Since the onset of Plan S, transformative Read & Publish and Publish & Read agreements are becoming the new standard for library acquisitions and are leading to a higher level of prioritization of open access. With hundreds of libraries investing in these models and nearly every party in the academic community discussing the benefits, library consortia have now started to prioritize open access publishing in their contracts.
This includes University of California system and Cambridge University Press, Wiley-Projekt DEAL agreement, VSNU-UKB and Springer Nature, and more. While these contracts are providing larger accessibility to the beneficiaries of these agreements, Ms. Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor/Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, recently discussed how these agreements could drastically alter library consortium structures and the model of cost control for their members in her
Against the Grain article.
“Cost share matters for transformative agreements because the basic value proposition in a transformative agreement shifts from access/reading usage to article authorship. Because of this, the value that a given institution receives from an agreement can increase for some institutions within a consortium and decrease for others. As a result, the “fair share” that a given institution might be willing to pay is affected,” she explains in the article.
The noted cost share of consortia is not only calculated based on access and usage, FTE, historic spending, library budget, but now also on article authorship, which many institutions do not have readily available. Each transformative agreement is varied on their requirements of mandatory participation of their members and optional participation, which can increase the overall costs for each member accordingly. Additionally, in the cases of specific members and consortia the intake of publishing at their institution can nominally raise the costs that consortia members need to share.
This issue is further exacerbated by the current pandemic, as many libraries have extremely limited funding to invest in these transformative agreements and many do not have the resources to manage the monitoring of these models. In addition to this, many publishers are still working through transitioning their internal models to have a systematic tracking in place to monitor, audit, and confirm authors’ claims of affiliation to take part in the publishing aspects of these models.
A Truly Sustainable and Cost-Effective Solution
to OA Transformative Agreements
In an effort to combat these ongoing challenges and ensure that despite the difficulties experienced during the pandemic, IGI Global offers flexible Read & Publish and Publish & Read agreements to support libraries in affordably promoting OA and increase the accessibility of research.
“IGI Global is spearheading a truly transformative open access agreement which empowers institutions in the academic community. These agreements ensure institutions can acquire access to needed research, mitigates “double dipping,” and provides a sustainable source of OA funding,” states Mr. Nick Newcomer, Senior Director of Marketing and Sales.
These agreements stand out from others in the industry, as based on the agreement reached, it can provide 100% OA article processing charge or chapter processing charge waivers, funding to convert a journal to platinum OA, and/or support for funding an OA reference book.
It is important to note that these agreements provide true flexibility for individual institutions, as well as library consortium. For consortium, specifically the overall pricing is based on the original metrics of FTE and historic spend with no additional charges based on the overall author intake of IGI Global publishing. Additionally, it provides 100% OA funding where the other major agreements may only provide a discount on OA APC waivers or upcharge for this funding, which ultimately comes from libraries budgets. These agreements can provide access to IGI Global’s e-Collections, including the
e-Book Collection (6,600+ e-books) and e-Journal Collection (140+ e-journals), as well as discipline and subject subsets.
In addition to the flexible pricing, there is flexibility in how each individual institution utilizes their matching fund or in some cases, IGI Global will provide unlimited waivers. When consortia put together agreements, their members can be provided with:
- Platinum/diamond OA funding to a faculty-led scholarly journal: This not only increases the prestige of the journal and the faculty, but as each of our journals contains thousands of contributors from around the globe, it helps increase the visibility of these researchers’ articles. Additionally, it increases the overall standing of the journal in indices, including Web of Science and Scopus, which can assist early career researchers, a researcher from developing countries, and underrepresented scholars receive credit and recognition for their work.
- OA funding for an OA Reference Book: Similar to journals, each of our edited publications contains research from international contributors and it can increase the discoverability of the title and the recognition of underrepresented researchers. It can also be utilized to help fund a publication in DEI that would not have the resources or interest to be funded based on the sheer cost of OA book publishing.
- 100% OA article processing charge and/or book processing charge waivers: This enables faculty, students, and staff at your institution to freely publish an OA article and chapter (after peer review and acceptance). Additionally, based on the agreement this option can be combined with the options above or be offered as unlimited.
Additionally, we are expanding these offerings to Publish & Read models, which have become increasingly popular. Where if there is an appetite to publish under open access or retroactively open faculty research, libraries and institutions can support this funding and we will provide complimentary access to our full e-Book and e-Journal Collection.
Through this flexible and truly transformative models, hundreds of institutions are taking advantage of this model, including notable consortia such as Carolina Consortium, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW), Taiwan Academic E-Book and Database Consortium (TAEBDC), Bayern-Konsortium, and more. Through these models, IGI Global is also providing unique solutions for consortia that are concerned about the budgetary restraints and providing the most effective models to their member institutions. Models can range from the traditional perpetual or subscription models to title sharing and evidence-based acquisitions models.
For more information on IGI Global’s OA Fee Waiver (Read & Publish) Initiative or to discuss consortia agreements, contact IGI Global’s e-Collections Team at
eresources@igi-global.com or your direct representative below:
INTERNATIONAL
Nick Newcomer
Senior Director of Marketing and Sales
NORTH AMERICA
Brittany Haynes
North America Sales and Marketing Coordinator (Midwest & Southwest)
e-Book & e-Journal Collections
NORTH AMERICA
Jared Peterman
North America Sales (Northeast &
Pacific Coast)
e-Book & e-Journal Collections
EMEA & OCEANIA
Richard Illingworth
Director of Sales (EMEA, Australia & New Zealand)
e-Book & e-Journal Collections
CHINA & ASIA
Yvonne Li
Managing Director of IGI Science and Technology, Ltd. (IGI Global’s Subsidiary Office in Beijing, China)
CHINA & ASIA
Jiayan Fu
Account Manager (China & Asia)
About IGI Global
Founded in 1988, IGI Global, an international academic publisher, is committed to producing the highest quality research (as an active full member of the Committee on Publication Ethics “COPE”) and ensuring the timely dissemination of innovative research findings through an expeditious and technologically advanced publishing process. Through their commitment to supporting the research community ahead of profitability, and taking a chance on virtually untapped topic coverage, IGI Global has been able to collaborate with over 150,000+ researchers from some of the most prominent research institutions around the world to publish the most emerging, peer-reviewed research across 350+ topics in 11 subject areas including business, computer science, education, engineering, social sciences, and more.
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