A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
. This status typically requires the payment of a publication fee (also called an
article processing charge
An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors. Most commonly, it is involved in making a work available as open access (OA), in either a full OA journal or in a hybrid journal. ...
or APC) to the publisher in order to publish an article open access, in addition to the continued payment of subscriptions to access all other content. Strictly speaking, the term "hybrid open-access journal" is incorrect, possibly misleading, as using the same logic such journals could also be called "hybrid subscription journals". Simply using the term "hybrid access journal" is accurate.
Publishers that offer a hybrid open access option often use different names for it. The
SHERPA/RoMEO
SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) is an organisation originally set up in 2002 to run and manage the SHERPA Project.
History
SHERPA began as an endeavour to support the establishment of a number of open ...
site provides a list of publishers and the names of their options. The Open Access Directory provides a list of funds that support open access journals, and provides information about which funds will pay fees of hybrid open access journals.
Origins
The concept was first proposed in 1998 when Thomas Walker suggested that authors could purchase extra visibility at a price. The first journal recognized as using this model was Walker's own ''
Florida Entomologist
The ''Florida Entomologist'' is an quarterly open access scientific journal published by the Florida Entomological Society. Founded in 1917 as “The Florida Buggist” and in 1920 was renamed, into “The Florida Entomologist.” Manuscripts from ...
''; it was later extended to the other publications of the
Entomological Society of America. The idea was later refined by David Prosser in 2003 in the journal ''Learned Publishing''. The larger academic publishers began offering hybrid open access journals around the same time, with
Springer
Springer or springers may refer to:
Publishers
* Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag.
** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...
and
Wiley
Wiley may refer to:
Locations
* Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town
* Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S.
* Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany
People
* Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer
* Wiley Mil ...
both having started by 2005. Within two years,
Elsevier
Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...
,
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...
and the
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...
had followed suit.
Gradual uptake of Hybrid Open Access
The early uptake of Hybrid Open Access was slow, and differed between countries. A study in 2012 noted that "The number of hybrid journals has doubled in the past couple of years and is now over 4,300,"but concluded that there was "lack of success of this business model.", with only 1 to 2% of researchers making use of it.
However, the United Kingdom was a notable front runner in using the model, "its use of OA in hybrid journals and of delayed OA journals is more than twice the world average" Growth slowly continued, and a 2018 large-scale survey of Open Access business models across global scholarly publishing estimated that between 3 and 8% of articles were published via Hybrid Open Access. Research carried out a year later indicated that Hybrid Open Access had actually peaked around 2016.
Criticism
While hybrid Open Access began as an agreed method amongst publishers, scientists and libraries for a gradual transition towards full Open Access, it soon attracted various criticisms for being unfair.
Allegations of double dipping
Since one source of funds to pay for open access articles is the library subscription budget, it has been proposed that there needs to be a decrease in the subscription cost to the library in order to avoid 'double dipping' where an article is paid for twice – once through subscription fees, and again through an APC. For example, the Open Access Authors Fund of the
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
Library (2009/09) requires that: "''To be eligible for funding in this''
ybrid open access''category, the publisher must plan to make (in the next subscription year) reductions to the institutional subscription prices based on the number of open-access articles in those journals.''" On 12 November 2009,
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...
issued a news release on how open access affected its subscription prices.
However, university libraries were unconvinced that the decrease in prices was occurring. A report on work carried out by the University of Nottingham since 2006 to introduce and manage an institutional open access fund has been published by Stephen Pinfield in ''Learned Publishing''. In this article, the author comments that: ''"As publishers' income has increased from OA
pen-accessfees in the hybrid model, there has been little or no let-up in journal subscription inflation, and only a small minority of publishers have yet committed to adjusting their subscription prices as they receive increasing levels of income from OA options."'' By 2018, this particular problem was considered so extreme in the area of open access book (as opposed to journal) publishing that the Anti Double Dipping Alliance was formed.
Institutional responses
Towards the start of Hybrid Open Access, some universities, research centers, foundations, and government agencies designated funds to pay publication fees (APCs) of fee-based open access journals, including hybrid. However, as criticism of hybrid has grown, a substantial number of such funds (40%) will not reimburse APCs in hybrid journals, including
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
,
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and the
Norwegian Research Council
The Research Council (also the Research Council of Norway; no, Norges forskningsråd) is a Norwegian government agency that funds research and innovation projects. On behalf of the Government, the Research Council invests NOK 11,9 billion (2021) ...
.
The European Commission has also announced that the ninth framework program (
Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is a 7-year European Union scientific research initiative, successor of the Horizon 2020 programme and the earlier Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development. The European Commission drafted and approved a plan ...
) will not cover the cost of APCs in hybrid journals.
Science Europe
Science Europe is an association of major research funding organisations (RFOs) and research performing organisations (RPOs). It was established in October 2011 and is based in Brussels.
The association facilitates co-operation among its member ...
has set up a coalition of European research funders (
cOAlition S
Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from s ...
) who have explicitly ruled out reimbursing APCs in hybrid journals from 2020 with the express aim of driving a more rapid transition towards full open access (see
transformative journal
Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from st ...
).
Publishers have argued against the above criticisms and responses, arguing that hybrid "as successfully meet
market demands and foster
growth in open access publishing."
Advantages and disadvantages to the author
An author who wants to publish in an open-access format is not limited to the relatively small number of "full" open-access journals, but can also choose from the available hybrid open-access journals, which includes journals published by many of the largest academic publishers.
However, the author must still find the money. Many funding agencies are ready to let authors use grant funds, or apply for supplementary funds, to pay publication fees at open-access journals. (Only a minority of open-access journals charge such fees, but nearly all hybrid open access journals do so.) So far, the funding agencies that are willing to pay these fees do not distinguish between full and hybrid open-access journals. On 19 October 2009, one such funding agency, the
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...
, expressed concerns about hybrid open-access fees being paid twice, through subscriptions and through publication fees.
If an author is unable to pay the fees or chooses not to do so, they often retain the right to share their work online by
self-archiving in an open access repository.
Variations
The
American Society of Plant Biologists
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
has adopted a policy that articles contributed by society members to its journal, ''
Plant Physiology'', will be made open access immediately on publication at no additional charge. Non-member authors can receive OA through payment of $1,000, but since membership is only $115/year,
it is expected this initiative will boost membership.
Partial open access exists when only research articles are open (as in ''
BMJ
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origina ...
''), while articles in other categories are paywalled.
See also
*
List of open-access journals
This is a list of open-access journals by field. The list contains notable journals which have a policy of full open access. It does not include delayed open access journals, hybrid open access journals, or related collections or indexing ser ...
*
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research.
Content
Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
References
External links
Nine questions for hybrid journal programsby Peter Suber, ''SPARC Open Access Newsletter'', issue No. 101, 2 September 2006.
by Peter Suber, ''Open Access News'', 3 November 2007.
When Is Open Access Not Open Access?by Catriona J. MacCallum, ''PLoS Biology'', 2007; 5(10): e285.
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Open access (publishing)