Why open access?

"...many different initiatives have shown that open access is economically feasible, that it gives readers extraordinary power to find and make use of relevant literature, and that it gives authors and their works vast and measurable new visibility, readership, and impact."

— Budapest Open Access Initiative Declaration, 2002

The traditional academic publishing approach

A 2005 Deutsche Bank investment report (cited in Klein, 2019) describes the existing subscription-based academic publishing industry as follows:

The industry structure can only be described as bizarre - the state funds most research, pays the salaries of most of those checking the quality of research (in peer review processes), an then buys most of the published product. This has been rather elegantly described as the “triple-pay” model.

We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process. (p36)

For academics, instititions, and general audiences, the primary limitations of this publisher-centric subscription model are:

1. cost to access journal publications

2. lower readership due to access cost, and

3. restrictions on use enacted by publishers (i.e. on redistributing or archiving published material).

Open access

Suber (2004) defines open access as follows:

Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.

The commercialisation of publicly-funded research publications has led to numerous public enquiries over equity and competition in the sector, especially as the internet has all but eliminated the necessity of a third-party commercial publisher who sells the published product. Discussing the scientific publishing industry, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (2004) notes:

Technology has made it possible to envisage a fundamental change to the way scientific articles are published. By removing some of the non–editorial overheads associated with print publications, digitisation makes it relatively cheap to set up and run new journals. The internet makes it feasible, in theory, for readers to access the articles they need online, without charge. Several publishing models based around the central concept of free online access have emerged: collectively their proponents form the “Open Access” movement. (p5)

More recently, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations has founded cOAlition S, an consortium backed by the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC). In 2018 cOAlition S introduced Plan S, "a set of principles that ensure open and immediate access to funded research publications" (European Science Foundation, 2022).

As Suber (2004) outlines, open access journals may cover costs in several ways, including; grants from funding bodies or professional societies; institutional subsidies; or charging a processing fee on accepted articles. The majority of open access journals charge no author-facing processing fees (Dallmeier-Tiessen et al., 2013).

Benefits of open access

In 2003, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities outlined the key principles and goals of the Open Access movement, aiming for greater sustainability, equity, and transparency.

The greatest benefit of open access is that it enables the results of scholarly research to be disseminated more rapidly and widely (OpenAccess.nl, 2022). Correspondingly, a meta-analysis by Tennant et al. (2016) identifies a citation advantage for open access publications, where publication citation rises in accordance with accessibility.

This citation advantage of open access has led to various work-arounds of the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Repositories like arXiv.org allow authors to upload pre-prints or archives of articles; academic networks such as Academia.edu allow users to privately request digital copies of articles from authors; and major academic journal publishers now allow authors to select online open access for their articles (for a fee).

Our approach

Plate Media strives to follow the diamond (also known as platinum) and gold models of open access journal publishing, as follows:

The diamond route: publication via diamond journals/platforms that do not charge author-facing publication fees (APCs). Diamond open access journals are usually funded via library subsidy models, institutions or societies. (Openaccess.nl, 2022)

The gold route: full open access journals which may involve author-facing publication fees (APCs), or request a donation for publication. (after Suber, 2007)

The DOAJ Seal criteria, which outline best practice in open access publishing, is a further benchmark which we aim for.