While we often discuss the positive aspects of Scholarly Communications and Open Access (OA), we also need to consider areas where it can be improved for authors and readers or even where policies can have unintended and undesirable consequences. One area that has generated considerable discussion is article processing charges (APCs), fees paid by an author or their institution to a publisher to make their article OA.
In the article “The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access. How For-Profit Publishers Benefit from Article Processing Charges,” Leigh-Ann Butler et. al. estimated that the five largest academic publishers received over $1 billion in publication fees from 2015 to 2018. The authors noted that APCs can be thousands of dollars or more, creating a barrier to OA for many researchers and their institutions.
Faranah Osman and Johan Rooryck developed this idea further in their article “A Fair Pricing Model for Open Access.” Osman and Rooryck found that—like many journal subscriptions—the prices for APCs have risen faster than inflation, and while some publishers offer a fee waiver process, this can represent a substantial barrier to publishing research as OA. The authors recommend a solution based on globally equitable pricing, similar to that used for some medicines.
In their editorial “Public Access is Not Equal Access,” Sudip Parikh, Shirley M. Malcom, and Bill Moran wrote: “Public access should foster a diverse universe of authors and readers regardless of their economic circumstances.” Based on their experience publishing journals with a variety of access models, the authors express concern that APCs can incentivize a publisher to focus on publishing a larger number of volumes, rather than adhering to higher standards of research and scholarship.
These are ongoing challenges for OA, and addressing them can improve accessibility for readers and create more OA publishing opportunities for readers. Fortunately, Milner Library is working with several journal publishers to determine how to best support faculty in publishing their work as OA should they wish to.
If you have questions about making your past or current projects OA, would like to include your materials on our institutional repository ISU ReD, or have questions about any scholarly communications or related topics please contact Milner Library’s Scholarly Communication Team at isured@ilstu.edu.
