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Informed consent in the context of open licensing: some questions for discussion

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The purpose of this post is to encourage sharing of knowledge and ideas on the topic of modifying informed consent when working with human subjects to accommodate open licensing. Questions can be found at the end of the post.

Researchers who work with human subjects, as is common in disciplines such as health sciences, education, and social sciences, are expected to obtain informed consent from subjects prior to starting research for ethical and legal reasons.

To obtain informed consent, researchers must explain what will happen with the subject’s information and material (if applicable) and the potential consequences for the subject (beneficial and potential harm).

Consent in the context of traditional publishing meant consent to publish in one specific venue, typically under All Rights Reserved copyright. Policies and procedures for informed consent developed in this context will need to be modified in order for authors to publish using open licenses that actively invite re-use (and sometimes modification) through human and machine-readable licenses, in some cases for commercial use.

To illustrate the difference: an educational researcher might wish to obtain and use a photo of schoolchildren in a publication. In the traditional context, this permission involved publication in one venue (one journal or one book), with re-publication requiring permission from the copyright owner (publisher and/or author). Until recently, such material, while not forbidden to the general public, would usually only be found in an academic library. This is still the case with journals and books that are not yet open access. Open access per se expands access to anyone with an internet connection, but free access on the Internet is automatically covered by copyright in all countries that are signatories to the Berne Convention. Open licensing goes beyond expanding access to inviting re-use. In the case of Creative Commons licensing, the invitation is extended via a human readable form that is designed to facilitate easy understanding of permitted uses, a machine readable form that can be used by searchers to facilitate limiting searches to content by desired use, and a legal license that most people are not likely to read.

For example, publication under a CC-BY license would include traditional uses, and other beneficial uses such as re-use by another researcher building on the work of the original. CC-BY would also invite uses that could be harmful to the subjects, such as targeted commercial social media advertising or use of a modified photo in a video game (schoolkid becomes loser kid, perhaps target practice).

This does not mean that such uses would necessarily be legal, rather that open licensing is an invitation that makes such uses more likely to occur. The harmful uses described above are likely a violation of moral rights under copyright, privacy and/or publicity rights. There are potential legal remedies, but these can only be pursued after the harm is done and discovered by a subject with the means and incentive to pursue legal remedies.

The Chang v. Virgin Mobile case is an illustration of what can happen with sensitive material and lack of understanding of the implications of licensing. In brief, a photographer took a photo of a minor girl (family friend) and posted it to Flickr under a CC-BY license. Virgin Mobile interpreted the license as an invitation to use the girl’s photo in an ad campaign. The girl’s family sued Creative Commons (dropped this one) and Virgin Mobile. The case was eventually dropped for jurisdictional reasons (girl in Texas, company in Australia). Lawrence Lessig wrote about the case, arguing that Virgin’s interpretation of copyright was correct, but that the girl still has privacy rights as minor. A bit more on this here:

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Chang_v._Virgin_Mobile

The Committee on Publication Ethics has published guidance for journals with respect to one type of particularly sensitive material, medical case reports. Excerpt of their General Principles on this topic:

  • Publication consent forms should be required for any case report in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified. This requirement also applies when a report involves deceased persons. Examples of identifying information are descriptions of individual case histories, photos, x-rays, or genetic pedigrees. A list of 23 potential identifiers has been published in BioMed Central’s Trials.
  • Journals should not themselves collect the signed consent forms, because the receipt and storage of confidential patient information could subject them to cumbersome security requirements and potential legal liability under applicable privacy or patient information laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 in the USA.

from:

https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/journals%E2%80%99-best-practices-ensuring-consent-publishing-medical-case-reports

These principles are designed to protect journals and their publishers, and only speak to one particular type of sensitive material. For me, this raises some questions. If anyone on the list has answers or ideas, I would love to hear them, on or off-list or as blog comments. If you reply off-list or on the blog and would prefer to be anonymous, please let me know. If warranted, I will summarize responses.

Questions:

  1. COPE’s guidance is for the education and protection of journals. Is anyone aware of efforts for the education and protection of authors and their institutions on the topic of informed consent for open licensing?
  2. Do other publishers or organizations serving publishers have policies, guidance, sample forms, etc. to deal with informed consent and open licensing?
  3. Have any research ethics boards (or similar bodies) revised their guidance to accommodate informed consent and publication under open licenses?
  4. Is anyone aware of cases or analysis of potential implications of licensing for re-use for other types of material involving human subjects besides case reports?
  5. Do you have any other ideas or insights on this or closely related topics that I haven’t asked about?

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2019). Informed consent in the context of open licensing: Some questions for discussion. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/08/27/informed-consent-in-the-context-of-open-licensing-some-questions-for-discussion/

 

 

Publisher: N/A, or the complexity of understanding “the publisher” (method notes)

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This is a note on method arising from work on the OA APC longitudinal trends study that may be of broader interest to those studying scholarly communication and open access as it is important to understand the role of “the publisher”. A story approach seems the best means to explain. One publisher name in DOAJ is N/A. This is not an error; the publisher of the Journal of Peer Production is N/A, that is, there is no “publisher”, just the journal. There are many journals for whom the “publisher” is the title of the journal, the name of the editor, or the university that hosts the journal, even if there is no university press so no formal publishing by the university.

Not-for-profit university and society publishing is very much evident in the open access landscape. As reported at ELPUB (Morrison, 2018), as of 2017 there were over 7,300 active fully open access journals published by universities or societies with no publication fees. This was the majority of the sample. The full sample includes journals with publication fees, journals for which publication fee status is unknown, and ceased journals. While 2019 full analysis will have to wait until data collection and quality analysis is complete, a visual check indicates that university and society publishing continues to be a large part of open access publishing.

Identifying a university “publisher” is more complicated than one might think. Universities may have a university press as well as another publisher such as a library outside of the press. University journals’ publishers may be indicated by names of regional campuses. A single University publisher may have two different names based on language. This is the case for my own University; both the University of Ottawa and Université d’Ottawa are listed as publishers in DOAJ.

Commercial publishers often have variations in names, sometimes simply name variations and at other times reflecting mergers and acquisitions or different brands of a single publisher. For example, SpringerNature’s open journals are listed under SpringerOpen, Nature, and BioMedCentral. DeGruyter publishes open journals under both DeGruyter and Sciendo. To understand the nature of such publishers, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the underlying business.

Many journals are published by societies, universities or governments, in partnership with commercial publishers. The nature of such partnerships (who does what) can vary, including attribution as publisher. The not-for-profit sponsor or the commercial publisher, or both, can  be identified as the publisher.

There is also journal publishing software and platforms whose functions are part of the publishing process, and to a greater or lesser degree. In Canada, érudit is closer to the classic definition of publisher while Open Journal Systems is an open source journal publishing software but also an organization also offers journal hosting and may be used as the publishing platform for another publisher.

Method notes (for 2019 dataset and analysis in progress)

To prepare for fall 2020 data collection from “publisher” websites, I created an excel pivot table of publishers from the OA Main spreadsheet.The purpose of this exercise is to determine publishers by size to make decisions on sampling.

This spreadsheet starts with and includes DOAJ metadata, but goes beyond. The purpose of the pivot table was to watch for duplication of publisher names. This can easily happen due to variation in publisher names, sometimes reflecting acquisitions (e.g. Medknow, Wolters Kluwer Medknow) and sometimes reflecting slight variations in the name such as presence or absence of accents, typos, inclusion or exclusion of an acronym. The original pivot table included over 8,500 publisher names. The method involves manual checking, a tedious process and sometimes uncertain as it is not always clear whether a variation actually reflects a different publisher. 407 duplications of publisher names were found and eliminated in this process. Errors in the remaining data are quite possible, with failure to identify duplicates (e.g. for reasons of language or lack of understanding of the nature of a university system in a foreign country) being most likely, and minor risk of incorrect duplication of separate publishers. It would be difficult to calculate an accurate count of the number of open access journal publishers from this data for the reasons explained above. The number is clearly in the thousands, but how many thousands would depend on how a publisher is defined and accurate identification of such “publishers”.

In this context, publisher: N/A is both a unique anecdote and an idea worthy of consideration. The idea that every journal has, or has to have, a “publisher” may be a myth.

Reference

Heather Morrison. Global OA APCs (APC) 2010–2017: Major Trends. ELPUB 2018, Jun 2018, Toronto, Canada. ⟨10.4000/proceedings.elpub.2018.16⟩. ⟨hal-01816699⟩

To cite this post:

Morrison, H. (2019). Publisher: N/A, or the complexity of understanding “the publisher” (method notes). Sustaining the Knowledge Commons August 22, 2019. https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/08/22/publisher-n-a-or-the-complexity-of-understanding-the-publisher-method-notes/

Springer Open: ceased, now hybrid, OA identification challenges

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Abstract

SpringerNature, owner of Nature Publishing Group, Springer Open, and BioMedCentral, is the world’s largest fully open access journal publisher as measured by number of journals. The purpose of this post is to underscore what appears to be a significant open access attrition rate at SpringerOpen (16% OA attrition in the past few years) and raise questions about challenges to finding and identifying these journals as open access. Ceased journals that were always open access are listed on the SpringerLink (mostly subscriptions) site, not the SpringerOpen website. Subscriptions articles are clearly marked as such; the OA status of an article is not stated on the journal home page. Information provided by a library about License Terms may not mention or resemble a CC license.

Update July 23: the following analysis missed two ceased journals, Asia Pacific Journal on Computational Engineering and China Journal of Economic Research. Unlike the other titles, China Journal of Economic Research is not listed on SpringerLink, although a journal home page can be found through a Google Search. No content is available online and the journal’s default license while publishing is not clear. Adding this title makes a small difference to the numbers and percentages. These titles are not included in the working dataset but will be included in the main file.

Details

We have been tracking 258 Springer Open titles up to 2018 (excluding journals new in 2019 and journals now listed under BioMedCentral). Of these, 33 (13%) have ceased publication and 7 (3%) are now hybrid journals, combining subscriptions and optional open access (Open Choice) articles. Together, these two categories add up to a combined OA attrition rate of 16%.

Finding the titles and/or identifying the open access status of journals and articles could be challenging. For example, 38 of the 40 journals are listed on the main SpringerLink site; none are listed on the Springer Open site. The SpringerLink site includes thousands of journals (a SpringerLink search for “journal” yields over 3,500 results), almost all of which are subscriptions based.

For example, if you click on the link to now ceased Earth Perspectives from the SpringerLink website, while as pictured on the bottom right hand side there is a link to the open access collection there is no prominent mention of the open access status of this journal. Earth_Perspectives_1

Clicking on the latest volume, as shown, brings up a list of articles in the volume, with no indication at this stage that the articles are open access. Earth_Perspectives_2.

Once you get to the actual article, the open access status is stated clearly at the top and the copyright link goes to the CC-BY license (all ceased titles were licensed CC-BY).

18 of the 32 ceased titles were listed in DOAJ in 2018; only 2 are listed in DOAJ as of Jan. 31, 2019.

Journals ceased by year
2015 1
2016 6
2017 10
2018 8
2019 1
not stated 7
Grand Total 33

As illustrated by the table above, most of these journals ceased quite recently. Authors who selected a journal for publication in 2017 or 2018 because it was on the Springer Open website and/or in DOAJ might be surprised to know that their journal has been de-listed by these sites, perhaps shortly after their article was published.

When I look up the titles through the University of Ottawa library’s A to Z journal list, the journals are identified as open or free access, however the link to the License Terms of Use, while they indicate broad use, are very different from CC-BY. For example, the answer to the question: “Can I post a copy in a course management system?” is: “The licensee and authorized users may incorporate parts of the licensed materials in Virtual Campus.” There is no indication of the CC license. As an aside, this is not meant as a critique; identifying an entire journal as under one CC license might solve some problems, but would likely create others.

Some examples of problems arising from identifying CC licensing at a journal level

  • third party content is generally under a different license than an article or journal
  • different articles and different types of content may have different licenses
  • the journal may have changed its default license over time; in the case of journals that began publishing before CC licenses became available, this is almost always the case

6 of the 7 journals that are now hybrid are clearly hybrid, mixing open access and subscriptions content. In the list of articles in a particular volume, subscription articles are clearly marked with a lock, and lead to information that an article can be purchased for $39.95, rented through DeepDyve, or subscribed to. There is no open access note or symbol for open access content, although on the bottom right hand of the screen there is a link to an open access collection search, and items are marked as open access once the reader gets to the article level.

Following are lists of the ceased and hybrid publications, remember if you would like to look them up, use SpringerLink site, not the Springer Open site:

Ceased

Applied Informatics
Asian Journal of Gambling Issues and Public Health
Asia Pacific Journal on Computational Engineering
Brazilian Journal of Science and Technology
China Journal of Economic Research
Computational Cognitive Science
Decision Analytics
Earth Perspectives — Transdisciplinarity Enabled
Earthquake Science
EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems
Fields Mathematics Education Journal
In Silico Cell and Tissue Science
Infrastructure Complexity
International Journal of Dharma Studies
Journal of Chinese Management
Journal of Chinese Studies
Journal of Computational Surgery
Journal of Frugal Innovation
Journal of Solid State Lighting
Journal of Trust Management
Journal of Uncertainty Analysis and Applications
Lingua Sinica
Mathematics-in-Industry Case Studies
Multilingual Education
mUX: The Journal of Mobile User Experience
Psychology of Well-Being
Robotics and Biomimetics
SpringerPlus
Sustainable Chemical Processes
Technology, Innovation and Education
Textiles and Clothing Sustainability
The Journal of Global Positioning Systems
Zoological Studies

Now hybrid

Fire Science Reviews (technically open access predecessor to hybrid Fire Technology)
In Silico Pharmacology
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation
Maritime Studies
Research in the Mathematical Sciences
Science China Life Sciences
Journal of Remanufacturing

Full but messy, working, undocumented data is available for download here:

Springer_ceased_2019

Springer_now_hybrid_2019

This is only one aspect of the Springer Open 2019 analysis.

For earlier posts on Springer, see https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/?s=springer&submit=Search

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2019). Springer Open: Ceased, now hybrid, OA identification challenges. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/07/22/springer-open-ceased-now-hybrid-oa-identification-challenges/

 

Ceased and transferred publications and archiving: best practices and room for improvement

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In the process of gathering APC data this spring, I noticed some good and some problematic practices with respect to journals that have ceased or transferred publisher.

There is no reason to be concerned about OA journals that do not last forever. Some scholarly journals publish continuously for an extended period of time, decades or even centuries. Others publish for a while and then stop. This is normal. A journal that is published largely due to the work of one or two editors may cease to publish when the editor(s) retire. Research fields evolve; not every specialized journal is needed as a publication venue in perpetuity. Journals transfer from one publisher to another for a variety of reasons. Now that there are over 11,000 fully open access journals (as listed in DOAJ), and some open access journals and publishers have been publishing for years or even decades, it is not surprising that some open access journals have ceased to publish new material.

The purpose of this post is to highlight some good practices when journals cease, some situations to avoid, and room for improvement in current practice. In brief, my advice is that when you cease to publish a journal, it is a good practice to continue to list the journal on your website, continue to provide access to content (archived on your website or another such as CLOCKSS, a LOCKKS network, or other archiving services such as national libraries that may be available to you), and link the reader interested in the journal to where the content can be found.

This is an area where even the best practices to date leave some room for improvement. CLOCKSS archiving is a great example of state-of-the-art but CLOCKSS’ statements and practice indicate some common misunderstandings about copyright and Creative Commons licenses. In brief, author copyright and CC licenses and journal-level CC licensing are not compatible. Third parties such as CLOCKSS should not add CC licenses as these are waivers of copyright. CC licenses may be useful tools for archives, however archiving requires archives; the licenses on their own are not sufficient for this purpose.

I have presented some solutions and suggestions to move forward below, and peer review and further suggestions are welcome.

Details and examples

Dove Medical Press is a model of good practice in this respect. For example, if you click on the title link for Dove’s Clinical Oncology in Adolescents and Young Adults a pop-up springs up with the following information:

“Clinical Oncology in Adolescents and Young Adults ceased publishing in January 2017. All new submissions can be made to Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics. All articles that have been published in Clinical Oncology in Adolescents and Young Adults will continue to be available on the Dove Press site, and will be securely archived with CLOCKSS”.

Because the content is still available via Dove’s website, the journal is not included on the CLOCKSS’ list of triggered content. This is because CLOCKKS releases archived content when it is no longer available from the publisher’s own website.

CLOCKSS Creative Commons licensing statement and practice critique

One critique for CLOCKSS: – from the home page:  “CLOCKSS is for the entire world’s benefit. Content no longer available from any publisher (“triggered content”) is available for free. CLOCKSS uniquely assigns this abandoned and orphaned content a Creative Commons license to ensure it remains available forever”.

This reflects some common misperceptions with respect to Creative Commons licenses. As stated on the Creative Commons “share your work” website:  [your emphasis added] “Use Creative Commons tools to help share your work. Our free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give you permission to share and use your creative work— on conditions of your choice“.

The CLOCKSS statement  “CLOCKSS uniquely assigns this abandoned and orphaned content a Creative Commons license to ensure it remains available forever” is problematic for two reasons.

1. This does not actually reflect CLOCKSS’ practice. The Creative Commons statements associated with triggered content indicate publisher rather than CLOCKSS’ CC licenses. For example, the license statement for the Journal of Pharmacy Teaching on the CLOCKSS website states: “The JournalPharmacyTeaching content is copyright Taylor and Francis and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License”.

2. This would be even more problematic if it did reflect CLOCKSS’ practice. This is because CLOCKSS is not an author or publisher of the scholarly journals and articles included in CLOCKSS. Creative Commons provides a means for copyright owners to indicate willingness to share their work. When a third party such as CLOCKSS uses CC licenses, they are explicitly or implicitly claiming copyright it order to waive their rights under copyright. This reflects an expansion rather than limitation of copyright that may lead to the opposite of what is intended. For example, if one third party is a copyright owner that wishes to claim copyright in order to grant broad-based downstream rights, another third party could use the copyright claim to support their right to claim copyright in order to lock down others’ works. A third party that is a copyright owner providing free access today could use this copyright claim in future as a rationale for toll access. This could come into play if in future toll access seems more desirable from a business perspective.

The CLOCKSS practice of publisher-level copyright (see 1. above) is problematic because Creative Commons first release of CC licenses was in December 2002. Scholarly journal publishing predates 2002 (the first scholarly journals were published in 1665), and not every journal uses CC licenses even today. Retroactive journal-level CC licensing would require re-licensing of every article that was published prior to the journal’s first use of CC licensing.

For example, the copyright statements of volume 1 dated 1990 on the PDFs of the CLOCKSS-triggered Journal of Pharmacy Teaching read: “Journal of Pharmacy Teaching, Vol. l(1)1990 (C) 1990 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved”. This suggests that all authors in this journal at this point in time assigned full copyright to The Haworth Press, although actual practice was probably more complex. For example, if any authors were working for the U.S. federal government at the time, their work would have been public domain by U.S. government policy. Any portions of third party works included would likely have had separate copyright. Even assuming the simplest scenario, all authors had and transferred all rights under copyright to Haworth Press, the authors would retain moral rights, hence it would be necessary to contact all of the authors to obtain their permission to re-license the works under Creative Commons licenses.

The idea of journal-level CC licensing is at odds with the idea of author copyright. This confusion is common. For example, the website of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher’s Association Licensing FAQ states: “one of the criteria for membership is that a publisher must use a liberal license that encourages the reuse and distribution of content” and later “Instead of transferring rights exclusively to publishers (the approach usually followed in subscription publishing), authors grant a non-exclusive license to the publisher to distribute the work, and all users and readers are granted rights to reuse the work”. If copyright and CC licenses really do belong to the authors, then journal-level Creative Commons license statements are incorrect.

Even more room for improvement

The above, while leaving some room for improvement, appears to reflect best practices at the present time. Other approaches leave even more room for improvement. For example, in 2016 Sage acquired open access publisher Libertas Academica. The titles that Sage has continued can now be found on the Sage website. The Libertas Academica titles that Sage no longer publishes can be found as trigged content on the CLOCKSS website. However, the original Libertas Academica website no longer exists and there is no indication of where to find these titles from the Sage website.

Titles that were formerly published by BioMedCentral are simply no longer listed on the BMC list of journals. For example, if you would like to know where to find Gigascience, formerly published by BMC, you can find information at the site of the current publisher, Oxford. A note on the SpringerLink page indicates that BMC maintains an archive of content on its website. However, if you look for Gigascience on the BMC journal list, it simply is not listed. It would be an improvement to follow the practice of Dove and include the title, link to the archived content, and provide a link to the current publisher.

Solutions? Some suggestions

If journals and publishers were encouraged to return copyright to the authors when a journal is no longer published, or a book is no longer being actively marketed (in addition to using their existing rights to archive and make works freely available), then authors, if they chose to do so, could release new versions of their works. For example, a work currently available in PDF could be re-released in XML to facilitate text and data-mining, or perhaps updated versions, and authors could, if desired, release new versions with more liberal licenses than journal-level licenses that must of necessity fit the lowest common denominator (the author least willing or able to share).

Education, among the existing open access community, and beyond is needed. First, we need to understand the perhaps unavoidable micro level nature of at least some elements of copyright under conditions of re-use of material. For example, if a CC-BY licensed image by one photographer or artist is included in a scholarly article written by a different person that is also CC-BY licensed, the moral rights, including attribution, are different for the copyright holder of the image and that of the author of the article. In academia, attribution and moral rights are essential to our careers.

The intersection of plagiarism and copyright is different in academia. If one musical composer copies another’s work, copyright law is likely the go-to remedy. If a student presents someone else’s work as their own, academic procedures for dealing with plagiarism will apply, regardless of the copyright status of the work. For example, the musician using a public domain work need not worry about copyright but the student using a public domain work without attribution is guilty of plagiarism and likely to face serious consequences. Evolving norms for other types of creators (amateur or professional photographers, video game developers) may not work for academia.

For CLOCKSS, a statement that all triggered content is made freely available to the public, and that additional rights may be available for some works, with advice to look at the work in question to understand re-use rights, would be an improvement.

Your comments and suggestions?

This is an area where even today’s best practices are wanting, and the solutions / suggestions listed above are intended as an invitation to open a conversation on potential emerging practices that may take some time to fully figure out. Peer review and suggestions are welcome, via the comments section or e-mail. If you are using e-mail, please let me know if I may transfer the content to this post and if so whether you would like to be attributed or not.

This post is cross-posted to my Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics scholarly blog and forms part of the Creative Commons and Open Access Critique series. Comments and suggestions are welcome on either blog.

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2018). Ceased and transferred publications and archiving: Best practices and room for improvement. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/07/05/ceased-and-transferred-publications-and-archiving-best-practices-and-room-for-improvement/

 

SAGE Publications 2016 & 2017 Data Analysis (including Libertas Academica)

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Update December 18, 2017: CLOCKSS has announced that 21 former Libertas Academica Journals have been triggered for OA through CLOCKSS as they are no longer published by Sage. The titles are:

· Advances in Tumor Virology
· Cell & Tissue Transplantation & Therapy
· Cell Communication Insights
· Clinical Medicine Insights: Geriatrics
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Cardiology
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Oncology
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Patient Care
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Therapeutics
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Vascular Health
· Clinical Medicine Reviews in Women’s Health
· Gene Expression to Genetical Genomics
· Glycobiology Insights
· Healthy Aging & Clinical Care in the Elderly
· Human Parasitic Diseases
· Journal of Genomes and Exomes
· Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemias
· Organic Chemistry Insights
· Primary Prevention Insights
· Reproductive Biology Insights
· Retrovirology: Research and Treatment
· Translational Oncogenomics

(thanks to the Society for Scholarly Publishing listserv)

Abstract: SAGE, which defines itself as the “world’s largest independent academic publisher” on its website, bought Libertas Academica in 2016, which is one step in moving to the open access space. SAGE publishes more than 1000 journals and offer the possibility of hybrid gold open access publishing for almost all of them. 165 journal published by SAGE are in fully open access.

In 2016, around 86% of fully open access journals have an APC. The APC average is 1084 USD.

In 2017, around 84% of fully open access journals have an APC, but only 16% of those have an APC in DOAJ. Of the APCs available in DOAJ, around 33% varies from the APCs found in SAGE. Less than 2% of fully open access journals have an APPC.

Only 2 journals published by SAGE do not have publications fees.

SAGE Journals

The APC average for fully open is 1011 USD (excluding the journals from Libertas Academica). For SAGE Choice hybrid option, SAGE website says the APCs is 3000 USD. There are some pricing exceptions in the SAGE Choice hydrid option. The average for those journals is 1275 USD. The average for the journals previously published by Libertas Academica is 1784 USD

A comparison between 2016 and 2017 data for Libertas Academica journals, now owned by SAGE, show no variations in prices for the same journals. However, the 2016 data is missing 7 journals from its list that appear on the 2017 data. 6 of these journals are no longer in Open Access model. 1 journal has a 1085 USD APC.

Full text here.

Cite as:

Laprade, K. (2017). SAGE Publications 2016 & 2017 Data Analysis (including Libertas Academica). Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2017/04/11/sage-publications-2016-2017-data-analysis-including-libertas-academica/

Society for Scholarly Publishing AGM Presentation 2016

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The slides from my presentation at the Society for Scholarly Publishing AGM June 3, 2016 in Vancouver are available here:  SSP presentation 2016 06 03 hgm

Please see the references slides at the ends for citations and links to further information. Comments and questions are welcome, here or via email to Heather dot Morrison at uottawa dot ca. If you would like to comment on the blog but prefer anonymity please contact me via e-mail

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2016, June). Sustaining the knowledge commons: Open access scholarship. Conference Presentation presented at the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) annual meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/ssp-presentation-2016-06-03-hgm.pdf

 

 

SpringerOpen: about 40% of journals fully sponsored, good clear language examples

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In April when we first gathered APC information for SpringerOpen we found many titles with links not working to uncover details. Over the past week I’ve noticed that details have been added and can now confirm that about 40% of the 235 SpringerOpen titles listed on the publisher’s website are fully sponsored with no article processing charges. In most cases, the language about journal sponsorship is very clear and this could be a model for other publishers. There are some minor variations in wording between journals and sponsors. Following are a few examples of different expressions, all copied from the website of the journal. A complete list of journals with clear language indicating no article processing fees due to full sponsorship, with the corresponding language, follows further on.

Another aspect of SpringerOpen which might be a model for other publishers is the feature of a special tab for the sponsoring institution or society. This appears to me to be a good practice both from the perspective of transparency and to add value back to the sponsor in the form of promotion.

From the chemistry journal 3biotech (see About the Journal / King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology tab)

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is an independent scientific organization administratively reporting to the Prime Minister. KACST is both the Saudi Arabian national science agency and its national laboratories. The science agency function involves science and technology policy making, data collection, funding of external research, and services such as the patent office. KACST partnered with Springer to publish a suite of international journals to foster the development of key applied technologies, providing a forum for the dissemination of research advances and successes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world. KACST provide funds to cover all publication costs of these journals, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors.

From the City, Territory and Architecture home page:

The publication costs for articles in City, Territory and Architecture are covered by Università degli Studi Sassari, authors do not need to pay an article processing charge

From the International Journal of Implant Dentistry home page:

International Journal of Implant Dentistry is affiliated with German Society of Oral Implantology (DGI) and the Japanese Society of Oral Implantology (JSOI). Authors do not need to pay an article processing charge for publication in International Journal of Implant Dentistry.

A full list of the 85 journals listed on the SpringerOpen website with very clear language indicating that there are no article processing charges due to journal sponsorship, with the wording used by each journal, follows. For more details please see the SpringerOpen journal list. In addition to these 85 titles, there are 12 additional journals where I was not able to assess whether there is an APC or not (I classify these as “cost not found”), and 7 journals, of which 3 involve society or institutional sponsorship, that appear to be in the process of developing APCs with costs not specified (e.g. Fees and Funding page says “we are currently rebuilding this website), or in the case of Lingua Sinica, fees are waived for the inaugural year of 2015-2016. One sponsored journal, Zoological Studies, has transferred to a different publisher. It will be interesting to observe what happens with this model over the next few years. This strategy of partnering with sponsoring societies and institutions is similar to what we are seeing this year with De Gruyter Open as reported earlier in english and français

Journal Title Language indicating sponsorship / no publication fee
3 Biotech King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is an independent scientific organization administratively reporting to the Prime Minister. KACST is both the Saudi Arabian national science agency and its national laboratories. The science agency function involves science and technology policy making, data collection, funding of external research, and services such as the patent office. KACST partnered with Springer to publish a suite of international journals to foster the development of key applied technologies, providing a forum for the dissemination of research advances and successes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world. KACST provide funds to cover all publication costs of these journals, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors.
Applied Nanoscience supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
Applied Petrochemical Research supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology
Applied Water Science supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology) free to submit and free to read for all
Asian Journal of German and European Studies DAAD from the Federal Foreign Office. All Responsibility for Publication is taken by The Centre for German and European Studies, Chung Ang University.
Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility Fees and funding: The publication costs for Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility are covered by the Sustainability Management Research Institute (Inha University, Korea), so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education Fees and funding:

The publication costs for Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education are covered by the Research Center for Modern Linguistics and Foreign Language Education, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Brain Informatics The open access fees (article-processing charges) are fully sponsored. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges. No sponsor listed.
Bulletin of Mathematical Sciences Bulletin of Mathematical Sciences is a fully sponsored, peer-reviewed open access journal. The Bulletin of Mathematical Sciences was launched by King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Business Research publication costs for articles published in Business Research are covered by the German Academic Association of Business Research, so authors do not need to pay an article processing charge.
China Finance and Economic Review The publication costs for China Finance and Economic Review are covered by the National Academy of Economic Strategy, CASS, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
China Journal of Economic Research The publication costs for articles in China Journal of Economic Research are covered by the Centre for Economic Research, Shandong University, so authors do not need to pay an article processing charge.
City, Territory and Architecture The publication costs for articles in City, Territory and Architecture are covered by Università degli Studi Sassari, authors do not need to pay an article processing charge.
Clinical Phytoscience The publication costs for the articles published in Clinical Phytoscience are sponsored by the Phytoneering Foundation, so authors do not need to pay the article processing charge
Comparative Migration Studies The publication costs for Comparative Migration Studies are covered by IMISCOE, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Complex & Intelligent Systems Complex & Intelligent Systems is an Open Access journal  supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by KACST. Authors can publish in the journal without any charges.
Computational Cognitive Science The publication costs for Computational Cognitive Science are covered by the Centre for Knowledge & Interaction Technology, Flinders University, Australia, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Computational Visual Media This is an open access journal, published quarterly by Tsinghua University Press and Springer. The open access fees (article-processing charges) are fully sponsored by Tsinghua University, China. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Data Science and Engineering The open access fees (article-processing charges) are fully sponsored. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training The publication costs for Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training are covered by Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation (SBFI), Bern, Switzerland, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
European Journal of Futures Research The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Institut Futur (Free University Berlin), the Center for Futures Studies (Salzburg University of Applied Sciences) and the Foundation for Future Studies – an initiative of British American Tobacco, Hamburg.Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Fashion and Textiles associated with the The Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles. The journal enjoys the full support of the KSCT, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
Fields Mathematics Education Journal The publication costs for Fields Mathematics Education Journal are covered by The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Financial Innovation The publication costs for Financial Innovation are covered by Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Forest Ecosystems The publication costs for Forest Ecosystems are covered by Beijing Forestry University, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Functional Linguistics The publication costs for Functional Linguistics are covered by M.A.K. Halliday Library, School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Genus The publication costs for Genus: Journal of Population Sciences are covered by Sapienza University, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Geothermal Energy The publication costs for Geothermal Energy are covered by Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ; Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences; and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences The publication costs for Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences are covered by Korea Information Processing Society – Computer Software Research Group, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
International Aquatic Research fully sponsored – Islamic Azad University
International Journal of Advanced Structural Engineering (IJASE) The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy The publication costs for International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy are covered by Korea Institute of Child Care and Education, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
International Journal of Dharma Studies The publication costs for International Journal of Dharma Studies are covered by the Center for Dharma Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education The publication costs for International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education are covered by the journal, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge..edited by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).
International Journal of Geo-Engineering The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Korean Geotechnical Society. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
International Journal of Implant Dentistry International Journal of Implant Dentistry is affiliated with German Society of Oral Implantology (DGI) and the Japanese Society of Oral Implantology (JSOI). Authors do not need to pay an article processing charge for publication in International Journal of Implant Dentistry.
International Journal of Industrial Chemistry The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone
International Journal of Mechanical and Materials Engineering The article-processing charges for this journal are kindly sponsored by the University of Malaya, Malaysia. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
International Journal of Recycling of Organic Waste in Agriculture The International Journal of Recycling of Organic Waste in Agriculture is a peer-reviewed open access journal published under the brand SpringerOpen, covering all aspects of recycling of organic waste. It is fully supported by the Islamic Azad University, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in.
International Nano Letters fully supported by the Islamic Azad University, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore, it is both free to read and free to publish in International Nano Letters.
IZA Journal of European Labor Studies The publication costs for IZA Journal of European Labor Studies are covered by IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
IZA Journal of Labor & Development The publication costs for IZA Journal of Labor & Development are covered by IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
IZA Journal of Labor Economics The publication costs for IZA Journal of Labor Economics are covered by IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
IZA Journal of Labor Policy The publication costs for IZA Journal of Labor Policy are covered by IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
IZA Journal of Migration The publication costs for IZA Journal of Migration are covered by IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Journal of Advanced Ceramics The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by the State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing at Tsinghua University. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges
Journal of Analytical Science and Technology The publication costs for Journal of Analytical Science and Technology are covered by the journal, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Journal of Children’s Orthopaedics The Journal of Children’s Orthopaedics – the official journal of the European Paediatric Orthopaedic Society (EPOS). The Article Processing Charges (APC) are fully sponsored by EPOS.
Journal of Chinese Management The publication costs for Journal of Chinese Management are covered by the China Association for Social & Economic System Analysis Research, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge
Journal of Economic Structures Message on journal home page: Due to a generous grant by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), we will waive article processing charges (APCs) for all accepted articles in the Journal of Economic Structures. The Official Journal of the Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS). Message under Fees and funding: The publication costs for Journal of Economic Structures are covered by Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research Society affiliation: Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research is affiliated with the Faculty of Entrepreneurship and the UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran. The publication costs for Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research are covered by the University of Tehran, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Journal of Industrial Engineering International The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
Journal of International Humanitarian Action The publication costs for Journal of International Humanitarian Action are covered by the Network On Humanitarian Action, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy Open access sponsored by the State Grid Electric Power Research Institute
Journal of Modern Transportation fully sponsored: Southwest Jiaotong University
Journal of Nanostructure in Chemistry The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
Journal of Organization Design The publication costs for Journal of Organization Design are covered by the Organizational Design Community, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge. This has been made possible by a generous grant from the Department of Management, Aarhus University.
Journal of Orthopaedics and Traumatology The open access fees for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology. By publishing with open access you can keep the copyright.
Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology The Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology is a quarterly Open Access journal (supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology)
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Physics It is fully supported by the Islamic Azad University, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in.
Journal of Uncertainty Analysis and Applications The publication costs for Journal of Uncertainty Analysis and Applications are covered by the International Consortium for Uncertainty Theory (ICUT) and Hebei University of Engineering, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Large-scale Assessments in Education The publication costs for Large-scale Assessments in Education are covered by IEA-ETS Research Institute, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge
Latin American Economic Review The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by CIDE. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges. CIDE =(Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas)
Life Sciences, Society and Policy The publication costs for Life Sciences, Society and Policy are covered by Centre for Society and the Life Sciences, Radboud University, the Netherlands and Economic and Social Research Council, Genomics Network, UK, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Materials for Renewable and Sustainable Energy supported by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.
Mathematical Sciences The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
Mathematics-in-Industry Case Studies The publication costs for Mathematics-in-Industry Case Studies are covered by The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Micro and Nano Systems Letters The publication costs for Micro and Nano Systems Letters are covered by The Society of Micro and Nano Systems, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Molecular and Cellular Pediatrics Authors do not need to pay an article processing charge for publication in Molecular and Cellular Pediatrics. Molecular and Cellular Pediatrics is an official journal of the German society of child and adolescent medicine (DGKJ).
Nano Convergence The publication costs for Nano Convergence are covered by the Korea Nano Technology Research Society, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Nano-Micro Letters The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science New Zealand Forest Research Institute Limited (Scion). New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science is owned by Scion. The publication costs for articles in New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science are covered by Scion, so authors do not need to pay an article processing charge.
Pacific Journal of Mathematics for Industry The publication costs for the Pacific Journal of Mathematics for Industry are covered by the Institute of Mathematics for Industry, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Progress in Biomaterials The journal is associated with the Islamic Azad University (IAU). It enjoys the full support of the IAU, who provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.
Progress in Orthodontics All accepted articles are published free of charge. Progress in Orthodontics is associated with the Italian Society of Orthodontics (SIDO)
Protein & Cell The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by Higher Education Press, Beijing Institutes of Life Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Biophysical Society of China. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning The publication costs for Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning are covered by The Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Science China Life Sciences The open access fees for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
SERIEs The open access fees for this journal are kindly sponsored by the Spanish Economic Association. By publishing with open access you can keep the copyright and assign only the exclusive right to any commercial use of the article to Springer.
Strategies in Trauma and Limb Reconstruction By publishing with open access you can keep the copyright. The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by the British Limb reconstruction Society. Authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
The Journal of Chinese Sociology The publication costs for The Journal of Chinese Sociology are covered by Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
The Journal of Global Positioning Systems The publication costs for The Journal of Global Positioning Systems are covered by The International Association of Chinese Professionals in Global Positioning Systems, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Urban Rail Transit The open access fees (article-processing charges) for this journal are kindly sponsored by Beijing Urban Rapid Rail Transit Press Co. Ltd., authors can publish in the journal without any additional charges.
Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy The publication costs for Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy are covered by Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato (NZ); Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia; Institute of Education, Massey University (NZ); College of Educational Studies, Chapman University (USA); Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University (Denmark); Faculty of Education, University of Auckland (NZ); Department of Informatics and Computing, University of Applied Sciences (Croatia), so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge.
Vietnam Journal of Computer Science The Vietnam Journal of Computer Science is published in cooperation with the Nguyen Tat Thanh University, which provide funds to cover all costs of publication, including the Article Processing Charges (APC’s) for all authors. Therefore the journal is both free to read and free to publish in for everyone.

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2016). SpringerOpen: About 40% of journals fully sponsored, good clear language examples. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2016/05/09/springeropen-about-40-of-journals-fully-sponsored-good-clear-language-examples/

Editorial: Open access, copyright and licensing: basics for open access publishers

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by Heather Morrison & Lisa Desautels

Just published (February 2016) in the open access Journal of Orthopaedic Case Reports at the invitation of Editor-In-Chief Dr. Ashok Shyam: Editorial: open access, copyright and licensing: basics for open access publishers. Journal of Orthopaedic Case Reports 6:1 p. 1-2. DOI: 10.13107/jocr.2250-0685.360

Cite the original article (not this blogpost) as:

Morrison, H., & Desautels, L. (2016). Editorial – Open access, copyright and licensing: Basics for open access publishers. Journal of Orthopaedic Case Reports. Retrieved from http://www.jocr.co.in/wp/2016/01/02/2250-0685-360-fulltext/

OA APCs: beware introductory pricing

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Kudos to BioMedCentral for this explanation of why there is no APC (yet) for some of their journals: “† No article processing charge is payable for this newly-launched journal, for a promotional period.” from: How much is BioMedCentral charging? (viewed Aug. 1, 2014).

This is a straightforward explanation of a very common business model (for many kinds of businesses, not just OA journals) of free or low cost introductory pricing, the purpose of which is to attract customers with a view to eventually instating different and quite possibly substantially higher pricing. This is most important to keep in mind when projecting potential future costs, as the low costs of commercial for-profit open access publishers today may be substantially less than what some intent to charge after their journals become successful.

This is not meant to suggest that this is the practice for all open access journals and publishers using the APC method, or even most, rather it is one approach to be aware of that the second-largest publisher using this method is rather helpfully telling us it is a method they consciously employ.

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2015). OA APCs: Beware introductory pricing. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/06/20/oa-apcs-beware-introductory-pricing/

Deals for members and journal as publicity for society membership: options for society journals

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One of the challenges for journals published by societies is the historical relationship between journal subscriptions and society memberships. One option for such journals if they are using article processing fees is to use a discounted rate for members.

The Journal of the Ceramic Society of Japan provides awards each year for outstanding papers. Only members of the society quality for the awards.

mBio authors can join ASM at the contributing member rate of $50 (students $20) to qualify for a $1,000 discount on the $3,000 OA APC.

G3 : Genes, Genomes, Genetics uses this method. Another is using the journal website as an advertising venue for membership. Language from the publisher website

http://www.g3journal.org/site/misc/ifora.xhtml#PUBLICATION%20CHARGES

G3 publication charges will be invoiced within several weeks of article acceptance. Charges (all inclusive) are:

  • $1650 (corresponding authors who are members of the Genetics Society of America or the American Society of Human Genetics)
  • $1950 (non-members)

Read about additional benefits of joining the Genetics Society of America here. There are no additional charges for author corrections, figures, supporting information files, or submission fees.

Is this method effective in attracting or retaining members? I don’t know – that would make a great research project. The team is collecting information about this variation in pricing as we go along. When we’re done we’ll post the spreadsheet and anyone interested can use this column to find a list of journals using the method to study.

This post is part of the open access article processing charges project.

Morrison, H. (2015). Deals for members and journal as publicity for society membership: Options for society journals. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/05/21/deals-for-members-and-journal-as-publicity-for-society-membership-options-for-society-journals/