OA - What cost? What value?

["Armbruster, Chris" <Chris.Armbruster@EUI.eu>]

Much debate about the value and cost of OA seems to rest on the 
shared assumption that the Oldenbourg model of scholarly 
communication (conjoining peer review and dissemination) was 
suitably transposed from to paper to electronic format and might 
now be switched to OA (free to readers).

Will this assumption hold in the internet galaxy?

Notions of "Gold" and "Green" OA seem to reinforce this 
assumption.  Officially, Green OA is premised on the Oldenbourg 
model and merely aims to duplicate publications in open 
repositories (which would increase overall costs by the factor 
"green"). Gold OA does away with duplication and will lead to a 
reallocation of funds to pay publication charges. Whether this 
will reduce overall cost depends on whether a) much Gold OA 
publishing might be not-for profit (as there is evidence that 
not-for-profit publishers charge less) and/or b) a more efficient 
market might emerge in which journal might be substitutes for 
each other (this is likely to be the case only for the B-list, 
but that is the vast majority of journals).

One can understand the reluctance of "content holding" publishers 
to consider Gold OA - for their shareholders would surely not be 
pleased if profits were sacrificed voluntarily. As regards Green 
OA, the argument is whether this threatens the Oldenbourg model 
(in sense of enabling publishers to recoup their costs and/or 
make a profit). In detail, the argument is then about the length 
of the embargo.

But, is this the only, or best, way to look at the issue?

Take the argument about Green OA leading to cancellations. To 
claim that cancellations are likely in future is to make an 
argument about the logic of the internet galaxy. But if you do 
so, should you then not recognise that several large and 
important scholarly communication platforms are free to authors 
and readers? ArXiv, RePEc and SSRN do cost something, but their 
successful growth over the past ten years signals that a 
cost-efficient way of organising dissemination is available. Part 
of the logic of the internet galaxy is to make dissemination 
cheap -- and in this sense Green OA would indeed threaten those 
publishers that believe their mission to be to hold (or own) 
content

Yet, another part of the logic of the internet would seem to be 
that in scholarly communication "content holding" is a shrinking 
business model. It is so, because toll-access reduces inclusion 
and impact in scholarly communication. Once Open Access is 
possible, then the toll-access publishers needlessly impede 
scholarly communication. That is why the argument against content 
holding publishers will never go away.

Moreover, cyberscience (or eScience) and related developments 
make open access to research publications and data intrinsically 
desirable. In this case OA is not a matter of cost, but a 
prerequisite to the future advancement of science.

Is Gold OA the best way forward?

In the life sciences a good case can be made for releasing only 
peer-reviewed information. But ArXiv, RePEc and SSRN demonstrate 
that for other sciences this is not the case. The technological 
and economic logic of the internet galaxy favours the severance 
of certification from dissemination.

Indeed, if we were utilise the internet to maximise savings for 
dissemination, then relatively large sums of money could be 
redirected to where most needed: improved certification, enhanced 
literature awareness tools and the development of overlay 
services such as text mining. Such services cost money and one 
possible business model might be to recoup costs through 
subscriptions (please note that BMC as OA publisher also has 
subscriptions to pay charges) that, depending on the service, 
charge funders, authors, readers or libraries.

Indeed, if we follow through with the switch in vision from 
"content" to "service" then we see that there is not a shrinking 
market (of higher prices, more cancellations) but much terrain 
for business development. In this context, early estimates of the 
impact of OA in terms of economic growth and market value 
indicate that certification and services for the readers and 
users of research articles and data -- in science, higher 
education, knowledge-based industries and so on -- will 
experience growth over the coming years.

What to do?

I think it is time to take another look at the technological and 
economic logic of the internet. What model of certification and 
publishing is complementary to the advancement of cyberscience? 
How can compatibility be ensured with the need of seamless 
integration of research articles and data with the digital 
workflow of scientists? What are the needs of authors, readers 
and users in the internet galaxy if they have to handle steadily 
increasing amounts of research publications and data? How to 
better enable the utilisation of scientific knowledge in higher 
education, industry and government?

I would be happy to hear from anyone interested in pursuing these 
questions further.


Chris Armbruster

Rapporteur

"Academic Publishing in Europe: Innovation & Publishing " - under 
the Patronage of Dr. Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of 
Education and Research in Germany and under the Auspices of the 
EU Research Directorate-General
http://www.ape2007.eu/text/0702ape07_short_report1.pdf

Research articles at http://ssrn.com/author=434782