Partnership or Competition: Can the Academic Publishers work with Open Access

1
Partnership or Competition Can the Academic
Publishers work with Open Access?
2
Open Access Threat or Opportunity?

• Is Open Access a real possibility?
• As a publisher how do you distinguish reality
  from hype?
• What does the noise signify?
• What are the opportunity costs?
• What are the consequences for Society publishing?
• What are the triggers for moving to Open Access?
  
• Which journals might gain financially from a move
  to Open Access?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages to the
  bottom line?
• Can a price cutting war be avoided?

3
Open Access Impacts and Issues for the Publisher

• Noise itself too much talk not enough action
• New Journals steal authors
• Societies anti or resistant to Open Access
• Funding bodies insist on Open Access Publication
• Authors use existing rights to self archive
• Library Budgets are re-purposed
• Print Subscriptions are cancelled, threatening
  existing Big Deal revenue model

 
4
What should established publishers do?

• Defend the existing subscription business
• Start converting existing titles to open access
• Create some new titles for OA experimentation
• Wait and see

 
5
The Evaluation Model

• Understanding the market
• The nature of the discipline
• The attitudes of funding bodies
• Attitudes of employers
• Attitudes of other publishers
• Understanding the journals position
• Large journal, many markets, healthy subs or
  small but growing good niche market?
• Subs declining, price attrition occurring, strong
  online interest?
• A must have, must publish in or good also ran?
• What other revenue is in this journals market?
• Is the financial performance good, adequate,
  unacceptable
• What does the society want?
• And, how do all these factors depend upon each
  other, what are their relative weights?

6
Primary Action Triggers

• an unmet need in the market
• low subscription numbers
• large proportion of research in the field is
  funded by organisations
• good prospects of institutional deals
• negative projections from current attrition rates
• competing journals are moving towards open access
• other revenue opportunities controlled
  circulation/open access?

7
Important Additional Factors for the Publisher

• The question of value to authors
• Service
• decline in standards?
• Impact Factor
• Speed
• Editorial
• Visibility, Promotion and Dissemination

8
Generating Options

• Test the alternatives for each existing or start
  up journal
• Use of decision trees
• Use of financial model

9
Decision Tree
10
And the Revenues?
11
But
12
Possible Financials
13
So Can the Academic Publishers work with Open
Access?

• Lets Find Out