There is a profound latent conflation and incoherence in the question "What is the business model to support open access through institutional repositories?"
It is a *conflation between the business model for publishing and the "business" model for institutional repositories (IRs). * The conflation is also evident in any mention (in the context of IR costs) of peer review costs or of revival university presses linked to repositories. 1. Green OA self-archiving is not a *substitute *for peer-reviewed subscription journal publishing: it is a *supplement* to it, for the purpose of providing access to all users, rather than just to subscribers. 2. The function (and cost) of (the editorial management of) journal peer review is neither an institutional repository function (and cost) nor a university function (or cost). 3. Institutional repositories provide access (only) to* their own research outpu*t. 4. Hence the notion of their doing their own peer review would amounts to a vanity press (self-publication). 5. Alternatively, if a university press produces a peer-reviewed journal that publishes research from other institutions, then that's just another Gold OA journal, not an IR function or cost. Please let us not be drawn into the fuzzy notions of certain critics of OA or of Green OA IRs, with hazy, incoherent questions about "business models" that naively conflate IR functions with publishing functions. IRs are created for many different purposes (some sensible, some not), Green OA being only one of those purposes. (Elaborate local IR search is a foolish function, for example; search will always take place at the multi-IR harvester level. Digital preservation is also not a straightforward function for institutional journal article output, at least not yet: Green OA IRs archive authors' final drafts, for access-supplemental purposes: *that is not the draft that requires the preservation: the publisher's version of record is!*) IRs also store all sorts of other institutional objects, data and records. *Those functions and their costs have nothing to do with OA* and it is absurd for OA policy-makers to ask for a Green IR "business model" that includes those costs and functions. Yet the IR start-up and maintenance costs (small though they are) are already covered in large part by the institutional sectors that require those non-OA IR functions. (I say "in large part" because without effective Green OA mandates, the Green OA content and function of IRs is minimal.) Houghton & Swan's (2013) cost/benefit analyses stress that Green OA is a *transitional strategy*: It supplements subscription publishing and its costs by providing OA. Houghton & Swan also have cost/benefit estimates for pure Gold OA publication, once subscriptions are gone. But the question of "IR business model" cuts across these two, incoherently, as if they were both happening at the same time, which makes no sense whatsoever. I have a more specific hypothesis about how this Green to Gold transition is likely to take place. At the very least, this hypothetical scenario has the virtue of keeping the respective expenses and "business models" in their proper places in the likely temporal sequence, rather than conflating them incoherently, in parallel: I. Subscriptions prevail, as now. II. Green OA is universally mandated, by institutions and funders. III. Green OA grows (anarchically, article by article, not systematically, journal by journal). IV. So subscriptions continue to co-exist with Green OA, as Green OA grows, because j*ournals cannot be cancelled by institutions until all or most of their contents are available to their users by another means* (Green OA). V. Once there is enough Green OA to make subscription cancellations significant (or even earlier), journals will have to prepare for the transition, by phasing out obsolete products and services, and their costs: VI. The print edition and its costs will be phased out first. Then, once subscriptions approach unsustainability, the online edition (and its costs) will be phased out, and both access-provision and archiving (and their costs) will be offloaded onto the worldwide network of Green OA IRs. VII. But *the costs of access-provision and archiving will already be distributed across the worldwide network of Green OA IRs*: the only difference will be that the Green OA final refereed draft will become the version of record. VIII. Publishers' only remaining cost will be *the editorial management of peer review.* IX. To cover this last remaining cost, publishers will convert to Gold OA, and institutions will pay for it, per outgoing article, out of a fraction of their subscription cancelation savings. X. *But publishing (peer review) and its costs will remain autonomous from the distributed IR access-provision and archiving and its costs.* Hence the pre-emptive call for a Green IR "business model" at this time is both unrealistic and incoherent, showing a lack of understanding (or a simplistic misunderstanding) if what is really going on. *"If OA were adopted worldwide, the net benefits of Gold OA would exceed those of Green OA. However, we are not in an OA world... At the institutional level, during a transitional period when subscriptions are maintained, the cost of unilaterally adopting Green OA is much lower than the cost of Gold OA – with Green OA self-archiving costing average institutions sampled around one-fifth the amount that Gold OA might cost, and as little as one-tenth as much for the most research intensive university. Hence, we conclude that the most affordable and cost-effective means of moving towards OA is through Green OA, which can be adopted unilaterally at the funder, institutional, sectoral and national levels at relatively little cost.*" [emphasis added] Houghton & Swan (2013) Houghton, John W. & Swan, Alma (2013) Planting the green seeds for a golden harvest: Comments and clarifications on “Going for Gold”<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january13/houghton/01houghton.html> *D-Lib Magazine* 19(1/2) On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 8:59 AM, Leslie Carr <l...@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote: > Like Fred I found the whole event rather mystifying. The attitude to green > OA by the publishers and societies is completely incompatible with their > stated desire for time to adapt to the new OA realities. > > If they really are looking for time to adapt (as opposed to a perpetual > prevarication), then green affords them a suitable breathing space as it > can only lead subscription cancellation when compliance is close to 100%. > > The atmosphere in the Royal Society was thick with the sense of commercial > entitlement. When a representative of the House of Lords asked what was the > point of publishers when they could be replaced by repositories, Steve Hall > from IOPP responded tetchily by asking what was the point of the House of > Lords. > > I have less and less understanding why the government insists on > consulting with the current commercial service providers. (Did it ask > permission of Dell and HP PC manufacturers before the funding councils > pursued new kinds of e-science cyberinfrastructure based in the cloud?) > > That was the basis of my question to the chair: why does the Finch report > state that it is concerned about the sustainability of the "complex ecology > of research communication"? Research communication itself is quite simple, > it is the broader research ecosystem incorporating hundreds of thousands of > researchers writing and reading millions of papers annually - that is the > complex ecosystem in need of consideration. > > And it is not run for the benefit of publishing companies. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On 9 Mar 2013, at 17:10, "Friend, Fred" <f.fri...@ucl.ac.uk<mailto: > f.fri...@ucl.ac.uk>> wrote: > > Open access in the UK is coming to a crossroads. Pointing in one direction > are members of the political and scientific Establishment, working hard to > convince the UK research community that a preference for APC-paid open > access is the way to go, while wishing to travel down another road to open > access are many senior people in universities and also many of the younger > researchers, understanding the value in institutional repositories which > the political and scientific Establishment refuse to support. Standing in > the middle of the crossroads are many of the society publishers the > Government wishes to protect, liking the Government’s policy in principle > but not liking the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of that > policy. > A discussion and dinner held at the Royal Society one evening this week > illustrated the determination of the political and scientific Establishment > in the UK to force through an APC-preferred open access policy: > > · No supporter of the repository route to open access was invited onto the > panel at the meeting and the few dissenters from the Government/RCUK policy > invited to the meeting found it very difficult to catch the Chairman’s eye. > > · The repository route to open access was only mentioned as a threat to > the publishing industry and not as opportunity to introduce an > academic-friendly and cost-effective business model for scholarly > communication. > > · Opposition to the Government/RCUK policy came from a society publisher, > on the grounds that the UK Government has not fully-funded a policy that > will enable the publishing industry to survive in an open access world. > > · The unwillingness of the UK Government to consult with supporters of > open access repositories is also illustrated by a response received this > week to an FOI Request asking for details of a meeting held by Minister > David Willetts on 12 February 2013. This meeting was attended by 12 > representatives from publishers and learned societies with publishing > interests and only 4 representatives from Higher Education. > > · The UK Government bias towards consultation with publishers was first > illustrated by the response to an FOI Request in 2005, which revealed that > the then Minister Lord Sainsbury had more meetings on open access with > publisher representatives than with research representatives. > Most UK universities are continuing to support their institutional > repositories and adding versions of research papers to those repositories. > Universities unable to afford the cost of the Government/RCUK preferred > policy may decide to use the RCUK’s promise that institutions will have > discretion to choose for themselves between the various open access models > and opt for more green than gold. The only beneficiaries from the > Government’s preferred policy appear to be the high-profit STM publishers - > who will continue to dominate both subscription and open access markets - > and a small number of open access publishers with strong academic support. > Amongst the losers may be the smaller society publishers without the > breadth of support to secure a significant share of the open access > publishing market. It is to be hoped that the promised monitoring of both > the Finch Report Recommendations and the RCUK policy will take a broader > view of open access and of the effect of policies than has been evident to > date. > Fred Friend > Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL > http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org<mailto:GOAL@eprints.org> > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >
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