Talk at 11th Munin Conference on Scholary Publishing

1. From Offsetting to Pay-as-you-publish
The (potential) comeback of selection, individual
prices and competition
Dirk Pieper, Bielefeld University Library
Kai Geschuhn, Max Planck Digital Library
Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing
Eleventh Annual Conference
21–22 Nov. 2016 Tromsø, Norway

2. Purpose of this presentation
2
 Introducing the Pay-as-you-publish model to
replace offsetting
 To discuss necessary adjustments in order to
transform current “offsetting” towards Pay-as-
you-publish
 To outline positive effects of Pay-as-you-
publish on the market of scholarly publishing
in terms of transparency, pricing, and
competition
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

3. Agenda
3
 Offsetting: models, shortcomings,
necessary adjustments
 Pay-as-you-publish: market effects
 Conclusion & outlook
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

4. Offsetting in the context of the
open access transition
4
“If gold oa is to take place in the next few years it can
only come about via the major publishers massively
converting their portfolios of established journals,
not via authors choosing outlets among newly
started OA journals.”
(Björk, Bo-Christer. „The Open Access Movement at a Crossroad: Are the Big Publishers and Academic Social Media Taking
over?: Open Access“. Learned Publishing 29, Nr. 2 (April 2016): 131–34. doi:10.1002/leap.1021;
http://www.openaccesspublishing.org/apc11/Open_Access_Movement_at_a_Crossroods.pdf)
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

5. Current offsetting agreements,
basically two types
5
 “Read and Publish”: converts former subscription
charges of institutions into a publishing fee, usually
supplemented by a reading fee
 “Offsetting”: reduces the annual license fee by the
expenditures an institution has incurred for open
access publishing in the previous year
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

6. Shortcomings of „Offsetting“
6
Type I, “Read and Publish”
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

7. Shortcomings of „Offsetting“
7
Typ II, “Offsetting”
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

8. From offsetting to
Pay-as-you-publish
8
 Looking at the current offset deals, a clear strategic
approach for a real switch of the business model from
subscription to APC is not yet visible
 Even where publishing charges set the basis for an
agreement, the models still contain many elements
equivalent to the subscription business such as price
increases, fixed article contingents, arbitrary growth
rates and guarantee amounts
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

9. From offsetting to
Pay-as-you-publish
9
 Despite the current shortcomings of offsetting, the
opportunities compared to the former subscription
model clearly prevail. It is on us (research institutions,
libraries) to shape offsetting according to our needs.
 ESAC workshop on offsetting (March 2016):
participants agreed that offsetting should lead to a
Pay-as-you-publish mode:
 http://esac-initiative.org/joint-understanding-of-offsetting/
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

10. Pay-as-you-publish
10
 Research institutions cover the costs for
their publishing output only
(publications by corresponding authors
affiliated with the research institution).
 No upfront payments
 No lump sums, no guaranteed amounts
 No access based cost components
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

11. Article pricing
11
 Pricing will change: From journal titles
(subscriptions, access fees) to journal
articles (APC)
 Costs for academic publishing cannot be
passed to library budgets only anymore
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

12. Author participation
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 Publishers normally do not pay the
authors for their articles
 Expected reputation, services and costs
will be considered, when to decide,
where to publish
 Libraries and authors do have budget
restrictions!
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

13. Author particiption
13
 Pay It Forward: Investigating a Sustainable Model of Open
Access Article Processing Charges for Large North American
Research Institutions: http://icis.ucdavis.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/UC-Pay-It-Forward-Project-Final-
Report.pdf
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

14. Competition
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 Publishers compete for the best authors
and articles
 Costs per article are increasingly
determined by the number of submissions
and the extend of selectivity and rejections
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

15. Competition
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 Competition between publishers and
decreasing marginal costs per article will
lead to decreasing APCs
 Pricing will finally be more connected to
the real costs of academic publishing
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

16. Decreasing costs?
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 Armstrong, M. (2015). Opening Access To Research. The
Economic Journal, 125 (August), F1–F30.
10.1111/ecoj.12254
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

17. Decreasing costs!
17
 https://elifesciences.org/elife-news/inside-
elife-what-it-costs-publish
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

18. Further effects
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 Library and author budgets will be
spend, for what they need (increasing
benefit!)
 Expenditures in line with research focus
of the institutions
 As offsetting already shows, the place
for publications (journals) will come into
focus
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

19. Expected Market Effects
19
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

20. Transparency
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 https://treemaps.intact-
project.org/apcdata/offsetting/
 Offsetting contains bibliographic data of
Springer Compact only at the moment
 First outcome: only 2/3 of the Springer
Compact journal titles are used as
places for publication by participating
institutions
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project

21. 21
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project
Necesary adjustements to
offsetting
 A continuous drawdown of access based cost
components
 A consistent alignment with the actual publication
figures of an institution

22. 22
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project
Necesary adjustements to
offsetting
 Risk sharing when agreed publication numbers
were not reached
 The obligation of publishers to identify eligible
articles and to cooperate with institutions when
establishing efficient business processes and de
facto standards

23. Phase 2
+Subscrip
-tions
Open
access
Subscrip
-
tions
Open
access
Phase 1
How to get out
─ Unbundle the individual publications
and pay-as-you-publish
─ Fade out the reading fee
─ Establish differentiated APC pricing
How to get in
─ Combine subscriptions with OA
─ Combine entitlements and shift costs
─ Establish OA processes & workflows
Conclusion:
From offsetting to pay-as-you-publish
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project 23

24. Thank you!
INTACT Team:
I2SoS: Christine Rimmert, Mathias Winterhager, Michael
Wohlgemuth
Bielefeld UL: Christoph Broschinski, Najko Jahn, Vitali
Peil, Dirk Pieper
MPDL: Kai Geschuhn, Ralf Schimmer, Adriana Sikora, Michael
Schlachter
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project 24

25. www.intact-project.org
Please follow us: @oa_intact
11th Munin Conference on
Scholarly Publishing 2016
Pieper/ Geschuhn - INTACT Project 25