Focusing on a new publication system

Focus Group: broad exchange of information about Open Access

Which choices should you make as a researcher? How do you know where you should publish? That differs per discipline, and each institute also has its own traditions. For example, CWI started with OA publishing in its own repository a long time ago. Nikhef has used the Open-Access archive arXiv for many years, and other institutes are working on their own appropriate solutions.

Ella Bosch is a policy adviser at the Strategic Support department of the NWO-I office. She supervises the Open Access Focus Group, which includes researchers and librarians from different institutes. This group focuses on the broad exchange of information in this OA dossier. Ella: “We discuss how we can best ensure that institutes publish OA as much as possible and, for instance, via which routes. We also broadly consider developments in the field of OA. Sometimes, there are concerns about the undesirable side effects of new policy. Therefore, from within the institutes, we need to stay on top of this, contribute our ideas and join in the discussion.”

Gold, Hybrid, Green and Diamond

Since 2021, Open Access publishing has been an integral part of the NWO Grant Rules. Open Access publishing can be realised in different ways. “Traditionally, there are various flavours, so to speak”, says Daan van Loon, librarian at NIOZ and Focus Group member:

• Gold: a journal is fully OA and charges authors APCs for the OA publishing of their work;
• Hybrid: a journal charges subscription fees to access articles, but also publishes OA articles if an author pays an APC;
• Green: a journal charges subscription fees for access to articles, and the version after peer review is placed in an OA repository;
• Diamond: a journal is fully Open Access and does not charge APCs to publish articles, but is funded in a different manner.

He explains that in the past, NWO-I policy focused on these different routes: “First, gold was very popular among policymakers, then green and now diamond. Hybrid has never been popular but is very widespread.

“None of the routes is per se the best”, say Daan and fellow librarian and Focus Group member Vera Sarkol (CWI). Vera explains: “All routes have variants with associated pros and cons.”

Pros and cons

Daan summarises some characteristics and pros and cons of the gold, hybrid, green and diamond routes. “In the case of gold OA, some publishers leave authors no other choice than to pay increasingly higher APCs. At the same time, we also see gold OA journals led by scientific communities that request very reasonable APCs to cover the costs. In the case of hybrid, you have a choice and can either pay an APC or publish free of charge behind a paywall. That second option means that researchers with a smaller budget can nevertheless publish, but the work is not OA in this instance. In the case of the green route, findability plays a role: a version of the article is often placed in different OA repositories in addition to the original version that the publisher published. In such situations, copyright and licensing issues can sometimes occur.”

The diamond route has the advantage that neither authors nor readers incur costs. The hope is that a diamond journal is published by a publisher who wishes to strengthen the scientific community. These are often non-profit academic publishers supported by researchers and funded by non-commercial sources. Daan: “Diamond currently covers a small part of the entire publication landscape. We hope that this pre-financing business model remains feasible when scaled up and does not fall prey to commercialisation.”

Getting a grip on choices

Researchers can approach Daan and Vera or an OA specialist/librarian at their own institute with questions about whether to respond to the invitations of journals, including requests for peer reviews. “A careful check costs time”, they say, “but it is important to get a grip on the choices concerning where and how to publish OA, and whether or not to peer review manuscripts for publishers. There is no quick fix.”

They advise researchers to do the following:

• Request advice from a specialist, an experienced researcher or a librarian;
• Investigate the journal concerned:
  - How is it funded?
  - How is the editorial process organised?
  - What is the average processing time for having an article published?
  - What do you find important: the costs, OA conditions, and/or involvement of the academic community in the journal, or the impact factor?

Consequences of developments in the publication landscape

Together with the Focus Group, Vera and Daan call for an examination of the entire system instead of continuing to focus on the routes. “The routes are a simplified representation of different funding streams. The publication process costs science increasingly more money, and now is the moment to restructure this process and make it less commercial”, they say. Policy adviser Ella adds that she passes on input from the Focus Group about policy changes to the NWO-I board. The group also focuses on the unintended consequences of developments in the publication landscape.

Checks on open review process

One development is the transition to an open review process. Ella: “Although an open review process is very transparent, we must carefully consider how to protect social safety within this. Reviewers can be blunt in their feedback, for example. If the entire process is open, reviewers will probably start to express themselves more diplomatically. However, it could equally be the case that the fierce criticism of reviewers becomes public. That could prove very difficult and demotivating for young researchers in particular.”

Another relevant development is the rise of AI. “With the help of AI, it is easy to create false articles and generate misinformation. It is now more important than ever to have quality checks in place during the publication process so that misinformation can be tackled as effectively as possible.”

Open Access Monitor: concerns about excesses

The NWO Executive Board also has many concerns about the (financial) excesses of the current OA system. The recently published Open Access Monitor states that in 2023, an estimated €10.9 million was required for the Open Access publishing of 3,584 articles that resulted from projects funded by grants from NWO and ZonMw, which amounts to more than €3000 per article. Arfan Ikram, President of ZonMw and responsible for Open Science within the NWO Executive Board, says that institutions in the Netherlands need to discuss with each other how reasonable these amounts are.

On 17 October, NWO introduced the Diamond Open Access fund: academic journals can request funding to switch to a non-profit diamond model. A maximum of €50,000 is available for each project. Within a maximum period of 24 months, the journals must have a sustainable business model, which also guarantees that they will continue to exist after the project phase.

Taking the lead

The Focus Group is pleased that both NWO and NWO-I are committed to improving the publication system. It hopes that everybody will become aware of the situation and that the academic community will work together to improve the entire system, and not just individual elements, without considering the associated secondary effects. These changes will require effort from everybody, both policymakers and researchers. Daan: “Researchers, for example, will have to get used to a different way of publishing. They could take the initiative to establish non-profit journals in their field. Researchers at CWI recently did this. For policymakers, it means that they will be able to exert more control over funding streams. Ultimately, the positive consequence will be that researchers can take the lead in how they wish to disseminate their information.”

What is Open Access publishing? A publication is defined as ‘Open Access’ if there are no financial, legal or technical obstacles to obtaining access to the article. In other words, everybody can read, download, copy, disseminate, print, and search for information, for instance, for use in education or in another manner within the legal agreements. NWO understands publications to include scholarly papers and conference proceedings, monographs and book chapters. Separate criteria apply to book publications. Currently, a large proportion of Dutch articles are either published fully Open Access or shared via freely accessible repositories.

Text: Anita van Stel

Newsletter Inside NWO-I, November 2024
You can find the archive of the newsletter Inside NWO-I on the NWO-I website.