"The #EU is ready to agree that immediate #OpenAccess to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, w/o authors having to pay fees & that the bloc should support #nonprofit scholarly publishing models.
Update. This new study concludes (in effect) that authors with less funding to pay #APCs are less likely to publish in APC-based #OpenAccess journals. But it words the conclusion this way: "Open access [without qualification] may become a barrier to the dissemination of work for researchers who have financial difficulty choosing open access."
"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-024-09978-0
PS: This is careless and misleading. APCs are the barrier, not OA. The article doesn't mention no-fee #GreenOA or #DiamondOA.
PS: These authors recognize that not all OA journals charge APCs (#DiamondOA). On the one hand, their data only show a decline in submissions from the south for APC-based OA journals. But their imprecise writing attributes it to OA as such.
PS: This claim is unargued. I think it's shorthand for this longer one: All or most OA journals charge #APCs, creating an incentive to accept low-quality work. The premise on APCs is false. But if restated to speak precisely about APC-based journals (not all or most OA journals), it would be worth confronting.
Three common errors here: (1) the false assumption that all or most OA journals charge #APCs, (2) the false assumption that all paid APCs are paid by authors, (3) the false assumption that there's just one OA journal business model.
Unfortunately it also repeats two common errors: (1) the false claim that all or most OA journals charge APCs and (2) the false claim that all paid APCs are paid by authors.
tl;dr: #APCs are fundamentally inequitable, and it's about the infrastructure, the infrastructure, the infrastructure.
"If this proposal leaves the for-profit publishing apparatus largely intact, it will enter the history of half-measures made in deference to the publishing oligopoly that leave the problem perpetually unsolved. What could the world be like if we had 20 years of experimenting with open research dissemination, rather than spending the dawn of the information era hobbled by broken systems accessible to a vanishingly small and privileged few? Will we be looking back in another 20 years wishing we had the courage to end for-profit publishing now?"
"#Elsevier told editors that fees were based on a journal’s reputation —specifically, their #ImpactFactor. As the editors grew the journal’s prestige, Elsevier increased the publication fee by about 15%…Keilholz…concluded that the incentives for #ForProfit publishers were not aligned with 'what we want for science.' "
At the same time, most (90%) are seeing an increase in #OpenAccess revenues.
The report says nothing about where these revenues are coming from. It doesn't mention #APCs, fees, or charges. (PS: I'm guessing that these revenues are from APCs & the report didn't mention that bc it assumed that all OA journals charge APCs.)
1/ I'm seeing a definite shift from protesting high subscription prices at non-OA journals to protesting high #APCs, and APCs as such, at APC-based #OA journals.
On the one hand, this is a sign of progress. There's rising acceptance that #OpenAccess is the future and #subscriptions are the past. We're fine-tuning how to do the future and debating different forks in the road.
Though SN (or the article author) is careful not to say so explicitly, SN seems to want India to have a fund to pay #APCs.
If so, note Recommendation 3.3 from the Budapest Open Access Initiative 20th anniversary statement [#BOAI20], 2022: "We recommend that institutions spend new money on alternatives to APCs rather than APCs themselves." https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai20/
New study: A survey of journal editors in the field of #LIS shows that most journals that do not publish #DiamondOA (either they charge #APCs or they do not publish OA at all) "have not discussed transitioning to a no-publishing fee OA model, and that finances are the main barrier. Most also indicated a lack of awareness of their journal’s budget. The most popular no-publishing fee OA model was #SubscribeToOpen." https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/26170
New study: When the journal, Neuropsychopharmacology, studied its own articles (a mix of #GreenOA, #GoldOA, #BronzeOA, and non-OA or #paywalled), it found that "easily accessible article content is most often cited by readers, but that the higher #APCs of #Hybrid tier publishing may not guarantee increased scholarly or social impact." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-024-01796-4
These journals still compete for authors. But for authors submitting to #Elsevier journals, impact metrics matter more than price. For authors submitting to #Hindawi journals, turnaround time matters more than price.
New study: "We found that publishing #OpenAccess in #hybrid journals…confers an avg citation advantage…of 17.8 #citations…After taking [several variables] into account…we still found that OA generated significantly more citations than closed access…We found that cost itself was not predictive of citation rates…For authors with limited budgets, we recommend OA alternatives that do not require paying a fee [#DiamondOA]." https://peerj.com/articles/16824/
"Indeed, African Journal of Herpetology APC is set by its publisher, Taylor & Francis, and is beyond the control of the Herpetological Association of Africa. The APC makes this the most expensive herpetology subject journal globally, resulting in potential authors seeking other venues for their work."