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TheSCOAP3initiativeandtheOpenAccessArticle-Processing-Chargemarket:

globalpartnershipandcompetitionimprovevalueinthedisseminationofscience

ClémentRomeu1,AnneGentil-Beccot,AlexanderKohls,

AnneMansuy,SalvatoreMele,MartinVesper2CERN,CH1211,Geneva23,Switzerland

Authorscanbecollectivelycontactedatinfo@scoap3.orgDOI:10.2314/CERN/C26P.W9DT

June4th,2014–UpdatedAugust27th,2014,March20th,2015andFebruary25th,2016

Themostrecentupdatereportsthe2014-2015averageAPCsAbstractTheSCOAP3(SponsoringConsortiumforOpenAccessPublishinginParticlePhysics)initiativeisaninternationalpartnershiptoconverttoOpenAccessthepublishedliteratureinthefieldofHigh-Energy Physics (HEP). It has been in operation since January 2014, and since then hascoveredover4,000articlesperyear.Originally initiatedbyCERN, theEuropeanOrganizationfor Nuclear Research, and now counting partners representing 44 countries and 3intergovernmentalorganisations,SCOAP3hassuccessfullyconvertedtoOpenAccessall,orpartof, 6 HEP journals previously restricted to subscribers. It is also supporting publication ofarticles in 4 existing Open Access journals. As a “Gold” Open Access initiative, SCOAP3 paysArticleProcessingCharges(APCs),aspublishers’sourceofrevenueforthepublicationservice.Differentiating itself fromotherOpenAccess initiatives,SCOAP3setAPCsthroughatenderingprocess,correlatingqualityandprice,atconsistentconditionsacrossparticipatingpublishers.TheAPCs determined by the SCOAP3 tendering process are comparedwith those charged inbothGoldOpenAccessandhybridmarkets,thelatterreferringtothepiecemealconversiontoOpen Access of individual articles in subscription journals. If the journals’ “Impact Factor” isused as a proxy for quality, the results indicate that the SCOAP3 APCs alignwith, or slightlyimproveupon,thoseoftheservice-basedGoldOpenAccess journals.TheSCOAP3APCsvastlyimproves upon the price levels of what appears to be a less-functional hybrid publicationmarket,ingeneralandforthefieldofPhysicsinparticular.TheSCOAP3 tenderingprocess includedmechanisms tocapyearlyexpenditures inanysinglepublishing outlet. Based on articles published in the 2014-2015 period (8,757 articles), theaverageAPCeffectivelypaidbySCOAP3throughitsfirsttwoyearswas€1,100.Thisisamongthebestvalue-for-moneyintheOpenAccessmarketplace.©TheAuthors.LicensedunderaCreativeCommonsAttribution4.0InternationalLicense

1AlsoatHECParis,JouyenJosas,France.2AlsoatHochschuleNiederrhein,Krefeld,Germany.

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I. IntroductionThe (scientific) publishing market is characterised by a vastly dominant model where thereader(asanindividualoranorganisation)isthesourceofrevenuesforthepublisherthroughpurchaseofselectedcontentor,mostoften,subscriptionfeesforawideroffering.Themainroleofthe(scientific)publisheristofiltercontentthroughthepeer-reviewsystemandguaranteeingtheversionofrecords.Content isassembled in journals,andthematic“packages”thereof,andsubscriptionssoldto(academic)libraries.Allservicesofferedbythepublishersintheprocess(the infrastructure for peer-review, the preparation of content for online publication, thecontent delivery systems, the value added in linking and managing references, the digitalarchivalsystemsandtheinfrastructuretodeliverlegacyprintedcopies)arepaidforbythesale,orthelicensing,ofthiscontent.Overthelastdecade,thishistoricalmodelhasclashedwithdemandsforunrestrictedaccesstopublicly-fundedresultsofresearch,aspartoftheoveralldriverofamoreopensociety.Inthecase of peer-reviewed publications, this objective is met by an alternative publishingmodel,“Gold”OpenAccess3,whichswitchesthesourceofrevenuesfromthereadersidetotheauthorside, typically through the payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC) for the publishingservices,ratherthanfortheaccesstocontent.Forthepurposeofthisstudy,thismodelof“Gold”Open Access encompasses two variants. The first are journals for which APCs are the onlyincomesource.Thesecondare“hybrid” journalswhichoffer thepossibility topayanAPC forindividualarticles tobeOpenAccess,alongside therestofcontentwhich isstill soldwith thetraditional subscriptionmodel.Outof1.8million science, technologyandmedicinearticles inEnglish published in 2011, is estimated that about 12%weremade available through “Gold”OpenAccessjournalsor,individually,inhybridjournals4.It is worth noting that the appeal of Open Access goes beyond the opportunity of accessingarticles. While the traditional publishing model generally relies on authors to transfer thecopyright of their work to publishers, making the sale of content possible, the Open Accessmodelallowsforcontenttobedisseminatedthroughlicenseswhichallowwidere-use5.Originally proposed by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (a de-factoglobalfocalpointoftheHigh-EnergyPhysics-orHEP-community),andnowcountingalmostthree thousandpartners in44 countries6 and three intergovernmentalorganisations, SCOAP3

3AdistinctionisoftenmadebetweentwotypesofOpenAccess,the“Gold”OpenAccess,discussedinthisarticle,wherescientificjournalsarethevehicle,and“Green”OpenAccess,whereauthorspostsaversionoftheirarticlesonanonlinerepository,foreitherimmediateordelayeddissemination.4Mabe,M.,Ware,M.(2012).TheSTMreport.Anoverviewofscientificandscholarlyjournalpublishing.Retrievedfromhttp://www.stm-assoc.org/industry-statistics/the-stm-report/(accessed25-06-2014).5ExamplesareCreativeCommonlicenses(see:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/).Earlierstudiesofthe14largestOpenAccesspublishersfoundthat71%oftheiroutputwaspublishedundertheCC-BYlicence(see:Dallmeier-Tiessen,S.,etal.(July8,2010).Openaccesspublishing-modelsandattributes:StudyofOpenAccessPublishing.MaxPlanckSocietyDigitalLibrary.Retrievedfromhttp://edoc.mpg.de/478647).6Armenia,Australia,Austria,Azerbaijan,Belarus,Belgium,Canada,China,Cuba,CzechRepublic,Denmark,DPRK,Finland,France,Georgia,Germany,Greece,HongKong,Hungary,Iceland,Israel,Italy,Japan,Kazakhstan,Korea,Mexico,Moldova,Mongolia,Netherlands,Norway,Poland,Portugal,SlovakRepublic,SouthAfrica,Spain,Sweden,Switzerland,Taiwan,Turkey,Ukraine,UnitedKingdom,USA,Uzbekistan,Vietnam.InadditiontothreeInternationalOrganisations(CERN,IAEAandJINR).SCOAP3(n.d.).Currentpartners.Retrievedfromhttp://scoap3.org/participating-countries(accessed05-01-2016).

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proposesanevolutionofthe“Gold”OpenAccessmodel.Itconverts,atnodirectcosttoauthors,existinghigh-qualitypeer-reviewedjournalsinHEPtoOpenAccess.ItalsosupportspublicationinexistingOpenAccessjournals.SCOAP3payspublisherscentrallyfortheirservices,onaper-article basis, with APCs determined through a bidding process. Publishers of subscriptionjournalsinturnreducesubscriptionfeestoalltheircustomers(academiclibrariesandlibraryconsortia, irrespectively of their country participation to SCOAP3), as thismaterial has beenalreadypaid for.Libraries, throughnational intermediaries, redirect toSCOAP3thesavings insubscriptions. Authors in SCOAP3 journals never pay for articles they publish, nor areinstitutions billed on a per-article basis. SCOAP3 is supported by nation-wide yearlycontributionsaccordingtoa“fairshare”scenario,calculatedonapro-ratabasis,asfractionsoftheglobalauthorshipofHEParticles7.AnyauthorcanpublishinjournalssupportedbySCOAP3,eventhosefromcountriesorinstitutionswhichdonotsupporttheinitiativeyet.CERN,asthelegalentityrepresentingSCOAP3,guaranteesallpaymentstopublishers.EffectivelySCOAP3migratesscientificpublishing inHEP fromacontenteconomytoaserviceapproach. SCOAP3distinguishes itself by targeting an entire scientific fieldbeyond individualjournalsorpublishers.Thisconcept is facilitatedby the fact that97%ofarticlesappearing inpeer-reviewed journals in this field are freely available in a “preprint” form on the onlinerepositoryarXiv.org8wellbeforepublication.AuniqueelementofSCOAP3isthatAPCsaretheresult of a tendering process, which correlates quality and price and introduces competitionacrossproviders.FundingagenciesarepayingincreasingattentiontoOpenAccess.Asaresult,thereisagrowinginterestinAPCspricingmechanisms.ThisarticlecomparestwoaspectsoftheSCOAP3modeltothe existing APCmarket. The first is an analysis of the result of the 2012 SCOAP3 tenderingprocess, throughwhich the APCswere established, to assessing how it effectively correlatedqualityandprice,andtocompareitsoutcomewiththeexistingOpenAccessmarket.ThesecondfocusistoanalysethefirsttwoyearsoftheSCOAP3operation,tocomputetheAPCseffectivelypaidover2014-2015,andthevalue-for-moneythattheoperationisdelivering.Thestructureofthisarticleisasfollows:afterthisintroduction,SectionIIpresentsbackgroundinformationon themechanismusedby SCOAP3 todetermine itsAPC. Section III outlines themethodology used in this study of the APC market. Section IV compares the results of theSCOAP3 tendering process, and the APC it will effectively pay, to the overall APC market. AsummaryandconclusionsareofferedinSectionV.

II. Background:theSCOAP3tenderingprocessTheSCOAP3tenderingprocess todetermine the levelof theAPCswasorganisedbyCERN,asthe legal entity acting for the benefit of SCOAP3. Pursuant to CERN status as anintergovernmental organisation, its public procurement process is strictly determined in the

7TheSCOAP3WorkingParty.(2007).Towardsopenaccesspublishinginhighenergyphysics:ReportoftheSCOAPWorkingParty.Geneva:CERN.Availableathttp://scoap3.org/files/Scoap3WPReport.pdf.8Gentil-Beccot,A.,Mele,S.,Brooks,T.(2009).CitingandReadingBehavioursinHigh-EnergyPhysics.HowaCommunityStoppedWorryingaboutJournalsandLearnedtoLoveRepositories.arXiv:0906.5418.

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CERN Financial Rules, in the spirit of openness and fair competition9. This context offers theopportunitytointroducecompetitionamongpublishersforOpenAccessservices,andintroducebest-value-for-moneyconcepts,previouslyabsentfromtheAPCmarket.Throughthetenderingprocess, CERN intended to grant publishers three-year contracts (2014-2016) for publishingservicescoveringallHEParticlesinretainedjournals.ThebudgetenvelopeallocatedtoSCOAP3was fixed by the international SCOAP3 partnership to €10 million, targeting conversion ofaround 7,500 articles in the field: only journals offering best-money-for-value could bethereforeretainedintheprocess.ValuewasdefinedthroughseveralqualitycriteriasuchasthejournalImpactFactor10(IF)andtheservicesprovided.ThetenderingprocessstartedinJune2012whenCERNprovidedTechnicalSpecifications11oftherequestedservicesbysendinganInvitationtoTendertoqualifiedpublishersidentifiedbyapreviousmarket survey12. In addition to the requestedAPCs, publishershad to specifywhichCreativeCommonslicensetheywouldadopt13and,inadditiontounrestricteddisseminationofarticles on their web sites, which formats they would supply to SCOAP3 for furtherdissemination (including formats such as XML and PDF/Awhich are usually not available tosubscribersof scientific journals).Most importantly, publishers’ bids included the contractualobligations to perpetual Open Access for the articles and to effect reductions of subscriptionfeestotheirentirecustomerbase(irrespectiveoftheirparticipationinSCOAP3)commensuratetothevalueofthejournalsmigratingfromasubscriptionmodeltoOpenAccess.TheSCOAP3modelaccommodatestwokindsof journals,coveringtheentirespectrumofHEPpublications. Journals which in 2011 (the last year with complete data at the time of thetenderingprocess)hadpublishedatleast60%HEParticles,accordingtotheirclassificationonarXiv repository, would be fully covered by SCOAP3. If this condition is not met, then onlyindividualHEParticleswouldbecoveredbySCOAP3,therestofthejournalcontinuingwithitsothersourcesofrevenue(eitherGoldOpenAccessfromothersourcesorashybrid,asthecasemightbe).The adjudication of the contracts was equally based on price and quality of service, byattributingeachbiduptoatheoreticalmaximumof100points.Apricescorewasdeterminedoutof50points,with50pointsattributedtothejournalwiththelowestAPC.ThejournalwiththehighestAPCwouldreceive0points.Thequalityscorewasalsodeterminedoutof50pointsas an undisclosed combination of the IF14, the license under which the articles would bepublishedprovided(theCC-BYlicenserepresentingthehighestquality)andthedeliveryformat(witha simultaneousdeliveryofXMLandPDF/Abeing themostdesirable).The journalwith

9CERN.(n.d)HowtodoBusinesswithCERN.Retrievedfromhttp://procurement.web.cern.ch/how-to-do-business-with-cern(accessedon13-06-2014).10TheImpactFactorisameasureofthefrequencywithwhichthe"averagearticle"inajournalhasbeencitedinaparticularyear.TheImpactFactorofagivenjournaliscalculatedbydividingthenumberofcitationsinagivenyeartoarticlespublishedinthatjournalduringtheprevioustwoyears.ItiscalculatedbyThomsonReuters.Retrievedfromhttp://wokinfo.com/essays/impact-factor/(accessedon25-06-2014).11CERN.(n.d.)InvitationtoTender.Retrievedfromhttp://scoap3.org/files/Technical_Specification.pdf(accessedon13-06-2014).12CERN.(n.d.)E-tendering.Retrievedfromhttp://cds.cern.ch/record/1384149(accessedon13-06-2014).13NootherlicensesthanCreativeCommonslicenseswereallowedbythetenderingprocess.14ThecalculationoftheImpactFactorwasslightlyalteredbyremovingtheimpactofthebi-yearly“ReviewofParticlePhysics”,aperiodicalreviewarticleinthefield,appearinginagivenjournal,whichreceivesthousandsofyearlycitations.

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thehighesttotalscorewasconsideredastheeconomicallymostadvantageousjournal.Closed-envelopebidswere received at CERN in June2012 and rankedon a journal-by-journal basis,starting from the economically most advantageous one, down to the economically leastadvantageous one. For each bid, a theoretical maximum value of the yearly contract wasevaluatedfromthebaselinevolumeofarticlespublishedin2011multipliedbytheAPCvalue.Alljournalswithinthefixed€10millionbudgetenvelopeenterednegotiationfortheawardofcontracts.

Publisher Journal2011

referencearticles

APC Model

AmericanPhysicalSociety PhysicalReviewD 2,989 $1,900 1

AmericanPhysicalSociety PhysicalReviewC 107 $1,900 2

Elsevier NuclearPhysicsB 284 $2,000 1

Elsevier PhysicsLettersB 1,010 $1,800 1

Hindawi AdvancesinHighEnergyPhysics 28 $1,000 1

InstituteofPhysicsPublishing/ChineseAcademyofScience

ChinesePhysicsC 16 £1,000 2

InstituteofPhysics/DeutschePhysikalischeGesellschaft

NewJournalofPhysics 20£1,200

2

InstituteofPhysics/SISSAJournalofCosmologyandAstroparticlePhysics

138£1,400

2

JagellonianUniversity ActaPhysicaPolonicaB 32 €500 2

OxfordUniversityPress/PhysicalSocietyofJapan

ProgressofTheoreticalandExperimentalPhysics

46£1,000

2

Springer/SocietàItalianadiFisica EuropeanPhysicalJournalC 326 €1,500 1

Springer/SISSA JournalofHighEnergyPhysics 1,65215 €1,200 1Table1.ResultsoftheSCOAP3tenderingprocess.PublishersarepresentedinalphabeticalorderastheorderingofthetenderingprocesswasnotreleasedbyCERN16.Model1referstojournalsfullycoveredbySCOAP3whilemodel2referstojournalswereonlyHEParticlesarecovered.The2011volumeofarticlesisusedasthebaselineforthecalculationofthe2014contracts.

At the end of the tendering process 12 journals from as many publishers were retained forparticipationinSCOAP317,thesearesummarisedinTable1,andrepresentthevastmajorityoftheHEP scientific literature. The SCOAP3 tenderingprocess succeeded in achieving a level ofAPCssuchtoconvertthefieldtoOpenAccesswithinthefixedbudgetenvelope.

15TheJuly4th2014versionofthisarticlereportedanerroneousvalue.16CERNretainstherighttodisclosethisinformation,aswellasinformationonthejournalswhichfelloutsideofthe€10millionbudgetenvelope.17SCOAP3(July2012).SCOAP3tenderingprocessiscomplete.Retrievedfromhttp://scoap3.org/news/news94.html(accessedon13-06-2014).

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Betweenthecompletionofthetenderingprocessandthestartofoperationsonepublisher,theAmerican Physical Society, decided not to sign a contract18. Consequently, SCOAP3 enteredoperations for its first threeyearperiod in January2014with10 journals from11publishersandwitharevisedbudgetenvelopeof€5millionayear19.

III. MethodologyThisstudyinvestigatestherelationbetweenajournalAPCanditsquality,asmeasuredwithitsImpactFactor.WhilemuchcriticismisarticulatedregardingtheIFaccuracyandrelevance202122,thisarticlehasretainedtheIFasaproxyforqualitygivenitscurrentprevalenceinmakingvalue assessments of the offering of the publishing industry, and for consistency with theoriginalSCOAP3tenderingprocess.Forthisanalysis,asampleof2,617OpenAccessjournalsfrom17differentpublishershasbeencompiled. Publishers were selected among large and renowned establishments, either fullyrelyingonanOpenAccessbusinessmodel (GoldOpenAccess journals), orhaving co-existingsubscriptionandOpen-Accessofferings(hybridjournals).Fivedataelementswereretrievedforeach of these journals: the ISSN, the full title, the 2012 IF, the APC charged in 2014 and thecorrespondingcurrency.The2012IFwasretrievedsemi-automatically fromthe JournalCitationReportsdatabase23 inMay2014.Journalswhichdidnothavea2012IFwereremovedfromthesample.APCswere retrieved either from properly formatted price list offered by the publishers (e.g.HindawiandSpringer)orthroughweb-scraping(e.g.Elsevier)ormanuallyforpublisherswitha limited number of journals (e.g. PLoS or APS). Only journalswhich either charged APCs in2014, or for which this information was clearly identified on their web pages, were furtherretained. Inorder tohaveconsistentAPCsvalues,VATwasexcluded,anddiscounts foreitherdevelopingcountriesorforlearnedsocietymemberswereignored.The final samplecomprises1,410 journalsand theirbreak-downbypublisher ispresented inTable2.Theseincludethe10journalsparticipatinginSCOAP3.Thedatasampleispresentedassupplementarymaterialtothisarticle24,withtheexceptionoftheIFdata,whichareproprietaryandwere accessed through a subscription license. Anyonewishing to reproduce or augment

18APS.(June2013).SummaryofExecutiveBoarddiscussionandactionsonOpenAccessandSCOAP3atJune18/19,2013meeting.Retrievedfromhttp://www.aps.org/about/governance/executive/openaccess.cfm(accessedon13-06-2014).19AstheAPScontractrepresentedabout€5millionayear,theSCOAP3yearlybudgetenvelopewasconsequentlyreducedfrom€10to€5millionayear.20Arnold,D.N.,Fowler,K.K.(March2011).NefariousNumbers.NoticesoftheAMS.58(3),434-43721Saha,S.,Saint,S.,Christakis,D.A.(2003).ImpactFactor:avalidmeasureofjournalquality?JournaloftheMedicalLibraryAssociation,91(1),42-46.22VanNoorden,R.(June2012).Recordnumberofjournalsbannedforboostingimpactfactorwithself-citations.NatureNewsBlog.Retrievedfromhttp://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/06/record-number-of-journals-banned-for-boosting-impact-factor-with-self-citations.html(accessedon13-06-2014).23ThomsonReuters.(n.d.)JournalCitationReports.Retrievedfromhttp://wokinfo.com/products_tools/analytical/jcr/(accessedon05-2014).24Romeu,C.,etal(2014).SupplementarydataforastudyofOpenAccessArticleProcessingCharges–2014.ZENODO.10.5281/zenodo.10752.

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thisstudy,andhavingsuchasubscription,caneasilyretrievethisdataelementfromtheISSNofeachjournal. Journalswerefurtherseparatedintwomutually-exclusivecategories:GoldOpenAccess orhybrid journals (89 and1,321 journals, respectively). Physics journalswere tagged(131journals),aswellasSCOAP3journals(10journals).Allthesetagsarealsoincludedinthedatasamplewhichsupplementsthisarticle.

Publisher JournalsintheSampleAmericanInstituteofPhysics 4AmericanPhysicalSociety 7BioMedCentral 10BritishMedicalJournal 1Elsevier 1,185Frontiers 7Hindawi 31InstituteofPhysics 15JagellonianUniversity 1NaturePublishingGroup 1OxfordUniversityPress 108PublicLibraryofScience(PLoS) 7RoyalSociety 9SagePublications 1Springer 15TaylorandFrancis 3Wiley 5

Total 1,410HybridJournals 1,321

GoldOpenAccessJournals 89

Table2.Journalsusedinthisstudy,brokendownbypublishers.SCOAP3journalsareincluded.ThenumberofgoldOpenAccessjournalsandHybridjournalsisindicated.

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IV. ResultsTwo sets of results are presented. The first is a comparison of the APCs determined by theSCOAP3tenderingprocesswiththoseofGoldOpenAccessandhybridjournals,withparticularattention to physics journals. The second is a projection of theAPCs that SCOAP3will pay in2014, its firstyearofoperation,takingintoaccountprice-volumecontrolmechanisms,anditscomparisonwiththeoverallAPCmarket.1. TheSCOAP3tenderingprocessandtheAPCmarket

Figure 1 presents theAPCs of GoldOpenAccess journals as a function of their IF. There is acorrelation between the two of 0.7125 (n=89), which confirms the idea that interpretingpublishingasaservice(whichisthecaseintheGoldOpenAccessscenario)correlatesitsqualityandprice.TheAPCsofSCOAP3journalsarealignedwiththeexpectationsfromthisAPCmarket,showing that SCOAP3 is consistent with trends that are already manifest on the Gold OpenAccessmarket.ThisalsoconfirmstheeffectoftheSCOAP3tenderingprocessinlinkingqualityand price, when turning existing subscription journals, or parts thereof, to an Open Accessmodel.Figure2presentstheAPCsof131physics journalsasa functionof their IF. InadditiontotheSCOAP3journals,onlynineotherjournalsareGoldOpenAccess,allothersarehybridjournals.Whilesomejournals(notablythoseoftheAmericanPhysicalSociety26)aremostlyalignedwiththeoverallcorrelationofAPCandIFoftheGoldOpenAccessmarket, therestexhibitnosuchrelation. Within the field of physics, the SCOAP3 journals generally deliver better value formoneythanotherOpenAccessoptions.ItisinterestingtoremarkthechangeinAPCs27offivejournals participating in SCOAP3 in 2014 which were either hybrid journals or Gold OpenAccessjournalsin2013:theynowaligntotheoverallcorrelationbetweenAPCsandIF.Thedisconnectbetweenqualityandpriceforhybridjournalsdiscussedforthephysicsjournalsisawidespreadphenomenon,aspresentedinFigure3.ThisfigurepresentsAPCsofthe1,321hybridjournalsinthesampleasafunctionoftheIF.Forthesakeoflegibilitythe1,182Elsevierhybridjournalsarerepresentedbyacontourwhichcontains75%ofthetitles.Thiscontouris

25Thecorrelationcoefficientiscalculatedasfollow:!",$ = &'((",$)

+"+$= ,[ "./" $./$ ]

+"+$with"representingtheImpact

Factorand$theAPC.2" and2$representtheexpectedvaluesforthetwodistributions,withstandarddeviations3" and3$.Itiscomputedfromasampleof89goldOpenAccessjournals.26ThepublichybridAPCsoftheAPSaredifferent(lower)thantheirSCOAP3bidaspricesreportedinTable1.27APCretrievedthroughthewaybackmachineon13-06-2014Elsevier.(2012)PhysicsLettersB:http://web.archive.org/web/20121029113036/http://www.elsevier.com/journals/physics-letters-b/0370-2693/guide-for-authors;Elsevier.(2012)NuclearPhysicsB:http://web.archive.org/web/20120629055434/http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505716/authorinstructions;Springer.(2012)TheEuropeanPhysicalJournalC:http://web.archive.org/web/20120224230417/http://www.epj.org/guidelines_epjc.html;Hindawi.(2012)AdvancesinHighEnergyPhysics:http://web.archive.org/web/20130113091754/http:/www.hindawi.com/journals/ahep/apc/;OxfordUniversityPress.(2013)ProgressinTheoreticalandExperimentalPhysics:MitsuakiNozaki,privatecommunication.

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builtbyusingstepsof0.25inIFand€250inAPC,startingfromthepopulationmaximum,andconnectingcontiguouscellsindecreasingorderofpopulation,till75%ofthesampleisincluded.Figure4comparestheAPCsof theentire journalsample.There isastrikingdifferenceontheone hand between the clustering of APCs for hybrid journals at high price points, almostirrespectiveoftheIF,andontheotherhandofthedistributionoftheGoldOpenAccessjournals.Thedistributionof hybridAPCshas alsobeen studiedbyBjörk andSolomonwho found thathybridjournalscharge“relativelyuniformpriceinmostcaseswithoutregardtofactorssuchasdiscipline or impact”28. They previously concluded that the hybrid market is “highlydysfunctional” and that hybrid journals charge higher APCs than Gold Open Accesspublications29.SCOAP3 journals offer generally better value-for-money than the hybrid APC market, whichdemonstratestheeffectivenessoftheSCOAP3processallowinghybridjournalstomigrateintoaGoldOpenAccessmodel.2. AverageSCOAP3APCandtheoverallmarket

The SCOAP3 tendering process included the notion of amaximum contract amount for eachjournal (referred fromhere on as the “capping”mechanism). The cappingmechanismhas animpactontheactualaverageAPCSCOAP3ispaying.AspresentedinSectionII,theadjudicationprocess of the SCOAP3 tendering process needed to identify a theoreticalmaximum value ofeachcontract,inordertoretainjournals.Thelastavailablenumbersatthetimeofthetenderingprocess were the numbers of articles published in 2011. This is the number of articles thatSCOAP3was effectively paying for in 2014. Articles published above this cap enjoy the sameOpenAccessconditionsandservices,butthecostsarebornebythepublishers.Forthesecondandthirdyearoftheinitial3-yearperiodofSCOAP3(2015–2016)volumeincreaseswerepartoftheSCOAP3contractsandoverallbudgetenvelope,reflectingthemeasuredorganicgrowthinthe entire field of High-Energy-Physics, while allowing smaller journals to grow somewhatfaster.Thismechanismwasclearlyexplainedtobidders,whichfactoreditintotheirbids.Asaresultofthecappingmechanism,theeffectiveAPCsthatSCOAP3ispayingarelowerthanthoseresultingfromthetenderingprocesslistedinTable1.Thenumbersofarticlespublishedby each SCOAP3 journal in 201430 and 201531 are listed in Table 3. These numbers arecompared to the respective caps, which defined the amounts payable for each journal bymultiplyingthelowernumber(thenumberofarticlesorthecap)withtheAPCs(Table4).Withalmost8,757totalarticlespublishedin2014-2015,andatotalexpenditureof€9.6million,theaverageAPCpaidbySCOAP3wasaround€1,100.Thisvalueiscompared,inFigure4,withtheentire sample of this study: on average, SCOAP3 titles outperform the entire APCmarket intermsofvalueformoney.28Björk,B.,Solomon,D.(March2014).DevelopinganEffectiveMarketforOpenAccessArticleProcessingCharges.WellcomeTrust.29Björk,B.,Solomon,D.(July2012).AStudyofOpenAccessJournalsUsingArticleProcessingCharges.JournaloftheAmericanSocietyforInformationScienceandTechnology.63(8),1485-1495.30SCOAP3.(n.d.)SCOAP3Repository.Retrievedfromhttp://repo.scoap3.org/(accessedon31-12-2014).31SCOAP3.(n.d.)SCOAP3Repository,Retrievedfromhttp://repo.scoap3.org/(accessedon31-12-2015).

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Publisher Journal

2014 2015Cap(2011referencearticles)

Articlespublished(2)

Articlespayable(3)

Cap(2011referencearticles+growth)

Articlespublished

Articlespayable

JagiellonianUniversity

ActaPhys.Pol.B

32 11 11 48 27 27

Hindawi AHEP 28 198 28 42 160 42

IOP/CAS CPC 16 18 16 24 30 24

Springer/SIF EPJC 326 525 326 352 602 352

IOP/SISSA JCAP 138 236 138 160 198 160

Springer/SISSA JHEP 1,652 2,009 1,652 1,784 2,160 1,784

IOP/DPG NJP 20 9 9 30 8 8

Elsevier NPB 284 321 284 307 320 307

Elsevier PLB 1,010 890 890 1,091 875 875

OUP/PSP PTEP 46 63 46 69 97 69

3,552 4,280 3,400 3,907 4,477 3,648

Totalnumberofarticles 8,757

(1)Snapshotatrepo.scoap3.orgasof31-12-2014(2)SCOAP3paidonlythelowernumberbetweenarticlespublishedorthecap(3)Snapshotatrepo.scoap3.orgasof31-12-2015

Table3.SCOAP3journals,referencevolumes,articlespublishedin2014and2015.

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Publisher Journal APC

2014 2015

Amountpayable

APCinEUR(1)

Articlespayable(2)

APCinEUR(3)

Articlespayable(2)

JagiellonianUniversity

ActaPhys.Pol.B

€500 €500 11 €500 27 K€19

Hindawi AHEP $1,000 €753 28 €919 42 K€60

IOP/CAS CPC £1,000 €1’241 16 €1,363 24 K€53

Springer/SIF EPJC €1,500 €1,500 326 €1,500 352 K€1,017

IOP/SISSA JCAP £1,400 €1,737 138 €1,908 160 K€545

Springer/SISSA JHEP €1,200 €1,200 1,652 €1,200 1,784 K€4,123

IOP/DPG NJP £1,200 €1,489 9 €1,635 8 K€26

Elsevier NPB $2,000 €1,505 284 €1,837 307 K€991

Elsevier PLB $1,800 €1,355 890 €1,653 875 K€2,652

OUP/PSP PTEP £1,000 €1,241 46 €1,363 69 K€151

Total 3,400 3,648 K€9,637

AverageAPC(4) €1,100

(1)The2014averageofthedailyexchangerateoftheEuropeanCentralBankisusedfortheconversionintoEuro.(2)SCOAP3paidonlythelowernumberbetweenthearticlespublishedorthecap(3)The2015averageofthedailyexchangerateoftheEuropeanCentralBankisusedfortheconversionintoEuro.(4)Calculatedasthetotalamountpayable/totalarticles

Table4.SCOAP3journals,APCdeterminedbythetenderingprocess,theirequivalentinEuros

for2014and2015,payablearticlesin2014and2015andaverageAPC.

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V. ConclusionsThisstudyconfirmedthatArticleProcessingChargesforGoldOpenAccessjournalsandhybridjournals show a very different relation to journal Impact Factors. Gold Open Access journalsexhibitastrongcorrelationbetweenArticleProcessingChargesandImpactFactor,suggestingthatin“publishingasaservice”thereisanormalrelationbetweentheperceivedqualityoftheserviceand theprice it cancommand.On theotherside,hybrid journalswhicharrangeOpenAccesspublishingasa“side”offeringappearasworse“valueformoney”thantheirGoldOpenAccesscounterpart,astheydonotexhibitsuchastrongcorrelationwithqualityasmeasuredbytheImpactFactor.The SCOAP3 experiment is interesting in this context, by effectively moving (hybrid)subscription journals to a Gold Open Access model. Through its open and competitiveprocurementprocess,SCOAP3 introducesanoverallcorrelationbetween“quality”and“price”for publications in the field of High-Energy Physics. The SCOAP3 Article Processing ChargesdeterminedbyitstenderingprocessaligntotheoveralltrendinGoldOpenAccessjournals,andconsistentlyoffergoodvalueformoneyinthewiderfieldofphysics.SCOAP3ArticleProcessingChargeswereaslowas€1’104in2014-2015,generallyoutperformingtheOpenAccessArticleProcessingChargemarketintermsofvaluefor(public)money.This value is even more remarkable once one takes into account that funds which supportSCOAP3 aremostly a re-direction of budgets previously used for subscriptions,which are nolonger due. These findings highlight the value of global partnership between the publishingindustry,thelibrarycommunity,andnationalfundingagencies,toaddressOpenAccessdebatesdelivering more value in the process of dissemination of peer-reviewed results of publiclyfundedresearch.

Acknowledgements

WearegratefultoIvyAnderson,PatriciaHerterichandRalfSchimmerfortheirpreciousinputin thepreparationof thismanuscriptand to theSCOAP3ExecutiveCommitteeandGoverningCouncilfortheirconstructivesuggestionsthathavesharpenedouranalysis.

Contributiontothisstudy

AGB,AMandSMideatedthestudy;CRandMVbuiltthedatasample;CRperformedtheanalysis;CR, AGB, AK, AM and SM interpreted the results; CR and SMwrote this article,with supportfromAKandAM;CRpreparedthefigures.Disclaimer:allauthorsareorhavebeeninvolvedinthedesign, implementationoroperationof theSCOAP3 initiative asCERNemployeesoronaCERNbursary(CR,MV).

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Figure1.ArticleProcessingCharges(2014)asafunctionofImpactFactors(2012)forGoldOpenAccessjournals,andcomparisonwiththeSCOAP3titles.Thecorrelationcoefficientis0.71

(n=89)andcorrespondstotheline.

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AIP BioMedCentral ElsevierFrontiers Nature OxfordUniversityPressPLoS TheRoyalSociety SAGE

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Sources: JournalCitationReport,publishers'websites,scoap3.org

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Figure2.ArticleProcessingCharges(2014)asafunctionoftheImpactFactor(2012)for131physicsjournals,includingtheSCOAP3titles.ThearrowsindicatethechangeinAPCsoffive

journals(PLB–PhysicsLettersB,NPB–NuclearPhysicsB,EPJC–TheEuropeanPhysicalJournalC,PTEP-ProgressofTheoreticalandExperimentalPhysicsandAHEP–AdvancesinHighEnergyPhysics)beforeandaftertheirparticipationinSCOAP3.TheexchangeratesappliedforNPB,PLBandPTEParethoseofJanuary1st,2013(source:Oanda)

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Figure3.ArticleProcessingCharges(2014)asafunctionoftheImpactFactor(2012)for1’321hybridjournalsandcomparisonwiththeSCOAP3titles.Thejaggedlineindicatesthe75%

contourforthedistributionof1’182Elseviertitles.Itisbuiltbyusingstepsof0.25inIFand€250inAPC,startingfromthepopulationmaximum,andconnectingcontiguouscellsin

decreasingorderofpopulation,till75%ofthesampleisincluded.

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Elsevier (75%contour)

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Figure4.ArticleProcessingCharges(2014)asafunctionoftheImpactFactor(2012)foralljournalsinthesample(n=1’410),andcomparisonwiththeaverageAPCSCOAP3paidin2014-

2015(€1’104,horizontaldashedline).Thejaggedlineindicatesthe75%contourforthedistributionofthe1’182Elseviertitles.Itisbuiltbyusingstepsof0.25inIFand€250inAPC,

startingfromthepopulationmaximum,andconnectingcontiguouscellsindecreasingorderofpopulation,till75%ofthesampleisincluded.Thecontinuouslinerepresentsthe0.71

(n=89)correlationcoefficientfortheGoldOpenAccessjournals.

SCOAP3averageAPC:€1,104