(was 12 Copernicus journals tripled or quadrupled page charges in 2016)

Update July 7, 2016: thanks to Copernicus’ Silke Hartmann (S.H.) for adding a substantive comment. Following is a brief data update about 2 journals formerly free of charge that now charge APCs, clarification about my category “cost not specified”, and highlights worth repeating of S.H.’s clarification about the meaning of “currently waived”.

Data update: in brief, two journals with conflicting information about APPCs as of June 15, 2016 now post APPC details on their webpages.

Earth Surface Dynamics (ESurf) and Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems  now charge from €50 to €120 per printed page as of July 1, 2016.

Both journals posted conflicting information about APCs as of June 15, 2016. Their APC pages stated: “If the discussion paper is published after 1 January 2016 the APCs are levied for the publication of the final revised paper in the journal. The publication in the discussion forum is free of charge”. Under the price per journal page, the cost is indicated as “currently waived”. The June 15 version of the ESurf APC page is attached here in order to illustrate:  ESurf – Article processing charges 2016 06 15

This is a good illustration of why I have a category called “cost not specified” and how this is used. The journal APC page clearly indicates that “APCs are levied [emphasis added]” along with conflicting information that APCs are “currently waived”. It would be consistent with this explanation to provide free publication to authors, or to inform them that fees are now in place at some point between submission and publication. I do not mean to suggest that these journals have any intention of deceiving authors, merely to point out that this is conflicting information and authors and payers reading the website information do not have a clear indication as to whether or not there is a charge. Two other journals S.H. indicates have appropriate APC information continue to post this conflicting information, that APCs are levied but currently waived.

Highlights from S.H. of Copernicus’ comments: “Currently waived” journals either plan to institute APCs or that have not yet decided whether to use this model or not and wish to keep their options open. “Cost not found” in the case of Copernicus journals (a category I use when I cannot find any information indicating whether there is or is not a cost) means that publishing in the journal is free of charge [Earth System Science Data and Soil].

Data will be updated before it is included in the main spreadsheet (to be completed and released later this year).

Update July 6, 2016: I retract my statement on tripling of page charges thanks to new evidence indicating that the difference reflects a change in the stage at which papers are assessed (now final publication stage generally one-third the pages of discussion paper stage). The change is intended to be revenue-neutral but more data from APC payers would be needed to confirm this. 2015 data from the Open APC project includes values for 2 journals with papers at both stages, and prices paid are 17-24% higher for papers at the final publication stage. I re-affirm my assessment of the volatility of the APC market. I found 6 journals with APCs indicated “currently waived”, presumably journals that will charge APCs of unknown quantities in future. I found 4 journals that referred to APCs without specifying the cost and 2 journals with no indication of whether or not there is a cost. This is a very substantial percentage of Copernicus’ journals for which the answer to the questions “is there an APC or APPC, and if so, how much is it?” is not available on the Copernicus’ website. I regard Copernicus as a model OA publisher. It is likely that this situation reflects journals that would rather not charge APCs, feel they must charge APCs but are not sure how much to charge, etc., rather than deliberate obfuscation. New evidence and the original post follow.

New evidence

Thanks to Copernicus’ Xenia van Edig for a clarification posted to the Global Open Access List and inthe comments section below. According to Xenia, the tripling of per-page pricing does not impact the article pricing as this represents a change in timing of assessment of charges. Previously, charges were assessed at the discussion paper stage, now they are assessed at the final publication stage, where articles are typically one third of the length.This makes sense and my 2015 data does refer to costing at the discussion stage. It is clear to me that Copernicus aims to be fully open and transparent about article processing charges. I recommend that Copernicus and its partners review the website information for the journals listed below (second chart) indicated “cost not found” or “cost not specified”.

Dirk Pieper on the GOAL list points to an open APC server for server payers of APCs and indicates that their data does not confirm tripling of prices. A review of the OLAC server data for Copernicus for 2015 and 2016 does suggest that the primary difference in pricing is paper stage (final v. discussion). However, only 16 Copernicus articles are listed for 2016. I have not checked to see if all are from the journals with this change in pricing; of those with this change in pricing, any submitted before December 31, 2015 would have been assessed at the discussion paper stage. This data is far from conclusive. From the 2015 data, there are 2 journals for which mean APCs are available for both Discussion Papers and the final publication stage. The mean value for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics is €1.543 compared to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions at € 1.32. There is a 17% difference, with the 2016 final paper model representing the higher value. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques’ mean value is € 1.34 compared to Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions at € 1.09, a 24% difference. This data suggests that the change in timing of assessment of charges may not be price neutral, although this is not enough data to come to any conclusions about direction or net impact of the change.

Original post and update

Update July 5, 2016: thanks to astute readers for asking questions about the calculations. It may not be easy to follow as we’re used to much smaller price increase – a 3% increase from year to the next, not 300%! I’ve added more detail below which should make this easier to understand. Further questions are welcome.

On June 1, 2016, German-based commercial open access publisher Copernicus endorsed OA2020, an “an international initiative to support the swift, smooth, and scholarly oriented transformation of journals from print subscription to open-access publishing”.  Half of Copernicus’ journals (12) for which we have numeric data for both 2015 and 2016 tripled or in some cases quadrupled their page charges from 2015 to 2016. Coincidence? The rest of this group of journals (10 journals) showed no change in price or modest increases. There were 18 journals for which I found no data with which to compare. Of these, 1 is clearly sponsored and free of charge; 6 are “currently waived”; 4 are “cost not specified”, i.e. the website indicates a charge will be applied but the amount is not given; 3 are “no cost found”, i.e. presumably free but no clear language to confirm; 3 are “title not found” and 1 title that was free last year began to implement charges in 2016. Following are comments: in brief, the price changes illustrate what I call the volatility of the market suggesting it may be too early for OA2020 as pricing is not stable, and I suggest that the topics of many of the journals which touch on things like drinking water quality, climate change and ocean science, would support an argument for public sponsorship of research dissemination in these areas that are important public priorities in the present and near future. Full data is available in charts below.

Comments

Copernicus is a highly regarded and innovative open access publisher with an innovative model where prices reflect the work involved (pricing varies with size of article, format of submission and whether the author uses the publishers’ template). Even after the tripling of prices most of the fees for these journals are fairly modest, e.g. a 10-page article in the preferred format using the publisher’s template adds up to less than a thousand Euros. However, this data illustrates what I describe as the continuing volatility of this market. Libraries and others that might be payers of article page processing charges tend to have fixed budgets that do not easily accommodate tripling of prices or sudden institution of pricing for “currently waived” journals. To illustrate: if a library budgeted based on 2015 prices and then prices on average triple in 2016, the fund will run out 1/3 of the way through the year.

The topics of some of the journals suggest to me the advisability of public sponsorship of at least some of these journals that are publishing in key public good priorities for the present and near future, for example Drinking Water Engineering and Science, Climate of the Past, and Ocean Science (all journals that tripled in price this year). It is great to see that these journals are open access, but if anyone has the ability and inclination to grow our knowledge on how to care for our water, climate, or oceans, let’s not let page charges stand in the way of disseminating the research.

The following chart illustrates APPC (article page processing charges) for all the journals for which we have numeric data for both 2015 and 2016. In reading the % change column, 100% means no price change, 300% means the price tripled and 400% means the price quadrupled.

Update July 5: I’ve added a column to the chart below on the right hand side which explains in plain language the difference in price between 2015 and 2016. A 400% change is a quadrupling of price. If your rent was $1,000 last year and increased to $4,000 this year, that’s 4 times higher. This is easiest to see and understanding with the journals that tripled in price from 25 EUR per page to 75 EUR per page. 25 X 3 = 75.

For many of these journals, to their credit Copernicus has posted pricing for articles submitted in both 2015 and 2016. To illustrate let’s look at one of these journals, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The APCs are currently posted here and a PDF copy can be found here ACP – Article processing charges 2016 06 15 (created because Copernicus is likely to update their APC page at some point in the future).

Here are the APC details, an extract copied from the ACP website as of July 5, 2016 (without formatting, extracted to facilitate comparison). The following illustrates that the price for every category is precisely 3 times higher after January 2016 than it was before December 2016. Category 1 jumps from €25 to €75. Category 2 jumps from €30 to €90. Category 3 jumps from €35 to €105. Category 4 jumps from €40 to €120. Not every journal follows this pattern precisely, but it is a repeated pattern. I encourage readers to look at the APCs on the Copernicus journal sites to see for yourselves.

Discussion papers published before 31 December 2015
Price per discussion page
Description
Category 1 €25 net LaTeX submissions using the Copernicus Publications LaTeX Package
Category 2 €30 net Word submissions using the Copernicus Publications Word Template
Category 3 €35 net LaTeX submissions causing higher expenditure of work due to any LaTeX style and/or difficulties with tables/figures
Category 4 €40 net Word submissions causing higher expenditure of work due to any Word
style and/or difficulties with tables/figures

Discussion papers published after 1 January 2016
Price per journal page
Description
Category 1 €75 net LaTeX submissions using the Copernicus Publications LaTeX Package
Category 2 €90 net Word submissions using the Copernicus Publications Word Template
Category 3 €105 net LaTeX submissions causing higher expenditure of work…
Category 4 €120 net Word submissions causing higher expenditure of work…

The following chart provides data for journals for which we do not have numeric data for both 2015 and 2016. Note that Copernicus has a number of journals which have associated journals that are called Discussions; these are actually early release of the journals with the same name and are not included here.

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2016). Copernicus 2015-2016 comparison. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2016/07/05/12-copernicus-journals-tripled-page-charges-this-year/