Presentation at the SciELO SA User Group meeting Johannesburg 8 September 2015 Speaker: Pierre de Villiers

1. Empowering Africa through access to knowledge

2. Pierre de Villiers
Managing Director
AOSIS
Financing Scholarly Journals
Publisher’s Perspective

3. • AOSIS background
• Journal-economics 101
• Journal financing models
Outline

4. AOSIS – OA Journals
27

5. AOSIS – journal article growth
84
264
428
542 558
981
1076
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Submissions
Published

6. Journal-economics
101

7. “There ain’t no free lunch”
"Mr. Wallace neglects the
fact that such a thing as a
'free' lunch never existed.
Until man acquires the
power of creation,
someone will always have
to pay for a ‘free’ lunch.”
The Lima News, January
1942

8. Someone is always paying

9. R&D spending South Africa (%)
• Total spend 2012/13: R23.871 Bn ( 2,6% real)
• 0,76% of GDP (target 1%), same for 3 years
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/media-briefs/cestii/research-and-
development-survey-released
Buss, 44.3
NPO, 2.1
Govt, 6.0
HEI, 30.7
Sci Cnls, 16.9
Public
Share
54%

10. “There are no such thing as public
money, there is only taxpayers’
money”
Margaret Thatcher
Public Money

11. Manuscript
uploaded on
system
Peer review
(2 reviewers)
Copyediting
(3 steps)
Layout
editing
Proofreading
(3 steps)
Publication
(immediate)
Journal Production flow

12. Costs of publishing
• Information Technology
• Article Production
– Manuscript administration
– Copyediting & plagiarism
– Typesetting (formats)
– Proofreading
• General Production
– Indexing, DOI, Preservation
– Monitoring & Reporting
• Subscriptions/APC’s
• Office overheads
• Editors fee
• Marketing (social media)

13. IT, 2.5
Marketing, 2.5
Article
Production, 40
General
Production, 35
Publisher, 11.6
Tax, 8.4
Typical Journal costs (%)

14. Journal Financing
models

15. Toll Access - business model
• Pay for access
– Subscription
– Pay per view
• “Big five” >50%
• “Big deal” for HEIs (Bundling)
• More journals is better
• APC’s !!

16. Toll Access - business model
IMPORTANT TO RESEARCHER
• Restriction to access
• Lower citation

18. The Serials Crisis

19. “The principle that the results of research
that has been publicly funded should be
freely accessible in the public domain is a
compelling one, and fundamentally
unanswerable”
UK Finch report, 2012
Taxpayers deserves unlimited access

20. Open Access
“Open-access (OA)
literature is digital, online,
free of charge, and free of
most copyright and
licensing restrictions.
What makes it possible is
the internet and the
consent of the author or
copyright-holder.”
Peter Suber

21. An innovation that creates a new market
by applying a different set of values,
which ultimately (and unexpectedly)
overtakes an existing market
Disrupting innovation

22. “It combines a new technology, digital
distribution of content using the Internet,
with a new business model, free distribution to
the reader with cost paid by the author or through
other means”
David W. Lewis, The Inevitability of Open Access. 2012
Gold Open Access is a disruptive innovation

23. Richard Van Noorden, Nature, 2013. The True cost of
Science Publishing

24. Open Access - Financing models
• Volunteerism
• Sponsorship
• APC’s
• Institutional membership
fees
• Author membership fees
• Combinations

25. Lowers/eliminate need for APC’s
• Volunteers
– Negative personal impact
– Risk for journal (one person)
– Time cost (HEI)
– Cost to career
• Sponsorship
– Diverts research funds
– More useful to sponsor individuals (APC fund)
Volunteerism & Sponsorship

26. GOOD
• Transparency
• Competition
• Part of research budget
(e.g. conference fee)
• Institutional support
BAD
• Burden on individual
• “Predatory journals”
• “Double dipping” by Toll Access journals
• Institutional burden – Toll & APC’s
APC’s

27. Full APC
26%
No APC
39%
Subsidised
APC
35%
N=27
AOSIS Journals –finance models

28. 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
AOSIS
Sage
Copernicus
PLOS
Elsevier
Average
Wiley
BMC
OUP
BMJ
Cambridge
T&F
Springer
Nature
AOSIS (2015)
ZAR 6,300
(315GBP)
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-
prod/assets/documents/documents/Openaccessreport.pdf
APC’s paid by UK research organisations (2014)
Research Councils UK (GBP)

29. OA papers reached 50% in 2011
Eric Archambault et al, Aug 2013: http://www.science-
metrix.com/pdf/SM_EC_OA_Availability_2004-2011.pdf

30. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ, 2014
DOAJ.org – RSA 2014

31. Journals – RSA - 2015
• DHET “accredited” = 302
• Open Access = 48%
(146)
• WoS (ISI) = 22% (65)
• IBSS = 14% (41)
• Scopus = 38% (115)
Open
Access
48%
Toll
Access
52%
ASSAf Newsletter, July 2015

32. OA in RSA entering “Late Majority” phase
Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations

33. David W. Lewis, The Inevitability of Open Access. 2012

34. £

35. Brent crude oil price

36. The taxpayer is funding more than 50% of research in
South Africa, more than R20 billion per year
RSA Taxpayer

37. Thank you