Do we really need gold open access if publishers permit self-archiving and sharing?

Question

Several well-established journals nowadays allow self-archiving or sharing of articles through an institutional repository. For instance, Elsevier allows immediate sharing of the accepted manuscript via the author’s non-commercial homepage and, after an embargo, through their institutional repository. Springer has similar rules. More in general you can check on Sherpa/Romeo for any journal’s policies.

So I am wondering: is it worth it paying for the open access option, when we can just choose our publisher wisely, and then prepare a nicely formatted version of our accepted articles to share them online?

By definition option means something you do not need to do. — Kimball, Aug 23 '17 at 07:39
One should also keep in mind that it was not always the case (and in some cases, still isn't) that authors could immediately share a PDF on their homepage. That is is allowed more and more these days might very well be due to the push for open acces (and preprint repositories like the arXiv) — Pieter Naaijkens, Aug 23 '17 at 07:41
If you mean is it worth it for you personally to pay out of pocket, no (at least to me). But if you have research money for this, then it depends on you. — Kimball, Aug 23 '17 at 07:43
Related, borderline duplicate: Does gold (i.e., author-pay) open-access really help access to science and save taxpayer money? — Cape Code, Aug 23 '17 at 09:17
@CapeCode, I admit I did not find that question before asking mine, but I am more interested in the dissemination of the paper rather than in the economics of it. — Zep, Aug 23 '17 at 09:26

Andrew is gone · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-23T09:14:14.567

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What you're describing is open access. It's simply a different form of it to the one Springer want you to pay for...

There are effectively two-and-a-half routes to open access, with a lot of subtle variants between journals -

Gold - the article is available immediately, freely, and in perpetuity, via the journal's website, probably with a permissive copyright license. The big open access journals (PLOS One, Scientific Reports, etc) are generally all-gold. It is usually paid for, but not always - many journals are gold but don't charge.
- Hybrid gold - a special case of the above but for a single article in an otherwise subscription-access journal, rather than an all-gold-OA title. Usually costs more than an all-gold journal and almost always paid for.
Green - a version of the article (usually but not always the accepted manuscript) is available through a repository (or personal website, etc), often after a delay of around a year, and usually without a permissive copyright license. Usually no charge (other than standard publication costs if relevant).

Almost all mainstream journals allow green open access, though the rules are complicated, and they often refer to it as something like "permitted distribution" rather than "open access". Most journals from the big commercial publishers offer hybrid open access, though exactly how common it is for people to take this option is still a bit of an open question. (Finally, most all-gold journals also permit green open access, but obviously it's less important in that case!)

So, the question becomes - assuming my journal allows green OA, as almost all Springer and Elsevier titles do, what is the point of paying for hybrid? (This is a question I answer a lot for people looking at OA option forms, and most of them decide not to...)

Possible reasons to take gold over green, assuming you've already decided on committing to that journal, might be -

Audience. If you expect the title to be of wide public interest (= lots of non-academics want to read it) or valuable to particular audiences in regions without great journal subscriptions (Africa, South America, etc) then hybrid gold may make sense.
Timeframes. If you know it is likely to be of particular interest now, and making it publicly available a year or two down the line would be much less valuable, for whatever reason, then hybrid gold is more useful.
Distribution. If you know you'll want to make a lot of copies of your paper and distribute them widely and publicly, having a permissive copyright license through hybrid gold may help do this.
Discoverability. Hybrid OA papers are marginally more discoverable than green OA ones, as you can find them through the journal website, the DOI points to them, etc. A repository or personal website may not always be as easy to find.
Policy requirements. In some cases, funder or institutional policy will require that a hybrid OA option be taken if available. This is rarer now, and most of them are starting to pedal back on hybrid spending, but it may apply.

In practice, most people don't take the option. And if you want those specific benefits, you can get most of them from using an all-gold OA journal in the first place...

edited Aug 23 '17 at 09:14

answered Aug 23 '17 at 09:07

Andrew is gone

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the one Springer want you to pay for...* that's a typo, you mean the one people running "publishing companies" out of internet cafes in Hyderabad want you to pay for.

Cape Code

Aug 23 '17 at 09:19

Thank you for your thorough answer, and you are right: my question is more about free Green VS Gold for a fee. I agree with all your points but Timeframes: Green OA often allows immediate self-archiving. – Zep Aug 23 '17 at 09:20

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@Zep yes, but in the majority of cases there is an embargo period on the more discoverable versions (=repository) as opposed to the personal website versions, so I think timeframes can still be an issue here. It also interplays with audience - if you know there'll be immediate public interest, the ability to point to the more authoritative-looking "real" one can be seen as valuable. – Andrew is gone Aug 23 '17 at 10:20

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@CapeCode those guys are a whole other problem, but Springer will still happily steer you towards giving them an extra 2000 EUR if you give them half a chance ;-) – Andrew is gone Aug 23 '17 at 10:21

@Andrew are you implying a publisher makes more money out of article processing charges than from charging readers...? Now that's a thought! – Cape Code Aug 23 '17 at 12:31

@CapeCode hybrid OA is currently a perfect moneyspinner - you make it OA, and while in theory overall subscription costs should go down in proportion (5% hybrid = 5% less subscription fees, right?) there is not much clear evidence this is actually happening as envisaged. The numbers are so small for most journals that it's lost in the annual inflation, and most publishers only make vague statements and don't quote actual reductions. So even if it's only a small income stream, it can be effectively free money. – Andrew is gone Aug 23 '17 at 12:43

@CapeCode having said that, there are some programs to offset subscription/APC costs on a per-institution basis, and these are broadly looking good, but it's still a bit of an open question as to whether they do truly cap the amount spent. And not all publishers offer them, and not all institutions can take advantage of them, so... – Andrew is gone Aug 23 '17 at 12:46

In short: don't pay to publish. – Cape Code Aug 23 '17 at 13:06

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You forgot the third option: Diamond open access: Neither authors nor readers pay for papers, which are written, typeset, refereed, and edited by volunteers, and published exclusively online, typically under a Creative Commons license, with the author retaining copyright. – JeffE Aug 23 '17 at 13:55

@JeffE That's really just a special case of gold - "gold without money changing hands". Gold doesn't require the payment of an APC or the involvement of a professional publisher. – Andrew is gone Aug 23 '17 at 13:56

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I think the distinction is important. Most gold open acess journals do charge authors rather exorbitant publishing fees. – JeffE Aug 23 '17 at 14:07

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But green open access makes an article available before it is accepted, which is much faster than gold! – David Ketcheson Aug 24 '17 at 04:42

One of the reasons why authors sometimes choose hybrid open access is that their funder accepts only a maximum embargo period of e.g. 6 month (e.g. FP7, Horizon 2020) and doesn't accept papers posted on a personal webpage since the availability is vague and the indexing in scientific search engines is low. By the way, Elsevier's typical embargo period varies between 12 and 48 month. – FuzzyLeapfrog Aug 24 '17 at 05:18

The distinction between diamond and green is very important. When authors pay to publish, there is a strong incentive for journals to accept more papers than they should. – Cape Code Aug 24 '17 at 06:28

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in many fields, e.g. in mathematics, arxiv.org version of the paper would be often cited, instead of the journal one. all these pay-for options in such fields are merely extorsion. don't pay for things you can get for free. – Dima Pasechnik Aug 24 '17 at 06:38

score 20 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 23 '17 at 16:14

There are several strands to the question, that I will try to answer separately. But I want first to stress that one should not make the confusion between Open Access and Paying author charges. These are distinct notions, the first being about who can read the paper, the second about the business model. There are several way to make one's article open access without paying any charge (let me take this opportunity to advertise the Fair OA Principles) and there are journals that have authors pay charges without making their papers open access (e.g. color figure, excess pages charges, front cover seem to be commonly paid for in chemistry; one of the top economy journal needs all authors to be paying members of a learned society to publish a paper).

The opposition you frame between Open Access and self-archiving is misleading: there are several ways toward open access, and self-archiving is one (called "green OA"). So, in the most common terms, when you put your paper in a public repository, you are actively engaging in Open Access.
Many institutions have their own repository, and several fields have world-wide field-specific repositories, but this does not cover everyone's research. For those who have no good repository available (good meaning in particular not owned by a legacy publisher who can shut it down any moment if it threatens its revenues), putting papers on one's web page is nice but not sufficient for many purposes (such papers go dead often, e.g. when the author changes institutions or retires). In such case, publishing Open Access with the publisher (sometimes called "gold OA", but here the precise meaning may vary) can be a plus.
In most cases (including Springer's and Elsevier's policy in the matter), subscription journals only allow the postprint (author-formated version of the paper, after peer-review) to be shared in repositories and web pages. This may be an issue (e.g. Theorem numbers may not match between the published version and the postprint, which can be an issue). It would be preferable to have a clear, unique version of record, properly identified (with a DOI) and available to all to read. Thus having journal publish OA is a benefit.
Once we look at the problem not author-side, but reader-side, then OA policies matter a lot, because much fewer papers are actually deposited in repositories than could be. So access still is an issue, even in fields that are assumed to use repositories a lot such as maths (to the best of my knowledge, high-energy physics is probably the sole field where nearly 100% of papers are actually available OA).

That said, to answer the question in your text (rather than the title question), I would not advise paying OA fees (often named APC for "Article Processing Charges") unless maybe if you are in a field where this is common and in a position where this is easy (e.g. you have access to specific founds); I would strongly advise against paying OA fees in hybrid journals (journals that mostly run on subscriptions but make individual papers OA for a fee), since the revenue from OA articles seems not to be really offset from subscription prices, and I would strongly advise against paying high fees (high usually start at more $500 or more than $1500 depending on who sensible you ask - note that Nature would say that $30,000 is not that high). Be wary that predatory OA publishers usually charge moderate fees (a few hundred dollars), which are nonetheless extortionate given they do no work and no peer-review, so publish only in journal for which you can establish they have a serious reputation (this is also important for non-OA journals).

Thanks. I clearly DO confuse Open Access and author charges. I guess I should not mix them because I never paid author charges, and still all my articles are available for free, in some form or another. — Zep, Aug 23 '17 at 09:29

einpoklum · Answer 3 · 2017-08-24T12:55:48.330

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Don't pay them for refraining from restricting access - which is like paying them for not beating you up. And do make your papers available online - in a place that's robust and visible to search engines (e.g. ArXiv, or your institute's repository of online publications).

We are in a state of transition - with copyable work in general - between the age of copy restrictions and the age of free dissemination and sharing.

The previous age has its roots in the church in the middle ages with monks transcribing forbidden texts while the masses can't even read; or with English printers getting the crown to forbid independent printing. Publishers like Elsevier and Springer have these behaviors and this mindsets as their heritage.

In the new era, we only hide private information (or rather: we only let the NSA and the other state agencies who spy on us see our private data); but anything else - like scientific and artistic creations - are publicly accessible, to be copied and used for whatever cause people might have.

As more and more people expect to see the latter in the world rather than the former, the publishers are trying to have sort of a compromise which people would be willing to stomach. Let's put more pressure on them.

edited Aug 24 '17 at 12:55

answered Aug 23 '17 at 13:45

einpoklum

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-1 Lots of unsubstantiated claims, speculations, soapboxing and no real answer to the question. – Cape Code Aug 23 '17 at 13:59
Your first paragraph contravenes several funding body and institute regulations (which require accessible, archived OA publications). Do not do this unless you’re allowed to. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 24 '17 at 12:41
@KonradRudolph: How is putting papers on, say, ArXiv, or your institute's web repository for publications, not accessible and archived? – einpoklum Aug 24 '17 at 12:52
@einpoklum That’s completely fine. But it’s very different from self-hosting the paper on an ephemeral server without DOI, which is what the OP was asking about. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 24 '17 at 12:54
@KonradRudolph, Institutional repositories are usually accepted by funding bodies for article dissemination, I believe. – Zep Aug 24 '17 at 13:03
@Zep: Konrad's comment was from before my edit... – einpoklum Aug 24 '17 at 13:05
And what stops them from selling that private data and using it to make people not believe you if you push an agenda that risks destroying their income model? The only thing you basically can do is to go on strike. But doing so is probably gonna make you mostly look like a maniac / burned out loser. Just give up, get back in line and don't do anything fruitful at all except for exactly what you are getting paid for. – mathreadler Aug 24 '17 at 15:24
@mathreadler: Nothing stops them. Which is why we need better encryption and distributed platforms to supplant Google, Facebook et al. There are lots of things you can do other than go on strike (although strikes can be useful in various contexts). About the "making people not believe you if you push an agenda etc." - already happening, in a sense. See this story for example. – einpoklum Aug 24 '17 at 16:49
It is not worth it. They can so easily break you if they want. But chances are that they really rather want you to help them if you are smart enough to understand those things. They have no lack of money. They have a lack of skilled people. – mathreadler Aug 24 '17 at 17:53
@mathreadler: I'm not sure where you're going with these comments... but - one person can be broken, while a mass of people - not so easily. – einpoklum Aug 24 '17 at 18:22
They have people employed for this. Don't know how many percent but quite a large overhead. – mathreadler Aug 24 '17 at 19:23

Do we really need gold open access if publishers permit self-archiving and sharing?

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