Björk 2006 1

The economics of open access publishing

Bo-Christer Björk

UNICA seminar Helsinki 19.5.2006

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Effects of Internet

• Distribution is going electronic• Also distribution models are changing

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Where to draw the line?

• Which process• Using what business model• What type of cost• Is cost equal to price?• Cost incurred by whom?

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Which processManuscript

Reviewers' comments

Revised manuscript

Accepted manuscript

SubscriptionAcquire

access rights

Review manuscript

Revise manuscript

Make journal availableinside university

Queue for publishing

Search forand retrieve

article

Publish article in journal issue

Read article

Publish article on the web

Index article

Index web source

Author charge

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Using what business model

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What type of cost

• First copy cost• Distribution costs• Overhead costs of publisher• Time costs of readers• Opportunity costs

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is cost equal to price?

• Publisher revenue = cost + profit• In the short run yes• In the long run more competition could

lower costs• Example mobile telephone bills

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Cost incurred by whom

• Cost of publisher• Cost of readers• Overhead cost of libraries• Cost of reviewers time

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Getting the numbers right

• Number of titles• Number of articles• Share electronic• OA journals share• OA articles share• OA copies in

repositories, web pages etc.

• 25000 – 50000• 1, 5 – 2 million• > 50 %• 4-5 %• 1-2 %• 15-20 %

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Comparative effects of different business models

Reviewing Publi-cation

Indexing& Library services

Usage Preser-vation

Impact on research

Direct Impact on industry

Paper = = = = = = =

Electronic = ?

Repository Open Access

= ?

Journal Open Access

= ?

Life-cycle costsof current readership level

Benefits from increased readership

OA

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The free rider problem

• Has been proposed as argument against author charges

• Some research intensive institutes might end up paying more than currently

• Lesser institutes and industry would get a free rid

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But!

• The argument can be turned around• Only a small proportion of subscription

money comes from the free riders anyway

• It would be socially beneficial if these parties would start to use research results more

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”Level playing field”

Individual article

Journal Journal collection

Readers buying

access

Author Pay-per view Personal subscription

University Institutional subscription

”Big deal”

Research Funder

National level Consortial big deal

Authors buying

OA provision

Author Author charge

University Institutional membership

Research Funder ”Wellcome Trust”

National level FinELib & Biomed Central deal

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REFERENCES

For a number of publications seeHomepages of the OACS projecthttp://www.oacs.shh.fi/publications.html