only papers that ‘succeed’ to peer review. This would reduce costs significantly, opening a sustainable pathway for scholarly publishing and OA. The catalyst for this change is for the reputation economy to accept preprints as it does articles in minor journals today.

Evaluating institutional open access performance: Methodology, challenges and assessment

“…Many of the differences between these have been driven by details in the approach. This combined with limited attention to reproducibility has led to confusion and a lack of clarity on the rate and degree of progress to open access (Green, 2019). As noted above we believe that a minimum standard should be set in providing assessments of open access to support evidence based policy making and implementation (see Section 2.1).…”

Maximizing dissemination and engaging readers: The other 50% of an author's day: A case study

“…As she was not put off by the reaction to the preprint, I submitted a revised version to the journal in October 2018. It went through the usual peer review and acceptance process and was published on 25th January 2019 as part of a special issue ‘Bring the Facts, Bust the Myths’ (Green, ).…”

“…2.). acceptance process and was published on 25th January 2019 as part of a special issue 'Bring the Facts, Bust the Myths' (Green, 2019a). As with the preprint, I had to work hard to win attention on…”

Understanding the influence of librarians cognitive frames on institutional repository innovation and implementation

“…Others give advice on how to build organizational capabilities for IR innovation and implementation (Cragin, Palmer, Carlson, & Witt, 2010). But the pace of IR adoption and implementation lags far behind expectations (Green, 2019). Very few universities in developing countries are listed in the OpenDoar directory of open access repositories and in the registry of open access repositories (ROAR) (Ali, Loan, & Mushatq, 2018;Anyaoku, Echedom, & Baro, 2019;Chigwada, 2018).…”