As more publishers consider the open access model, looking closer into collective action models in academic publishing might be in order. The Scholarly Kitchen brought this interesting news to our attention in their article, “Sustainable Open Access – What’s Next?“
Several factors appear to be converging to accelerate the move toward open access. Many publishers made their COVID-related content freely available for a start, participants in the scholarly publishing ecosystem began to question why this content was not open from the beginning.
No business model is without limitations. While charging an article process charge (APC) is currently the most prevalent model used to sustain it, there are limitations. Depending on funding source, APCs can be a barrier to participation in open access for some authors and research topics. Shifting to an APC-funded open access model also means that the full burden of the cost of publication rests with producers.
The academic publishing industry is undergoing many changes. It will be interesting to see how this fits into the big picture of evolution.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
