University of California Libraries, June 30, 2016, Revised July 18, 2016. Pay It Forward Investigating a Sustainable Model of Open Access Article Processing Charges for Large North American Research Institutions

“As the global open access movement continues to grow and evolve, the question of whether a wholesale shift of the scholarly journal publishing system to “gold” open access is a viable way forward is of increasing interest. In such a shift, all journal publishers would make all scholarly articles freely available to readers, with authors or their institutions paying to publish their work when required by the publisher, rather than readers paying to read it. Lending momentum to this discussion is the fact that gold open access journals have steadily gained market share, doubling in article volume every four years and now in excess of 14% of the total journal output. While gold open access doesn’t require any particular funding model, a common one is an article processing charge paid by authors, or another entity on their behalf, to cover the cost of publishing an article that has been accepted for publication. If that business model is adopted by a majority of journal publishers in the future, there are significant financial implications for the academy. As we consider the trade -offs of the status quo and various methods of achieving broad open access, questions pertaining to the long-term financial sustainability of thearticle processing charge business model must be carefully contemplated. A major study conducted by the University of California, Davis, and the California Digital Library, on behalf of the University of California Libraries, and with collaborating libraries at Harvard University, Ohio State University, and the University of British Columbia addressed the financial ramifications for the types of research institutions whose affiliated scholars generate a preponderance of the scholarly literature. The project focused on large, research-intensive universities in North America and defined sustainability as costing those institutions roughly no more than, and ideally considerably less than, current journal subscription costs for comparable journals today, with a rate of growth that will be possible f or these institutions to support over time. The project sheds new light on the financial viability of the article processing charge business model to create open access at a much larger scale…”