The UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has launched a new report that shows how universities can compute their cost-savings and increase their contribution to Corporate UK when they share their research papers through open access (OA). The ‘Modelling scholarly communication options: costs and benefits for universities’ report, written by Alma Swan, is based on different types of universities. It shows how universities might reduce costs, and how they can calculate these saving and their greater contribution to society, by following an OA route.
This is reportedly the first time that universities will have a method and practical examples from which to build a business case for OA and to calculate the cost to them of the scholarly communications process. As universities such as Edinburgh, Salford and UCL lead the world to mandate self-archiving and adopt OA policies, this report seeks to give evidence to help universities make informed decisions about how their research is disseminated.
Key findings from the report show that annual savings in research and library costs of a university repository model combined with subscription publishing could range from £100,000 to £1,320,000. The report says that shifting from OA journals and subscription-funding to per-article OA journal funding may help universities save £620,000-£1,700,000 per year (if the article-processing charge is set at £500 or less). Savings from a change away from subscription-funding to per-article OA journal funding were estimated at £170,000-£1,365,000 per year for three out of the four universities studied (when the article-processing charge is £1,000 per article or less). For the remaining university in the study, a shift from subscription-funding to per-article OA journal funding meant a £1.86 million increase in costs.
JISC is working with partners in the sector to overcome the barriers which exist to adopting OA. Some research intensive universities may pay more for the subscription-funding to per-article OA journal scenario. However, it should be noted that many research funders, including the Research Councils and Wellcome Trust, may contribute article-processing charges as a part of normal research grants. This is projected to ensure that all universities have a potential source of income to cover the majority of such costs.
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