JISC

John Houghton, Bruce Rasmussen & Peter Sheehan (Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University) Charles Oppenheim, Anne Morris, Claire Creaser, Helen Greenwood, Mark Summers & Adrian Gourlay (Information Science, LISU and Economics, Loughborough University) January 2009

Report summary

A long paper looking at the most cost effective publishing model (taking into account potential benefits as well as actual price) out of subscription publishing, open access and self-archiving.

The report starts with discussion of how to “quantify the benefits” of potential cost and time savings, followed by definitions of the three publishing models mentioned above and an in depth analysis of scholarly communications systems and the life cycles of scientific information and other research.

There is then an analysis of costs involved in funding research, funding flows, the impact of publishing costs on funding activities and the way current publishing models  impact on costs in terms of access costs, copyright payments, search and discovery and similar. Along the way, they take in opportunities for innovation and value-adding, such as electronic publishing of monographs.

The authors then look at the costs and benefits of Open Access and Self Archiving.  As well as making considerable savings, the report authors discover that Open Access has considerable wider Research and Development and public sector benefit, since it allows more people to view material (and makes it easier for them to find it in the first place.)

The overall conclusion is that Open Access is the most cost effective system, with benefits across the system – especially to the most intensive users of journals in academic libraries.

“More open access to scientific and scholarly works has the potential to reduce costs, drive efficiency gains, create new opportunities and, by increasing use, help maximise the impact of research and increase the returns to public investment in it.” 

This is followed by a more specific quantifiable analysis of the overall current costs of scholarly publishing and purchase (which run into billions of pounds).

They estimate how much it would have cost if the Open Access publishing model had been followed (considerably less, even taking into account the cost of repositories and author fees). Individual article costs are far lower in the Open Access model. Open Access is also cheaper than toll access in electronic only format.

They refute other studies that have stated open access publishing fees may exceed journal acquisition fees in research intensive universities, saying these overlook the library handling costs that will be saved in these research intensive universities by using Open Access and call for a fuller accounting of costs than has before been typical.

They note the impact author-pays Open Access would have on funding costs, but maintain that the benefits of enhanced accessibility and efficiency outweigh these.  Researchers would make considerable time-savings thanks to ease of access to research materials, but there could be problems in poorly funded areas unless specific funds are set aside to pay author fees. Institutions would also make savings. The authors claim that publishers would be able to seek ‘alternative revenue streams’ but quickly move on to talking about the minimal wider economic effects resulting from the (inevitable seeming) destruction of the industry as we know it thanks to Open Access. Libraries, they say, will continue to play a key role in maintaining Open Access archives.

In the conclusions the authors state the report shows that “there is evidence to support a move towards more open access to research findings” but there are barriers to overcome, which are tackled in the recommendations. These include ensuring that there is funding for author fees, encouraging the further development of repositories and supporting advocacy initiatives to show the benefits of OA. They also make recommendations for further research (for instance into getting better data about repository costs) and sharing on an international level.

Key points

Funders  - Making the case for OA

Open access publishing all UK higher education journal article output in 2007 would have cost around £150 million. (as opposed to an estimated £4.8billion real costs).

“For subscription or toll access publishing, we estimate an average publisher cost of around  £3,247 per article for dual-mode production, £2,728 per article for print only production and £2,337 per article for e-only production. For open access publishing, we estimate average per article costs at £1,524 for e-only production.”

“Based on the cases and scenarios explored in this study we estimate that open access publishing for journal articles might bring system savings of around £215 million per annum nationally in the UK (at 2007 prices and levels of publishing activity), of which around £165 million would accrue in higher education.”

“… the cost savings alone are likely to be sufficient to pay for open access journal publishing or self-archiving, independent of any possible increase in returns to R&D that might arise from enhanced access. Thus, it seems possible that open access publishing alternatives could be supported from within existing budgetary allocations.”

“We find that with a 20% return to publicly funded R&D, for the major categories of research expenditure in the UK in 2006 a 5% increase in accessibility and efficiency would have been worth:

• £172 million per annum in increased returns to public sector R&D (i.e. government and higher education)
• £124 million per annum in increased returns to Higher Education R&D (HERD)
• £109 million per annum in increased returns to Government R&D (GovERD)
• Around £33 million per annum in increased returns to research councils (RCUK) competitive grants funded R&D

“Some of the savings and benefits resulting from alternative publishing models cannot be realised until some time after the costs have been met. Consequently, it seems inevitable that central allocations will be required at the funder, institutional and, perhaps, national levels.” 

Making the case for OA with researchers

The authors note the potential for OA to reduce or eliminate the delays, costs and frustration caused by access barriers when trying to follow hyperlinks.

They also point out the increased visibility being published on Open Access may bring and the potential benefits as regards collaboration when everyone has access to the same literature.

Making the case for OA in institutions

Specific grants are likely to be needed to cover the direct costs of the author-pays Open Access system.

“Research institutions, funders and managers stand to gain visibility through more open access, with wider awareness and use of research findings and more efficient research reporting, evaluation and management likely to be possible.”

Making the case for OA with publishers

Reduced costs and etc will clearly result in reduced revenue flows, but the authors point out that these could be potentially made up by selling “value-adding services” to a larger number of readers and “alternative revenue streams”.

International partnership

“While a major contributor to the scholarly literature, the UK accounts for no more than 10% of the World’s scientific papers… much can be achieved by international efforts towards sharing the gains” [of Open Access]

Read the full report