From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 8:45 PM

‘Transformative’ open access publishing deals are only entrenching
commercial power

Funders and researchers are squandering a huge opportunity to create a more
just and effective system, says Jon Tennant

August 15, 2019

*By Jon Tennant <https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/jon-tennant>*



Plan S <https://www.coalition-s.org/> has already been credited with
sparking something of a revolution in journal publishing. Major publishers
are beginning – slowly and reluctantly
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/university-california-defiant-elsevier-cuts-journal-access>
in some cases – to replace their traditional “big deals” with what are
being called “transformative deals
<http://www.stm-publishing.com/springer-nature-accelerates-its-transformative-journey-with-the-signing-of-landmark-pure-open-access-oa-deal/>”.
Often negotiated with national consortia of libraries and research
institutes, these combine access to subscription journals with an ability
to publish open access without any additional charge.

However, I believe that we should think a lot harder before
celebrating a tipping
point
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/push-open-access-finally-reaching-tipping-point>
.

The open access movement has always been intimately bound up with a
critique of the whole concept of handing over billions of pounds
<https://eua.eu/resources/publications/829:2019-big-deals-survey-report.html>
of public money to wildly profitable
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elsevier-profits-near-ps1-billion-despite-european-disputes>
private companies in exchange for publishing papers that are written,
reviewed and edited by academics. Yet the current “transformative” deals do
precious little to drive down margins
<https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676>
that are often in excess of 35 per cent.

For example, Germany recently paid €26 million (£24 million) to Wiley
<https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/deal-reveals-what-scientists-germany-are-paying-open-access>
to publish 9,500 open access articles a year over three years, at €2,750
per article. Wiley has an operating profit margin of around 29.5 per cent
<https://twitter.com/rt_thibault/status/1033777449551638528?s=20>, which
means that about €7.7 million of that fee will go straight into its
shareholders’ pockets. A similar deal between Wiley and Dutch universities
has an estimated cost of €1,600 per paper, but there are suggestions that
it has, in practice, cost a lot more
<https://twitter.com/Richvn/status/1098921776820744192> so far. However, we
do not know the true figures as the contract details are often kept secret,
despite involving public funds.

This consolidation of historic spending decisions, focusing funds on a few
dominant players, makes it harder, not easier, to truly transform scholarly
publishing. A recent study
<https://www.liberquarterly.eu/articles/10.18352/lq.10280/> even shows that
the current state of open access publishing, with its increasing favour on
commercially driven companies, is driving hyperinflation in article
processing charges, exacerbating universities’ lack of market control.

*[SNIP]*

*Jon Tennant is a research fellow in palaeontology and open scholarly
communication at the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Paris.*

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/transformative-open-access-publishing-deals-are-only-entrenching-commercial-power



Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow

ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences

The Australian National University

Room 3.31, Beryl Rawson Building #13

Acton, ACT, 2601
Australia



P: + 61 2 6125 8983

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