"Simply making a hybrid journal into open access only would not be sustainable, unless a significant proportion of the articles are already utilising the open access option.”
I don’t think there is big a risk for publishers to flip their best journals from a subscription to a author-(institution)-pays model. The only risk I see is that libraries/institutions might not be fast enough to adapt to the new situation and instead of providing funding to authors just buy other products from other publishers. Researchers want/have to publish in high ranked journals and therefore would continue to publish in these journals even if it costs them $3000. Societies could influence the status of a journal, but I doubt that hardly any publisher proactively contacts the editors and societies to inform them about the possibility to change the journal to Open Access. I’ve recently spoken with an editor from my institution who runs a high ranked Wiley journal. He wasn’t aware of the difference between pure OA and hybrid OA. When I asked Wiley to provide him more information about the possibility to change to Gold OA, they mentioned that they consider journals which have less subscriptions than you could expect by the quality (IF). So this is clearly a sign that publishers try to avoid the flip of their best journals as long as they can in order to keep the revenue stream from subscriptions. Yet flipping the best journal would have the biggest effect for OA. Regarding Hybrid: The No double dipping policy<http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/no-double-dipping-policy> form Elsevier is a dead end for several reasons: * There’s no external control. How do you assure the reduction is correctly. A reduction from what anyway? There’s no transparency how a list price is created. * In Big Deal contracts list prices are only a minor part of the whole price calculation. * Adjustments happens retrospectively. * And again.. Simply not affordable if not all library will buy hybrid at the same time. Yet however if Elsevier would agree to a model like RSC, that would really boost the OA transition. This year my institution spent around 855’000 EUR to Elsevier (just subscriptions). Think about the possibilities for Gold OA if Elsevier would provide us with vouchers for Hybrid OA. I’m really exited to see what’s going to happen with RSC. Will libraries still subscribe to the gold package, even if they notice that over 50% content (or what ever will it be) of the RSC journals are OA? Will they do it for the sake to get the vouchers again? What will happen to unused vouchers, will they be shared to institutions which publish more than than they subscribe? How will RSC react on that situation? Best regards Christian
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