Unlocking Open Access

Unlocking Open Access

Open access is on the horizon. What will this mean for researchers and publishers?
By Scott Sleek

The global adoption of open science is changing the way researchers communicate their science and transforming the way scholarly journals will generate revenues. These policies emanate from the global open access (OA) movement, which supports free, unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Open access supporters say the public should be able to freely download, share and reuse articles, preprints and data. What does this mean for publishers, scientific societies and researchers?

The open access evolution hit its peak in the U.S. in 2022, when the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) announced an updated requirement: All federally funded research must be available for free immediately upon publication. The policy becomes fully effective by the end of 2025.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other U.S. federal agencies had already been requiring public access to the research they fund after a 12-month embargo. Similar changes are underway in Europe and other parts of the world, with some policies already in effect and others becoming fully effective in December 2024.

New Way of Doing Business

The new OSTP public-access requirements will alter the traditional business model for many scholarly publishers who derive revenue through subscriptions. Publishers and scientific societies may now need to shift to other revenue sources, such as article processing charges (APCs), to cover the cost of running their publishing programs and other activities. U.S.-based scientists working under multiyear grants may now face publishing fees they didn’t anticipate when they originally applied for funding. Others will need to factor in the costs of APCs in their new grant applications. 

“If your research is federally funded in the U.S., you really need to start ensuring that you’re asking for enough funds as a part of your grant to continue to publish in the journals of your choice,” says Colette E. Bean, MA, APS chief publishing officer, who oversees APS’ 16 journals. 

Publishers and scientific societies (including APS) are using or testing various business models to adapt to OA. Some publishers are adopting what is known as “gold OA,” which charges APCs to authors (institutions or funders may also pay on behalf of the author) under a Creative Commons license. Other publishers are experimenting with Subscribe to Open (S2O), a model that taps institutional library subscription income to support a transition to OA without relying on APCs (see glossary on page 28 for more detail about S2O). 

Many journals, including APS publications, operate a hybrid model. Authors have the option of paying an APC to have their articles freely available immediately under a Creative Commons license; otherwise, the content remains available through a traditional subscription for the first 12 months after publication.

Some researchers and funders are encouraging a self-archiving approach called “green OA.” Under this model, after an article is accepted, the researchers can post an author-accepted manuscript version in a publicly available online repository while the publisher continues to curate and maintain a final version. Green OA allows authors to avoid APCs, with the publisher or affiliated organization often retaining the copyright.

APS already has two gold OA journals, Physiological Reports and Function, and a free journal called Advances in Physiology Education. The Society continues to explore other viable business models, Bean says.

“If your research is federally funded in the U.S., you really need to start ensuring that you’re asking for enough funds as a part of your grant to continue to publish in the journals of your choice.”

Colette E. Bean, MA

“APS’ publishing portfolio is going to need to evolve as a part of the changes that we’re seeing,” she says. “We’re working in a very focused way to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program and of the Society. We are committed to continuing to serve our members and authors while enabling the transformation to open access that is going to occur in the next several years.”

Addressing OA Challenges

Many scientists believe that publishers will try to make up for the loss in subscription revenues by accepting high volumes of articles paid for through APCs. Journals may end up publishing articles they might previously have rejected because they need the income, critics say.

But APS’ newest OA journal, Function, is avoiding the temptation to sacrifice quality for quantity, says Editor-in-Chief Ole Petersen, CBE, FRS, of Cardiff University in Wales.

“We have taken the policy that we are not necessarily wanting Function to be a high-volume journal,” he says. “I think APS sees the advantage in creating an open access journal that is seen as high quality. It takes time before a journal becomes sufficiently well-known and gets a large volume of submissions.”

Launching a fully OA journal has its challenges, Petersen says. Researchers may balk at submitting manuscripts to an unknown publication, especially if it requires an APC. Petersen says he built the journal’s credibility in part by creating a strong editorial board of renowned scientists. He also attracted submissions by waiving APCs in the journal’s start-up phase.

“And of course, it helps that it’s published by a bona fide publisher like the American Physiological Society,” he adds.

The credibility of the APS journal Function was built in part by creating a strong editorial board of renowned scientists and waiving article processing charges in the journal’s start-up phase.

Quality is also the top priority for Physiological Reports, says Editor-in-Chief Josephine C. Adams, PhD, a professor of cell biology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. APS collaborates with The Physiological Society in the U.K. to publish the journal, which launched 10 years ago and includes peer-reviewed research, case reports and reviews. 

“Something people worry about is that gold open access journals accept everything,” she says, “and they don’t want to be part of a journal that is accepting everything. We’re not in that category. Our emphasis is on good quality, sound physiological research.”

Journal editors advise researchers that their institutions can often cover the publishing fees. And other business models are emerging to ensure that scientists, including those in the early-career stages, can afford to publish their work. APS has introduced “read, publish and join” agreements, which allow institutions to pay for a combined package of unrestricted journal access, research publications and a free one-year APS membership for the corresponding author, Bean says. 

OA supporters cite data indicating that open articles receive more downloads and citations compared with papers that sit behind a paywall. But some scholars caution that certain OA models could create new inequities in the scientific enterprise. In March 2023, a group of 13 top university libraries sent a letter to OSTP raising concerns about the pay-to-publish gold OA models that open access requirements are spawning. They warned that the APCs could disenfranchise scholars from less-resourced institutions, disciplines and countries.

“It means the inequity of not being able to get past the paywall becomes the inequity of not being able to pay for open publishing,” says Daniel Dollar, associate university librarian for scholarly resources at Yale University.

The Council of the European Union shares those concerns. In May 2023, the Council recommended publishing models in which neither readers nor authors pay. Publishers complain that the non-binding recommendation offers no funding model to cover publication costs.

Exploring a Way Forward

Institutions and publishers alike are exploring alternative ways to help researchers publish. Some institutions are forming consortia to pool money that can cover APCs. Many are experimenting with repositories and other models to provide support for publishing.

Researchers also will need to educate themselves about data-deposition requirements because the OSTP mandate also calls for the sharing of data and materials, as well as manuscripts, Bean says. NIH introduced its own data management requirements starting in 2023.

“That is a pretty significant change,” she says. “They’ll need to have data management plans. They’ll need to have a real plan in place for where they’re going to deposit their data and to make it available to the public.”

This article was originally published in the September 2023 issue of The Physiologist Magazine.