On Parasitism and Double-Dipping: I (of 2)

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SUMMARY: Ian Russell (CEO of ALPSP) is an alumnus of U. Southampton, the institution that designed and adopted the world's first Green OA self-archiving mandate (first as a departmental mandate, then university-wide).
    Ian suggests that his alma mater's mandate is "parasitic" because it is "unfunded." By unfunded, Ian does not mean that Southampton isn't funding its own Institutional Repositories (IRs) (it is); he means that Southampton does not provide funds to pay the costs of publication.
    But of course Southampton (like all other research universities) is already funding the costs of publication: through its journal subscriptions. Subscriptions buy in the research output of other universities; this has nothing to do with mandating the self-archiving of Southampton's own research output.
    If and when all universities mandate self-archiving, and if and when the resultant universal Green OA causes subscriptions to become unsustainable as the means of covering publishing costs, then journals will convert to Gold OA publishing and universities will pay the publication costs for their own research output out of a portion of their windfall subscription cancellation savings. This is already guaranteed by universities' longstanding mandate to "Publish or Perish." (No risk of "parasitism," because otherwise the "parasite" would perish.)
    But for publishers to ask universities to pay publication costs now -- at current asking prices, and while the potential funds are still tied up paying for it via subscriptions -- is either to seek double-dipping or to seek an indefensible hedge against any downsizing and cost-cutting that might be induced by mandated OA.
    OA is optimal and inevitable for research, and feasible right now, through Green OA self-archiving mandates. Both universities and publishers will adapt quite naturally to its sequelae.

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The view of Ian Russell (who is Chief Executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers [ALPSP] and also an alumnus of the University of Southampton) on the subject of the University of Southampton's Green Open Access (OA) Self-Archiving Mandate is presented in a series of exchanges on liblicense.

Ian criticizes the University of Southampton's mandate as "parasitic" because it is "unfunded." By "unfunded," he does not mean that the University of Southampton does not fund its own Institutional Repository (which it of course does -- although it does not cost much); he means that the University of Southampton does not fund the cost of publishing its own research output.

But universities do not fund the cost of publishing their own research output: What universities fund is the cost of publishing other universities' research output. And they fund that through subscriptions, which buy in access to the peer-reviewed research output of other universities. That is called the subscription model for publication cost-recovery, and until recently, it was the universal model.

Recently, a small but growing minority (c. 10%) of journals have made their contents freely accessible online to all users. These are called Open Access (OA) journals, and publishing in them is called the "golden road" to OA -- the self-archiving of non-OA journal articles being the "green road" to OA (and that, not Gold OA, is what Southampton, Harvard and the other universities are mandating).

Moreover, as Peter Suber frequently points out, the majority of this minority of Gold OA journals still recovers costs on the subscription (or subsidy) model too. Fewer than half of them levy publication fees, which are then paid for either by the author's research funder or the author -- or, in the case of special "membership" agreements with BioMed Central journals or consortial agreements with SCOAP3 journals, the author's university.

Ian Russell is looking for an advance guarantee from universities that mandate Green OA self-archiving that they will pay Gold OA publishing costs. It is not clear whether he means that they should guarantee to pay publishing costs right now, or that they should guarantee to pay publishing costs if and when subscriptions were ever to collapse. By way of support, Ian cites the Wellcome Trust, which makes such a guarantee to pay, right now.

Either way, such a guarantee certainly is not forthcoming from universities now, nor should it be.

Wellcome, as a research funder, has mandated self-archiving of the research that it funds and has also offered to pay Gold OA publishing costs out of some of those research funds, under current conditions, at current asking prices (when subscriptions certainly have not collapsed).

Universities, however, are not, like Wellcome, research funders. Universities are research fundees and research providers. They also subscribe to journals. As such, they are currently paying for publication costs via journal subscriptions, which have not collapsed.

As noted, when universities mandate self-archiving, they are mandating the self-archiving of their own (refereed) research output. When they pay journal subscriptions, they are buying in the refereed research output of other universities.

If and when journal subscriptions ever do collapse, what that means is that universities will no longer be paying them, and hence that those annual windfall savings will become available to universities to pay the publication costs of their own refereed research output. And universities will of course use a portion of those windfall savings to pay the publication costs of their own research output.

(I say "only a portion of those windfall savings," because "publication" will then [i.e., "post-collapse"] mean only peer review implementation costs, not all of the other products and services that subscriptions are paying for today: producing and distributing the print edition, producing and licensing the online PDF edition, fulfillment, archiving, advertising. The post-collapse costs of publication -- peer review alone -- will be much lower.)

In other words, there is nothing for universities to guarantee to pay today, when subscriptions are still sustainable, and still covering all publishing costs, including peer review. And they certainly don't yet have any extra loose change from cancellations to pay the current asking price for Gold OA.

So let's wait for the hypothesized subscription collapse -- if and when it comes -- to free up the universities' funds to pay the cost of having their own research output peer-reviewed and certified as such by the journal's title and track record. Until then, those costs are being covered by existing subscriptions, and the only thing missing is not fee-guarantees but open access -- which is exactly what university self-archiving mandates (like that of Ian Russell's alma mater, Southampton) are intended to ensure (but Harvard's mandate is not one to sneeze at either!)

[To repeat: What it is that urgently needs to be ensured today is open access -- certainly not publishers' revenues, based on the current cost-recovery model and at current asking prices. Publishing is a service to research, not vice versa.]

I close with some quote/comments. (All quotes are from Ian Russell [IR]):

IR: "If we can agree that wide-spread archiving will mean that established subscription income will decline, then surely funds have to be unambiguously made available for the only other show in town: author-side payment."

Funds have to be made available now? while they are still tied up in paying subscriptions? If you are not talking about double-dipping, Ian, then you need to explain where this double-funding is meant to come from -- and why -- in advance of the decline. (For the decline itself will be what releases the requisite funds, if and when it happens.)

And is it "decline" we were talking about, or collapse? (I.e., the subscription model becoming no longer sustainable to cover the true cost of publishing in the OA era.)

For if we are only talking about demand declining here, rather than (as I had thought) about its becoming unsustainable, then the natural response would seem to be publisher cost-cutting, by downsizing to the essentials that are still in demand, rather than guaranteed props for sustaining all the products and services that are currently co-bundled into the published journal subscription, at current prices. Demand-decline is a signal that some products and services are becoming superfluous in the OA era, rather than a signal that they must continue to be provided and paid for at all costs.

IR: "We can't have it both ways and say that subscriptions will still pay the bills AND that cancellations (and hence cost savings) are inevitable."

But we can say that if and when subscriptions are cancelled, universities will have the windfall savings out of which to pay the bills in the new way. (And the cost-cutting and downsizing are just as likely as the cancellations; indeed, they are the flip side of the very same coin.)

If you don't mind my saying so, Ian, you do seem to be more inclined to herald only the bleak side of this prophecy (subscription collapse) rather than its bright side (windfall savings out of which to pay for peer review). And you seem all too ready to see daily research usage and impact continue to be lost as a consequence, unless universities somehow ante up extra funds today to cover everything being supplied at today's asking prices, regardless of demand (while you continue to disavow advocating double-dipping)...

That sounds like a hedge against whatever might turn out to be the real needs of research and researchers in the OA era.

IR: "As regards "double-dipping", it is important not to conflate the issues for an individual journal or research institution with those of the system as a whole."

Agreed. But am I doing the conflating, Ian, or are you? An individual university's Green OA self-archiving mandate (like Southampton's, or Harvard's) has nothing to do with either any individual journal (whether subscription or Gold OA) or the system as a whole.

If and when all universities mandate self-archiving (as I hope they all soon will), that in turn may or may not eventually make subscriptions unsustainable. If it does, then it will also (eo ipso and pari passu) have released the funds to pay for publication on the Gold OA model, subscriptions having become unsustainable -- but not before. There is still plenty of room for some PostGutenberg downsizing, cost-cutting and adaptation before that.

What we will have before any of that hypothetical adaptation, however, is OA itself (which is already long, long overdue), in the form of universal (because mandated) Green OA.

IR: "I don't believe that the PLoS journals could be accused of double-dipping..."

Certainly not. But what do Gold OA journals have to do with university Green OA self-archiving mandates?

IR: "...nor journals that reduce their subscription prices in line with the number of articles published under an author-side payment system."

Ian, I regret that not only would I never recommend buying-in to such a hedged price lock-in system, but I do not for a moment believe that any journal is sincerely putting it into practice. It is just a notion. McDonald's could make the same offer, that if their clients' employers agree to buy into Gold Open Access burgers, free for all, they'll reduce the burger selling price for their remaining direct clients proportionately.

No, if there's going to be a conversion from institutional subscriptions to institutional publication fees, let those fees be shaped by cost-cutting pressure from the PostGutenberg Green OA economies: That pressure will arise from the university mandates to self-archive their own published research, and to provide their own institutional repositories to take over the load and cost of distribution, access-provision and archiving in the OA era -- rather than publishers continuing to co-bundle those goods and services into their current product at their current asking price.

IR: "Why should PLoS lose out because Southampton University (for example) refuses to cover author-side payment fees?"

With respect, I cannot see at all how a Gold OA journal like PLoS is losing out because Southampton is mandating Green OA self-archiving for its own research output! Those researchers who can afford to publish in PLoS journals today, and wish to, can and will.

(Moreover, as far as I know, PLoS is a supporter of self-archiving mandates -- and not just those by funders who offer to pay for today's Gold OA publication fees. And after the "Fall," PLoS too will be able to downsize to the reduced cost of just providing the service of peer review and no more.)

IR: "I am asking institutions not to mandate deposit of research that has been peer-reviewed by a journal, yes, because it is parasitic on the journals system (irrespective of business model) and I do not see how they can claim the right to do so."

And the obvious reply is that it will only be parasitic if and when subscriptions collapse, should institutions then still refuse to pay for publication. (But then of course the parasite will perish, because it will not be able to publish, unless it is ready to use some of its windfall subscription savings to pay for it.)

Until then, institutions have every right to mandate providing open access to their own peer-reviewed research output, whose peer-review costs are all being fully covered by subscriptions today. Nothing in the least bit parasitic about that.

IR: "As I have said repeatedly in this exchange so long as the system is paying for the certification elements of scholarly exchange I have no problem."

Well, the system is indeed still paying for it, Ian, so I have no choice but to conclude that you have no problem!

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum