APPENDIX 46
Memorandum from Reed Elsevier
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Elsevier, a division of Reed Elsevier Group
plc, is a world leading publisher of scientific, technical and
medical information products and services. Working in partnership
with the global science and health communities, the company publishes
more than 1,800 journals and 2,200 new books per year.
Scientific publishing has evolved continually
over hundreds of years to meet the changing needs of scientists,
researchers and medical professionals. Most recently, the advent
of new information technologies, and publishers' responses to
these advances have further transformed scientific publishing:
around the globe, scientists and researchers now have improved
and easier access to scientific information that is world class
in quality, while powerful new functionalities enable them to
search and link easily and efficiently across a vast range of
highly relevant information. Elsevier welcomes the opportunity
to provide insight into these evolutions, including changes in
the distribution, quality, access, availability and pricing of
scientific information, and to comment on current trends in publishing,
most specifically on the development of Open Access journals.
We have organised the body of this document into five sections,
each addressing one of the five questions posed by the Committee.
Key points and common themes contained in our responses are highlighted
below:
The current worldwide system of Scientific,
Technical and Medical (STM) publishing has evolved over hundreds
of years, and we believe it serves science and medical communities
well. STM publishing is truly a global market: scientific and
research communities are dispersed around the world, yet fully
integrated by the highly organised and efficient system of STM
publishing. This system of some 2,000 STM publishers annually
produces 1.2 million peer-reviewed articles, which are published
only after world-leading experts in their fields have vetted their
quality. These articles are then used by millions of researchers
to further the progress of science and medicine. Publishers continue
to serve global researchers and practitioners by organising, establishing,
managing, producing and disseminating journals, defining new disciplines,
establishing and actively managing editorial boards, and investing
in new technologies that make new and archived research more accessible.
The substantial investments that STM publishers
have made in electronic technologies are continuing to deliver
dramatic productivity improvements for scientific and medical
communities around the world as more users gain quicker and easier
access to more content at lower per-article-costs for the institutions
that serve them. For example, after investing approximately £200
million to date in its ScienceDirect electronic distribution platform
and in other programmes (eg digitisation of archived journals)
Elsevier has seen the following productivity-related results in
the UK:
— Access: all UK Higher Education Institutions
engaging in science and medical research and all researchers within
them have access to nearly all Elsevier journals that pertain
to their research programmes: 97% of UK researchers have direct
access, on average, to around 90% of Elsevier journals under licence
of their host institution. UK citizens have access to all Elsevier
journals and articles either directly through their local libraries,
or via inter-library loan agreements[155].
— Usage: from 2001 to 2003, the number
of UK researchers downloading Elsevier's electronic articles at
least once per month more than doubled from 145,000 to 360,000,
while the number of Elsevier articles they downloaded tripled
from 4.4 million to 13.3 million. More than 820,000 UK researchers
use ScienceDirect regularly.
— Functionality: These dramatic increases
in breadth and frequency of use reflect the real growth in benefits
to users, who can now access a highly expanded range of articles
on campus or remotely, at any time, and with much greater efficiency.
For example, ScienceDirect allows users to perform complex searches
and to retrieve full text articles, to link to other articles
cited, to export content to local databases and citation management
software, and to receive alerts when new journal issues are released.
— Per article costs for customers:
In the case of Elsevier, the average cost for a retrieved article
for UK users of ScienceDirect has fallen from £4.57 to £1.69
since 2001, a reduction of 63%. We estimate the cost to customers
per article downloaded will be less than one pound within two
years.
Open Access' author-pays model risks penalising
the UK because British researchers produce a disproportionately
high number of articles every year. By charging authors for each
article that has been accepted for publication, Open Access transfers
the costs of publishing from institutions like commercial corporations,
and libraries that serve readers, to researchers and their sponsors
(eg universities, governmental funding agencies and foundations).
While Britain's spending on journal subscriptions currently amounts
to 3.3% of the world's total, UK researchers contribute a much
higher 5% of all articles published globally. [156]
As a result, we estimate that the UK Government, foundations,
universities and researchers could together pay 30-50% more for
STM journals in an Open Access system than they do today. [157]
Whilst individual institutions like Cambridge
University and Imperial College London that are relatively prolific
would pay more under an Open Access system, by contrast, commercial
organisations that subscribe to many journals but contribute relatively
few articles each year would pay substantially less: our estimates
suggest that some commercial corporations would pay one tenth
or less in an Open Access system than they pay under today's subscription
model. [158]
In addition to these cost-transfer effects,
there are other key unresolved issues concerning Open Access:
— By introducing an author-pays model,
Open Access risks undermining public trust in the integrity and
quality of scientific publications that has been established over
hundreds of years. The subscription model, in which the users
pay (and institutions like libraries that serve them), ensures
high quality, independent peer review and prevents commercial
interests from influencing decisions to publish. This critical
control measure would be removed in a system where the author—or
indeed his/her sponsoring institution—pays. Because the
number of articles published will drive revenues, Open Access
publishers will continually be under pressure to increase output,
potentially at the expense of quality.
— The Open Access business model in
its current form has not proven its financial viability: even
the highest article fees charged by Open Access publishers today
($1,500) cover only about 40%—60% of the estimated total
costs to publish an article of the quality that researchers are
used to today. Remaining costs, estimated to range from one to
two billion dollars for the industry globally, would have to be
covered by foundation, university and government subsidies. While
it is conceivable that mean costs per article may fall as electronic-only
publishers gain scale (currently less than 1% of articles are
Open Access), Open Access publishers are unlikely to cover production
costs with revenues of just $1,500 per article, assuming they
provide similar levels of quality, peer review, functionality
and accessibility as researchers receive today. They would almost
certainly be unable to invest in technological innovation to any
significant extent or in nurturing emerging areas of science.
— For universal access to be a reality,
publishers must continue to make articles available in multiple
media formats. Print is used by many scientists around the world
and by global citizens who are the beneficiaries of scientific
and medical research. To rely on the internet alone for distribution,
as most Open Access journals do, risks reducing levels of access
among these beneficiaries: only 11% of the world's population
uses the Internet and only 64% of UK citizens have ever been online[159].
— The recent period of rapid, intense
innovation in STM publishing—the context in which Open Access
has emerged—is far from over. As this period continues,
we expect the measurable benefits in productivity for users (ie
access, usage, functionality and lower unit costs for customers)
to continue. Elsevier, like all publishers, will continue to innovate,
to observe the impact of innovations like Open Access and to assess
how effectively such initiatives serve the needs of scientific
and research communities. As developments prove able to bring
demonstrable, substantial and sustainable improvements for those
communities, Elsevier will adapt and invest accordingly. In the
meantime, we believe that the UK Government should continue to
allow the market dynamics of this global industry to drive innovation
and to determine which publishing models can best serve the needs
of the worldwide scientific and medical research communities.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF
SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL
AND MEDICAL
(STM) PUBLISHERS
"What impact do publishers' current policies
on pricing and provision of scientific journals, particularly
`big deal schemes', have on libraries and the teaching and research
communities they serve?"
Key points:
— Publishers' current policies on pricing
and provision of scientific journals reflect the beneficial effects
of their substantial investments in electronic technologies: for
example, Elsevier has invested approximately £200 million
in its electronic platform, ScienceDirect, and in other initiatives
(eg making 180 years' worth of articles from its premier medical
journal The Lancet available on a single database). Publishers
have developed innovative pricing, product delivery and access
options to meet the market's demand for increasing amounts
of high quality information to be made easily accessible.
— The "Big Deal", as Elsevier's
contract with its NESLI consortium of UK customers is sometimes
known, is one of a number of such options that was developed to
respond to customers who wanted access to more journals. [160]
While customers can opt to purchase any combination of journals
at the point of contract negotiation, this particular option gives
significant unit price discounts to institutions purchasing content
previously not subscribed to. The result is that 97% of UK researchers,
on average, have direct access to approximately 90% of Elsevier
journals through the licence of their host institution.
— Since being introduced, the number
of users, their frequency of use and the breadth of articles available
have all risen dramatically, while unit costs for customers have
fallen: the average cost-per-Elsevier-article-downloaded for UK
NESLI users via ScienceDirect fell from £4.57 to £1.69
between 2001 and 2003, a decrease of 63%. We expect the average
cost to customers per article downloaded to fall below one pound
within two years.
— In the case of Elsevier, annual price
increases to NESLI for subscribed journals have been capped at
5% for the next two years. Over this period, the number of articles
published is expected to increase in line with historic trends
(typically 3% per year), and usage is expected to rise, on average,
by more than 50% each year (the number of Elsevier articles downloaded
by UK researchers tripled in the last two years from 4.4 million
to 13.3 million, continues to increase rapidly, and is expected
to pass 20 million within the next year).
— The period of rapid and intense innovation
is far from over. As it continues, we expect the measurable benefits
in productivity and additional value for customers (as measured
by access, usage of archived and current articles, functionality
and decreasing article costs for customers) to continue also.
THE ROLE
OF STM PUBLISHERS
The current global system of science publishing
has co-evolved with science and scientists over hundreds of years
to support the long-term interests of scientific and medical communities.
Science, Technical and Medical (STM) publishers are guardians
of intellectual heritage, shouldering significant responsibilities
by creating, organising and developing the communications infrastructure
for the research communities they serve. Globally, the more than
2,000 STM publishers receive, register and publish over 1.2 million
articles each year by millions of researchers in hundreds of countries.
[161]
These articles, which have been peer reviewed by world experts,
are then distributed in around 16,000 learned journals. For each
of these journals, STM publishers aggregate, review, edit, prepare
and produce articles submitted by researchers, and then distribute
them electronically or in print to libraries and individuals.
Ultimately, these vital journals are searched, read and referenced
by discipline-specific scientific research communities. Increasingly,
STM publishers are facilitating access to the extensive archives
that they have preserved. For example, Elsevier recently made
180 years' worth of articles—published in its premier journal
The Lancet—available in one database. In summary, STM publishing
is a self-sustaining system that, we believe, serves science and
medical communities extremely well.
STM publishers provide value by creating and
managing independent publications for the global research community.
They stand as the final guarantors of quality by financing, organising
and managing editorial, peer and creative review processes. In
part they achieve this by actively managing editorial boards themselves.
STM journals are the "minutes of science", each article
serving like a witness statement in the court of scientific opinion.
By managing journals, publishers provide and disseminate undisputed
records of the sources of research by registering and date-stamping
authorship; by assuring quality through peer review and complex
production processes; and by fixing and defending the definitive
final versions of research papers in perpetuity, in part through
the mechanisms of copyright transfer or publishing licence.
INNOVATIONS IN
STM PUBLISHING AND
BENEFITS TO
RESEARCHERS
STM publishers have made significant investments
in nurturing new areas of science and in electronic technologies.
In so doing they have transformed the way science is used and
accessed. As a result, scientific research is more widely available
and more heavily used today than it has ever been before.
In the case of Elsevier, all UK Higher Education
Institutions engaging in science and medical research and all
researchers within them have access, through the licence of their
host institutions, to nearly all Elsevier journals that pertain
to their individual research programmes: consequently 97% of UK
researchers have direct access, on average, to around 90% of Elsevier
journals under licence of their host institution. UK citizens
have access to all Elsevier journals and articles either through
their local libraries, or via inter-library loan agreements. Electronic
access has dramatically increased usage of journals, enabling
researchers to search, find and retrieve a very broad range of
relevant content remotely, at any time, with striking speed and
ease. For example, ScienceDirect, Elsevier's electronic journal
platform, allows users to perform searches by author, title, publisher,
or keyword enquiry to retrieve full text articles and their components
(eg abstracts), to link to other articles cited, to export content
to citation management software and to receive alerts when new
journal issues are released.
These benefits are resulting in dramatic growth
in usage. For example, from 2001 to 2003, the number of UK researchers
using Elsevier's electronic articles at least once per month more
than doubled—from 145,000 to 360,000—while the number
of Elsevier articles downloaded by researchers grew, on average,
by 73% per year—from 4.4 million to 13.3 million. In total,
as of January 2004, 820,000 UK researchers were regular users
of ScienceDirect.
EVOLUTION OF
PRICING AND
GROWTH IN
VALUE FOR
CUSTOMERS AND
END-USERS
The pricing environment has changed quite significantly
in recent years as scientific publishing has migrated from a print
to an online environment, with new pricing paradigms emerging
to reflect changes in the product and dramatic increases in availability
and access opportunity.
Elsevier's pricing has adapted, and continues
to adapt to changing market needs. From 1999 to 2003, Elsevier's
prices to UK higher education institutional customers increased,
on average, by six% per year. Factors driving annual increases,
beyond cost inflation, include the annual growth in the size of
the literature (three% per year on average), rising costs to serve
exponential usage growth, and the costs required to deliver additional
functionality. In the case of the NESLI consortium of UK customers,
annual price increases for subscribed journals for the next two
years are capped at 5%.
Customer benefits, measured by breadth, speed
and functionality of access, and reflected by great growth in
article usage, have all increased dramatically, delivering significantly
more value for the price paid. For example, while the overall
prices have increased at 6% per year from 1999 to 2003, the cost
per Elsevier article downloaded for NESLI members decreased by
63% from 2001 to 2003—from £4.57 to £1.69. [162]
We expect the average cost to customers per article downloaded
to fall below one pound within two years. Over the same period,
the number of active UK users grew annually by 58% per year on
average, while the number of articles downloaded per user grew
annually by 21% per year on average.
Elsevier charges universities to access electronic
articles and journals based on the prices they paid for content
in the print versions. In general, customers may receive both
print and electronic versions by paying a platform fee and an
additional e-content fee. This gives electronic access to the
last five years and to the current year of the titles held in
print. Customers can choose to subscribe only to the electronic
versions of journals by paying one to 3% less than they did for
print only collections.
The "Big Deal", as Elsevier's contract
with NESLI is sometimes known, gives significant unit price discounts
to customers purchasing content previously not subscribed to,
or journals previously cancelled due to prior budget constraints.
The recently signed agreement with 114 research institutions,
covering 1.3 million (97%) UK researchers, provides direct access,
on average, to about 1,600 of some 1,800 Elsevier journals with
full ScienceDirect functionality.
Institutions opting to purchase content they
are not subscribing to at present receive discounts of up to 97.5%
on the print catalogue price. As many institutions have opted
to purchase more journals to take advantage of these unit price
discounts, the mean price paid by NESLI members per Elsevier journal
has decreased by 34% since 2001. Additionally, as stated above,
future price increases for NESLI customers have been capped at
5% for the term of this agreement. This mutually agreed contract
will be re-negotiated at the end of its two year term.
The so-called "Big Deal" is just one
of a number of service options that Elsevier provides: customers
can opt to purchase any combination of journals at the point of
contract negotiation. This particular option has contributed significantly
to the growth in access noted above, and was developed to respond
to customers who wanted access to journals outside of their core
collections at favourable rates, ie to content they had not previously
subscribed to or had cancelled. For access to un-subscribed journals
in a consortia environment, Elsevier charges between 2.5% and
7.5% of the catalogue price (ie discounts of between 92.5% and
97.5%). Individual institutions can choose sole access to their
subscribed journals or combine with access to other Elsevier journals
(eg subject collections, a title list customised for the NESLI
consortium, or all Elsevier titles). These options lead to different
pricing levels, giving institutions the option to broaden their
collections as well as more ways to manage their budgets. Usage
statistics are now also provided for individual journals enabling
institutions to manage their budgets better (for example, by cancelling
journals with low usage as contracts are renewed).
It is clear that this period of rapid and intense
innovation and transformation is far from over. We expect to see
continued changes in product delivery, pricing and access options
in response to evolving market demands and emerging technologies.
THE STM MARKETPLACE
"What action should Government, academic
institutions and publishers be taking to promote a competitive
market in scientific publications?"
Key points:
— The market in scientific publications
is global and highly competitive: some 2,000 publishers annually
publish approximately 16,000 unique learned journals containing
about 1.2 million articles selected from papers submitted by millions
of researchers around the world.
— Competition for authors' articles
occurs within dozens of narrow subject areas. Field-specific learned
societies frequently enjoy a leading share within subject areas
and no single competitor has disproportionate power.
— The ongoing emergence of new journals,
publishers and publishing models indicate the low barriers to
entry, and are a sign of a healthy competitive marketplace.
— Ongoing innovations in science and
advances in publishing technologies contribute to a dynamic and
healthy marketplace.
— It would be inappropriate for the
government to intervene in the market. Indeed, a recent review
of STM publishing undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)
concluded in September 2002 that: "The overall market is
fragmented, with the top six publishers accounting for just 37%
of rated journals and 44% of articles... for now it would not
be appropriate for the OFT to intervene in the market." [163]
Since then, STM markets have become even more dynamic and even
more competitive: price per article downloaded has fallen, while
usage and access levels have dramatically increased.
— The government should continue to
allow market dynamics to ensure that publishers continue to meet
the needs of scientific research communities effectively and efficiently.
A GLOBAL MARKETPLACE
The STM publishing marketplace, made up of more
than 2,000 publishers and 16,000 learned journals, is truly global:
British researchers use articles that have been written by researchers
from all over the world, while those researchers in turn read
articles written by British researchers. Each STM journal is unique,
with its own distinctive scope and orientation, qualities, editorial
style and reputation. Competition for authors' articles generally
occurs within narrow subject fields among a small number of journals
covering these fields, with societies (eg Royal Society of Chemistry,
American Chemical Society) typically enjoying a leading share
of articles and first claim on author loyalty as society members.
A COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE
STM markets are highly competitive: among the
2,000 STM publishers none has disproportionate power. The UK Office
of Fair Trading (OFT) noted in September 2002 "the overall
market is fragmented, with the top six publishers accounting for
just 37% of rated journals and 44% of articles. The top publisher
(Elsevier) accounted for just 13% of the journals, rising to 18%
following its merger with Harcourt." [164]
Frequently, publishers launch new journals as
new scientific disciplines emerge, and as research output grows.
(For most of the 20th century, the number of STM journals has
grown, on average, at a reasonably steady 3.25% per year.) New
publishers, sometimes experimenting with new business models,
have also entered the market recently, reflecting the low barriers
to entry.
A DYNAMIC MARKET
RAPIDLY CHANGING
DUE TO
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE PROGRESSION
OF SCIENCE
As technological innovation and the advancement
of science continue to change the market, STM publishers respond
in a variety of ways: by launching titles as new sub-disciplines
arise, changing the scope of existing titles, making sure that
the journals' editors fairly represent the leading edge in their
fields, and adding search, retrieval and display functionality
to improve the productivity of research. As more articles become
available electronically, usage statistics have enabled library
customers, who have always had discretion about how to spend their
budgets, to make even more informed spending choices. Technological
innovations have also lowered the cost of entry for new competitors
because electronic-only publishers do not incur costs associated
with the production, warehousing and distribution of print copies.
Finally, technology is enabling an explosion of access within
subscriber bases: libraries can provide distributed access to
all subscribed journals across their institutions and to licensed
users remotely, at any time. No longer do libraries have to provide
only one or a few current "shelf" copies while storing
back copies inconveniently in another location.
In such a dynamic market, with new technologies
redefining the way scientists and researchers access and use information,
and with evolving business models, it would be inappropriate for
government to intervene. Indeed, this was the conclusion reached
by the OFT in its recent report of September 2002: "For now
it would not be appropriate for the OFT to intervene in the market."
[165]
Since the OFT report, STM markets have become even more dynamic
and even more competitive: costs per article have declined, usage
has increased, new journals have been launched at higher than
historical rates, and in the case of Elsevier, we have capped
annual price increases for NESLI customers at 5% for the next
two years.
The government should continue to allow market
dynamics to ensure that publishers continue to meet the needs
of scientific research communities effectively and efficiently.
NEW PUBLISHING
MODELS, INCLUDING
OPEN ACCESS
"What are the consequences of increasing
numbers of Open Access journals, for example, for the operation
of the Research Assessment Exercise and other selection processes?
Should the Government support such a trend and, if so, how?"
Key points:
— Open Access' authors'-pay-per-article
model risks penalising the UK because British researchers produce
a disproportionately high number of articles every year. While
Britain's spending on journal subscriptions currently amounts
to 3.3% of the world's total, UK researchers contribute a much
higher 5% of all articles published globally. [166]
One consequence of increasing numbers of Open Access journals
is that UK researchers and their sponsors could together pay 30-50%
more for STM journals than they do today.
— In an Open Access system, costs will
be transferred to relatively prolific nations (like the UK) and
institutions, like Cambridge University and Imperial College London,
who will pay more. Less prolific institutions, particularly commercial
corporations, will pay much less—in some cases as little
as one tenth of what they pay today.
— Open Access in its current form has
not proven its financial viability: author fees cover only 40%-60%
of the estimated costs to publish articles at the levels of quality
that researchers are used to, with remaining costs, (estimated
to range from £1billion—£2 billion for the industry
globally) currently covered by university, foundation and government
agency subsidies.
— While mean costs per article could
fall as electronic-only publishers gain scale (currently less
than 1% of articles are Open Access), we estimate that they would
have to fall by as much as 40%-60% for the British academic system
to pay the same in an Open Access system as it does today. [167]
Reductions of this magnitude would almost certainly mean that
publishers would have difficulty maintaining today's high quality
of STM journals, and would have little if any margin to continue
investing in technology and in nurturing emerging areas of science.
— The quality of research articles
might also be threatened as Open Access publishers come under
pressure to publish more and increase revenues, potentially compromising
the rigour of the peer review processes as they reject fewer articles.
— It is early days in the development
of Open Access journals and the impact on the Research Assessment
Exercise (REA) is currently unclear.
— The Government should remain neutral
about Open Access and should allow market dynamics to determine
whether Open Access can serve the needs of the scientific research
community more efficiently and effectively than other publishing
models.
THE ALTERNATIVE
PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE
New technologies have created opportunities
for STM publishers to deliver research-related content more quickly
and cost-effectively, creating a landscape of innovative publishing
initiatives that include pre-print servers, self-archiving in
university repositories and electronic-only publishers with traditional
business models. Open Access appeared on this landscape as a result
of these new technologies and the publishing industry's low barriers
to entry. Alternative publishing is a broad market development
that is being embraced differently by a range of players.
The many new publishing models that can be considered
Open Access are distinguished primarily by their business approach.
Most Open Access journals, instead of charging subscription fees,
charge authors (and either directly or indirectly those who fund
them) to publish articles accepted for publication. Hybrid publishing
models also exist. For example, The Journal of Biological Chemistry
considers itself to be an Open Access publisher because it makes
its papers freely available at the end of one year. Other journals,
such as Florida Entomologist, offer authors the choice to pay
an article fee to be published (in which case the article is made
available to all) or not, in which case the article is available
only to paid subscribers. [168]
It is as yet unclear whether such arrangements are sustainable
for the long term.
The lack of subscription fees does not mean
that Open Access journals are free. Their publishing costs—primarily
labour, technology and production—are the same as those
of any traditional publisher, although the fledgling operations
of Open Access publishers do not compare with the scale, complexity
and efficiency of leading STM publishers. Open Access's pay-per-article
model means that publishing costs are in part paid for by researchers
and by the governments, universities and foundations that fund
them. As article fees cover less than 40%—60% of today's
industry costs per article (at levels of quality that researchers
are used to) the remainder will have to be covered by subsidies
from governments and funding agencies or investors and philanthropists.
THE CURRENT
STATE OF
OPEN ACCESS
Open Access is in its infancy, representing
less than one% of published STM articles. Its journals typically
offer only basic text and images with virtually no or limited
search and cross-linking functionality. Unlike traditional STM
publications that may be distributed via print and online, Open
Access journals are typically distributed via the Internet only.
This limits the availability of Open Access journals to those
researchers in nations and institutions that have the required
technological infrastructure. It also limits general availability:
only 64% of UK adults have ever used the Internet[169]
IMPLICATIONS OF
INCREASING NUMBERS
OF OPEN
ACCESS JOURNALS
Open Access will continue to evolve in response
to market forces, particularly as it seeks additional sources
of operating revenue to make it financially viable. It will grow
if it proves more effective and/or efficient in meeting the needs
of the scientific community.
One consequence of the growth of Open Access
in its current form is that publishing costs will be transferred
from the consumers of research, particularly commercial organisations,
to authors and those who fund them (eg governments, universities).
A wide range of supporting evidence shows that costs exceed $3,000
per article at existing quality levels (eg defined by acceptance
levels of author submissions, peer review standards, distribution
and electronic functionality). For example, the Open Society Institute
suggests Open Access publishers will need to recoup $3,750 per
article published, consistent with John Cox Associates, who estimates
per article costs to be $3,500—$4,000 per article. By contrast,
Science magazine estimates that it would have to charge $10,000
per article in a pay-per-article model, a function of its high
quality and concomitant high rejection rates. Similarly, the American
Institute of Biological Sciences estimates that the journal BioScience
would have to charge $7,000 per article. [170]
Given the wide range of costs per article across journal types,
we use the OSI guidelines of $3,750 when estimating the effects
of moving to an Open Access model, whether for the UK alone, or
globally. This figure is in line with Elsevier's estimated mean
costs per article across the range of its some 1,800 journals.
If all global articles were published under
today's Open Access model (ie where the highest author fees of
$1,500 per article cover just 40%-60% of estimated publishing
costs) then globally, government and non-profit organisations
would have to provide significantly increased annual subsidies
of £1 billion—£2 billion to make up the difference.
A second consequence is that because they charge
on a per-article basis, Open Access publishers will penalise relatively
prolific universities (like Cambridge University, Imperial College
London, Yale University and the University of California) and
nations like the UK, whose researchers produce a disproportionately
high number of articles every year. While UK spending on journal
subscriptions currently amounts to 3.3% of the world's total,
UK researchers contribute a much higher 5% of all articles published
globally. We estimate that UK researchers and their sponsors could
together pay 30-50% more for STM journals in an Open Access system
than they do today. For this reason, it is feasible that institutions
funding authors (eg foundations, universities) could limit or
discourage authors from publishing too frequently to contain their
costs. Conversely, institutions might pressure journals to accept
articles in the interests of self-promotion.
By contrast, commercial institutions that subscribe
to many journals but contribute relatively few articles each year
would pay substantially less. Our estimates suggest that some
commercial corporations, who currently account for around 20%
of annual global STM journal spending, would pay one tenth or
less in an Open Access system than they pay under today's subscription
model. The portion of publishing costs that these commercial institutions
currently cover though their subscriptions would be transferred
to authors and their sponsors in more prolific institutions.
While it is conceivable that mean costs per
article may fall as electronic-only publishers gain scale, we
estimate that the average cost to publish an article would have
to fall by as much as 40% for British researchers and their sponsors
to pay the same for STM journals in an Open Access system as British
libraries pay under today's subscription model. At these levels,
publishers would likely have to reduce levels of quality control
(the higher a journal's rejection rates, the higher its per article
costs) and/or reduce levels of ongoing investment, for example
in technological innovation and in nurturing new areas of science.
For example, Elsevier alone has launched, on average, 31 new journals
each year in emerging areas of scientific enquiry since 1988.
It is also not clear how costs that are incurred after an article
is published (eg to maintain archives and upgrade technology)
would be funded in such situations.
A third factor is that if high quality journals
are to remain in business long term without subsidies,
they will likely have to raise their per-article
fees substantially to cover their technology and editorial costs.
If Open Access publishers are to improve the basic functionality
of their current offerings (eg by adding search functionalities,
linking and profiling), costs will again increase. Alternatively,
Open Access publishers may abandon their no-subscription-fee approach
and adopt hybrid models that incorporate
a subscription component, as BioMedCentral has already
done.
Fourth, the quality of research articles might
well suffer as Open Access publishers compromise the rigour of
their peer review processes by rejecting fewer articles so that
they can publish more and increase revenues. Weaker articles,
or articles that serve commercial interests, may therefore get
published when previously they would have been rejected. By contrast,
the current subscription system supports a highly independent
peer review process in which publishers actively manage editorial
boards. In an Open Access environment, there could be pressures
from institutions to shape editorial direction as well as on the
volume of submissions.
Finally, assuming that cited research continues
to be the primary measurement of research institutions' quality,
with quality the basis for funding allocation, it is unclear whether
Open Access journals will affect the Research Assessment Exercise
(REA). ISI, the industry standard that provides key data for the
REA on the quality of research, currently measures only two out
of some 500 Open Access journals because the rest are too new
or too irregularly published to give valid data. Presumably this
number will increase as Open Access journals become established
but at this point it is too early to assess what portion of Open
Access journals will appear in ISI-rated journals even two years
from now (the minimum time required before ISI will consider rating
a journal). The greater the proportion that meet ISI's strict
criteria to be rated, the less will be the impact on the REA.
The UK Government should neither support nor
discourage Open Access publishers; instead, it should allow market
dynamics of this global industry to evaluate whether they can
meet scientific research community needs as efficiently and effectively
as other forms of publishing.
Elsevier, like all publishers, will continue
to innovate, to observe the impact of innovations like Open Access
and to assess how effectively such initiatives serve the needs
of scientific and research communities. As developments prove
themselves to bring demonstrable, substantial and sustainable
improvements for those communities, Elsevier will adapt and invest
accordingly.
COPYRIGHTS AND
ACCESS
"How effectively are the Legal Deposit Libraries
making available non-print scientific publications to the research
community, and what steps should they be taking in this respect?"
Key point:
— The Legal Deposit Libraries such
as the British Library have established new and effective systems
to make electronic scientific publications available. The laws
governing the deposit of electronic material to the Legal Deposit
Libraries have just been enacted in 2003, and implementation discussions
with publishers are ongoing.
LEGAL DEPOSIT
LIBRARIES
The Legal Deposit Libraries such as the British
Library have made significant investments in making non-print
scientific publications available for researchers, including via
the British Public Library Catalogue (BPLC) and British National
Bibliography (BNB) systems. The British Library's system (called
ESTAR) provides on-site electronic access to the full text of
over 2,000 major journals held by the British Library, mainly
in the fields of science, technology and medicine. [171]
In addition, the British Library provides electronic copies of
scientific articles through its document delivery and inter-library
loan services throughout the UK.
The laws governing the deposit of electronic
material to the Legal Deposit Libraries have just been enacted
in 2003 and implementation discussions with publishers are ongoing.
In the Netherlands, Elsevier has set up an electronic archive
at the Royal Library of the Netherlands, a library similar in
function to the UK Legal Deposit Libraries, to provide back-up
copies of all published journals in perpetuity.
CUSTOMER LICENCE
AND COPYRIGHT
AGREEMENTS
Elsevier's own licence policies allow faculty,
students and staff at customer institutions to download and print
materials accessed through their licence and to share copies with
their research colleagues within their institutions. Members of
the public who enter a library on a walk-in basis and who are
permitted by the library to use its resources are permitted on-site
access to all Elsevier materials available through the library's
licence.
Elsevier's copyright policies permit authors
to use their own articles in a variety of ways: for teaching;
in preparing revised and expanded new works (eg books); by making
copies for their research colleagues; by posting the pre-print
version of their articles widely, including on Web-based pre-print
servers; and by posting the final version on their institutions'
Intranets or other secure networks ("self-archiving").
SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY
"What impact will trends in academic journal
publishing have on the risks of scientific fraud and malpractice?"
Key points:
— The rise of electronic publishing
has increased the need to monitor quality stringently and to ensure
attribution of authorship as more information is circulated with
greater ease
— STM publishers have so far been the
most effective in minimising the risks of scientific fraud and
malpractice through their organisational and oversight roles in
managing editorial offices, peer review and independent guardianship
of the scientific record
— By introducing an author pays model,
Open Access risks undermining public trust in the integrity of
scientific publications that has been established over hundreds
of years. The subscription model, in which the users (and institutions
that serve them, like libraries) pay, ensures high quality, independent
peer review. This critical control, which prevents commercial
interests from influencing decisions to publish would be removed
in a system where the author—or indeed his/her sponsoring
institution—pays.
NEW CHALLENGES
TO THE
INTEGRITY OF
STM PUBLISHING
Though the current system of STM publishing
has evolved in a competitive environment over hundreds of years
to meet the needs of the global scientific community efficiently
and effectively, today the rise of electronic publishing presents
new opportunities and new threats. Along with many benefits, electronic
publishing has also created new challenges for the science and
medical community as more information can be circulated without
the need of independent publishers. The "information explosion"
and the free exchange of content have therefore increased the
need to monitor quality and attribute authorship of research.
STM publishers have so far been effective in
protecting the quality of research (eg, via electronically enabled
peer review systems). While peer review on its own cannot generally
determine whether any given paper under consideration is "correct"
or not, it does allow the manifestations of grossly unreliable
interpretation, inadequate data or incorrect attribution of authorship
to be filtered out. The need to corroborate and repeat research
results that appear to be questionable is built into the
scientific method. Such self-correction is more than adequate
for the long-term identification of outright scientific fraud
and operates independently from any particular business model.
Under the current system, fraud and malpractice are rare, at levels
low enough to be of minimal concern to the research community,
as publishers bear the responsibility and costs of monitoring,
investigating and resolving issues of plagiarism. In an author
pays model, there is increased risk that such disputes will not
be resolved effectively given individual researchers' lack of
resources and legal expertise both to identify infringements and
pursue transgressors.
Publishers, together with their journal editors,
have been vigilant in identifying and taking action against issues
such as multiple publication and plagiarism. While the number
of such cases reported has risen recently, this seems to be more
a function of the greater ease with which duplication and plagiarism
can be identified in an electronic environment than of a decline
in standards or lack of vigilance by guardians of the scientific
record.
THREATS TO
SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY
FROM NEW
BUSINESS MODELS
The Open Access phenomenon within the context
of electronic publishing is too new and encompasses too broad
a range of publishing models for anyone to determine definitively
whether scientific fraud and malpractice will increase or decrease
relative to the current system that has evolved to minimise these
risks.
New business models requiring authors to pay
for publication could, in theory, threaten to reduce the quality
of research articles if publishers were to lower their review
standards to enable them to publish a greater proportion of the
articles submitted. The introduction of an author pays model could
threaten to undermine public trust in the integrity of science
that has been established over hundreds of years by the peer review
system in which quality is the sole factor determining whether
an article should be published.
There are also other possible risks to the integrity
of science. The current subscription-based STM model covers the
significant costs involved in managing the quality of published
research (ie via editors, peer review coordination, copy-editing,
communications, maintaining perpetual archives of the original
article, and analysis pertaining to disputes and claims). Current
Open Access business models raise serious doubts about the ability
to cover the costs of these value-added services because today's
highest author fees cover only an estimated 40%—60% of publishing
costs. Financial stability is an absolutely necessary condition
for editorial independence, the cornerstone of excellence in science
and trust in the scientific process. An STM journal that is losing
money or lives on the margins of losing money will have little
editorial independence: there will be extreme pressure to mould
content and opinion to secure greater revenue. Subscription models
have proven themselves to be guardians of editorial freedom and
independence. This means leading, not following, medical and scientific
opinion through the editorial voice of STM journals and shaping
the global conversation of science and medicine, channelling it
to what matters and where it matters most. Any substantial change
to the publishing model that erodes this freedom would damage
the hugely valuable oversight and evaluation functions that journals
have contributed to science and society.
February 2004
155 Of 178 UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI)
152 include scientific and medical researchers (the remainder
are typically intensively focused on the Arts, eg, Edinburgh College
of Art, Falmouth College of Arts). These 152 research-focused
HEIs fall into three categories: first, 114 who subscribe to ScienceDirect
under the NESLI agreement; second, 22 who subscribe to ScienceDirect
but not under the terms of the NESLI agreement; and third, 16
do not subscribe to ScienceDirect, but do subscribe to Elsevier
journals. Institutions subscribing to ScienceDirect cover 99%
of UK researchers (97% in the first category, 2% in the second);
The third category accounts for 1% of British science and medical
researchers. The mean number of Elsevier journals subscribed to
in each of these three categories (weighted by the number of researchers
within each) is 1,583, 216 and 30 respectively. The number of
journals that an institution subscribes to reflects the scope
of its research focus (those with a narrow focus subscribe to
fewer journals). Back
156
According to ISI, UK researchers publish about 60,000 articles
annually; Globally, 1.2 million STM articles are published annually;
UK spending on journals is £82 million; global costs are
estimated to be $3,750 x 1.2 million = $4.5 billion. Uses exchange
rate of £1 = $1.822. Back
157
According to ISI, UK researchers publish about 60,000 articles
annually; publishing costs per article are assumed to be $3,750,
as suggested by the Open Society Institute's (OSI) Guide to Business
Planning for Launching an Open Access Journal when identifying
minimum revenues required per article. A second data point is
from publishing industry consultants John Cox Associates who estimate
mean costs per article currently to be between $3,500 and $4,000.
60,000 UK articles published at $3,750 = $225 million = £124
million at exchange rate of £1 = $1.822. Alternatively, costs
per article would have to be $2,490 for 60,000 articles to cost
£82 million (ie, $149 million at £1 = $1.822). Ranges
allow for approximately a 20% margin of error in these estimates.By
comparison, Science magazine estimates that it would have to charge
$10,000 per article in a pay-per-article model, a function of
its high quality and concomitant high rejections rates. (See Alan
Leshner, Science executive editor and AAAS head, quoted in Science,
Vol. 302, £5645, 24 October 2003, p. 552.) Similarly, Richard
O'Grady, executive director of the American Institute of Biological
Sciences (AIBS) estimates that the journal BioScience would have
to charge $7,000 per article (see quotation in Science, Vol. 302,
£5645, 24 October 2003, p. 553). Given the wide range of
costs per article across journal types, we use the OSI guidelines
of $3,750 when estimating the effects of moving to an Open Access
model, whether for the UK alone, or globally. Back
158
Selected commercial corporations that are Elsevier customers
who each have historically spent more than £1 million on
annual subscription fees have also each authored less than 100
articles per year. At $3,750 per article, these institutions would
pay less than one tenth of their current subscription fees. At
lower article fees, of course, they would pay even less. Back
159
Over the period July to September 2003 an estimated 11.9 million
households in the UK could access the Internet from home, according
to the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS). That amounts to 48%
of all UK households. According to figures from the October 2003
National Statistics Omnibus Survey, an estimated 64% of adults
in Great Britain have ever used the Internet. Back
160
NESLI stands for National Electronic Site Licence Initiative. Back
161
While there is no universally used number for the total number
of learned journals, we use 16,000 journals, to reflect the convergence
of two widely used estimates: first, Tenopir and King's estimate
of 17,000, "Trends in scientific scholarly journal publishing
in the U.S.," Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Vol. 28 £3,
April 1997; and second, Mabe's ranged estimate of 14,000-16,000
in Mabe, "The growth and number of journals"" in
Serials Vol.16, no2. July 2003. Back
162
Similarly, citing LISU data on journal prices paid by UK Higher
Education Institutions from 1997 to 2001, The Wellcome Trust noted,
"There has been a reduction in average price paid over recent
years." Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing,
The Wellcome Trust, January 2003, paragraph 1.18, page 4. Note:
LISU is the Library and Information Statistics Unit. Unit costs
fell from euro6.60 per download in 2001 to euro2.44 in 2003. Currencies
were converted at £1 = euro1.446. Back
163
The Market for Scientific, Technical and Medical Journals, A
statement by the OFT, September 2002. OFT396, p.1, p.6. Back
164
The Market for Scientific, Technical and Medical Journals, A
statement by the OFT, September 2002. OFT396, p.6. Back
165
The Market for Scientific, Technical and Medical Journals, A
statement by the OFT, September 2002. OFT396, p1. Back
166
See footnote 156. Back
167
See footnote 157. Back
168
See ARL Bimonthly Report 227, April 2003 "On the
Transition of Journals to Open Access" by David Prosser,
SPARC Europe. See also www.fcla.edu/FlaEnt/. Back
169
See footnote 159. Back
170
See footnote 157. Back
171
The independently funded "JSTOR" system used by the
British Library provides access to digitised "back files"
of more than 100 core scholarly journals in 16 fields. For each
journal there is a fixed period of time, ranging in most cases
from two to five years, that defines the gap between the most
recently published issue and the date of the most recent issues
available in JSTOR. Back
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