SPARC

Many institutions that have functioning Open-access Funds have indicated that the toughest decision they made concerned hybrid journal eligibility. 

Hybrid journals are publications under subscription control for which authors of individual articles can pay an “open choice” fee to make their papers freely available to any reader. 

Hybrid journals still charge subscription fees for their content and only a handful reduce these fees commensurate with the take-up rate of open choice fees. 

Some scholarly communication experts believe that hybrid journals offer subscription-based publishers a transitionary pathway to full Open Access. 

Others believe the hybrid model allows these publishers to “double dip” by charging both authors and readers for content, without pinning down a genuine long-term commitment to Open Access.

SPARC joins the Wellcome Trust and other funding agencies in calling for publishers to make data related to their hybrid publishing programs fully transparent. This will allow the financial ramifications of the hybrid model to be accurately analyzed.

As alluded to in the “Important Considerations” section of this document, the goals of your institution in creating an Open-access Fund will likely shape your perspective on the issue of hybrid journal eligibility.  Hybrid journals do indeed make articles more accessible by offering them to any reader free of charge.  Therefore, for institutions that place accessibility front and center for their Fund’s goals, hybrid publications further that mission.  In contrast, institutions keen on affecting change within scholarly publishing may feel that some hybrid journals are little more than a shell game designed to perpetuate the status quo.  These institutions often conclude that it is counterproductive to fund hybrid journals. 

There are also practical considerations that weigh heavily on an institution’s decision to support hybrid journals.  There are thousands of journals that offer some form of open choice plan.  This has the potential to eat up a sizable chunk of your institution’s Fund.  Some institutions, of course, have taken a middle ground by including hybrid journals in their Open-access Funds, albeit at a lower level of support than full-OA publications.  Their rationale often revolves around a desire to encourage authors to experiment with Open Access in all its forms.   An author’s experience with a hybrid journal may deepen his/her interest in alternative publishing models and deepen his/her understanding of OA’s nuances.  In addition, there are a number of disciplines in which full Open Access has a minimal footprint.  In these areas, hybrid journals may provide the only viable Open Access option to avoid a Fund that is effectively closed off to a segment of your faculty.

There are other important decisions regarding content eligibility that you must contemplate before launching your fund.  The chart that follows provides some further detail into publication considerations that you and your colleagues should discuss:

Issue	Options
What charges should the Fund cover?	Items subject to possible eligibility include: ·         Publication fees ·         Submission fees ·         Illustration fees ·         Color fees ·         Self-archiving expenses ·         Reprints ·         Page charges ·         Membership fees (e.g.,    Biomed Central)
What content types are eligible?	Content types subject to possible eligibility include: ·         Peer-reviewed journal articles ·         Monographs ·         Conference proceedings ·         Data sets
Are any access restrictions acceptable?	Types of restrictions include: ·         Hybrid journals (i.e., “open choice”    plans) ·         Embargoes limiting Open Access to content for specific time period after publication
What constitutes an acceptable open-access journal?	Among the tools existing Funds use to vet a publication’s open-access credentials are: ·         Directory of Open Access Journals ·         Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association  ·         Adherence to Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Code of Conduct

 

In addition to deciding what’s eligible, you must also determine who is eligible to receive money from your Open-access Fund:

 

Issue	Options
Who within your community is eligible to receive support from the Fund?	Among the institutional actors whose eligibility must be determined are: ·         Faculty members ·         Researchers ·         Postdocs ·         Graduate students ·         Undergraduates ·         Visiting faculty ·         Adjunct faculty ·         Staff ·         Alumni
With what requirements must subsidized authors comply?	Conditions of funding may include: ·         Making a copy of the paper available within the institutional repository ·         Citing the Fund as a source of support within the article
What considerations are given to external funding?	In the event an author has grant money, how does this impact his/her Fund eligibility? ·         Authors with any external funding are ineligible ·         Authors with grant support to cover publishing fees  are ineligible ·         Authors must use all available funds from the grant before applying ·         Authors with no external funding are given priority ·         Authors and Fund split fees according to a set percentage
How are intermural collaborations handled?	When an article is co-authored by scholars from different institutions, how are they supported by the Fund? ·         Full payment of publishing fees ·         Prorated portion of publishing fees
Are there restrictions on repeat usage?	Possible restrictions on repeat applications for funding support include: ·         One paper per author per semester ·         One paper per author per year ·         Certain dollar value limit per author per semester ·         Certain dollar value limit per author per year

 

The chart found here provides examples of how certain institutions have approached these issues.  Further, it explains their reimbursement levels in detail.  Certain institutions have set lower ceilings on per-article reimbursements so that more authors will be able to experiment with the Fund.  Others have set a higher limit, feeling that this would encourage authors who would otherwise not be able to make up the difference to gain valuable exposure to Open Access.

One related issue is disbursement timing.  Some institutions choose to reimburse their authors, while others pay the publication fees directly.  The argument for the former is that it allows the author to move forward with publication without fear that institutional bureaucracy might slow publication.  The argument for the latter is that some authors may lack the means to pay publication fees out-of-pocket, even those that will later be reimbursed by his/her institution.  Additionally, some institutions may be ill-equipped to handling budgeting wrinkles such as a Fund application that is approved in one fiscal year but not actually paid out until the next.

It should be stressed that, in the opinion of the interviewed administrators and librarians, there are no right and wrong answers to the questions broached in this section.  Different institutions are experimenting with different implementations based on a variety of issues (motivation behind the Fund, amount of money available, faculty’s understanding of OA issues, etc.).  You will no doubt draw upon your own experiences and goals in the drafting of your Fund’s policies.