Categorizing Open Access Business Models
Models for funding open access journal article publishing can be sorted into three categories, organized by who pays and what they pay for: transactional, collective action, and subvention.
Beyond the Article, Beyond the APC: What We Learned from 18 Months of R&D
Today’s post shares the results of an initiative designed to answer the question: what would it actually take to build a publishing model fit for the research ecosystem we have now, rather than the one we inherited?
The Next Open Revolution: Equity, Impact, and the Architecture of Knowledge
Today, Alison Mudditt reflects on a Charleston Conference session that asked: what would it take to make the scholarly communication system truly equitable, impactful, and future-ready?
Diamond Dreams, Unequal Realities: The Promise and Pitfalls of No-APC Open Access
Diamond Open Access promises equity, but sustainability challenges remain. Discover the hidden costs, global gaps, and paths toward lasting open publishing.
Defending the “Walled Garden”: Yes, Academic Libraries Actually Should Focus on the Needs of Their Host Institutions
Academic libraries’ first and most fundamental obligation is to support the work of their host institutions. This doesn’t preclude global engagement, but may put constraints upon it.
Green Open Access – Free for Authors But at a Cost for Readers
Pursuit of Green open access rather than Gold not only preserves the subscription system but also imposes hidden costs on readers.
Leveraging Transformative Agreements for Research Integrity
Publishers need institutions as partners in addressing research integrity issues. Transformative agreements provide an ideal framework for fostering these partnerships.
PLOS’s Next Big Thing
In this post, Alice Meadows shares some thoughts about PLOS’s recently announced R&D project to help overcome the lack of recognition for Open Science contributions, and the lack of affordability for researchers.
Oxford Administrators Want OA Policy Removed from REF 2029. I Have an Even Better Idea.
Three Oxford administrators want to lower the cost of mandatory open access by shifting the responsibility for enforcement to funding agencies. But that doesn’t lower costs at all; it only shifts them. To truly lower costs, stop trying to make open access mandatory.
Gates Open Access Policy Refresh Increases Compliance Burden and Eliminates Financial Support
The 2025 policy continues 2021 compliance requirements while also imposing additional mandates and eliminating financial support for open access publishing.
Gates Policy Refresh: What Would Success Look Like?
While the BMGF may be all-in, from an industry perspective the Gates Policy Refresh represents a small but potentially valuable experiment.
Transitional Agreements Aren’t Working: What Comes Next?
Transitional agreements are proving to be neither transitional nor transformative. How should libraries and publishers reassess and chart a different course?
Where Did the Open Access Movement Go Wrong?: An Interview with Richard Poynder
Noted journalist and scholarly communication observer Richard Poynder explains why he has given up on the open access movement.
Quantifying Consolidation in the Scholarly Journals Market
We all know the journals market has rapidly consolidated over recent years. But where’s the data? I set out to find some numbers to put behind the common sense.
The Double-Cost of Green-via-Gold
Open access is public access. With the Nelson OSTP memo as a catalyst for Green-via-Gold, will we still need agency repositories?