Experiments in offsetting
Steven Hall
COASP, 16 September 2015
Agenda
● Why offer an offsetting model?
● How does it work in principle?
● How has it worked in practice?
Why offer an IOP offsetting model?
● Demand from universities in some countries for help in meeting
funder mandates
● Strong demand in the UK for help in making the Research
Councils mandate work
● FWF in Austria keen to experiment
● Interest elsewhere
● Lack of sustainable and extensible offsetting models
● 100% offsetting models cannot work over time
● SCOAP3 reconciliation enormously burdensome on libraries
and publishers
How does the IOP offsetting model work in principle?
● APC payments for hybrid open access articles are offset against
both local subscription costs and global subscription prices
● Sliding scale determines the level of local and global offsets
● At low levels of hybrid, bulk of offset is local
● As levels of hybrid increase, local offset reduces and global
offset increases
● All hybrid APC income outside offsetting pilots (including SCOAP3)
is offset against global subscription prices
● Price reductions on two journals in 2015
How has the IOP offsetting pilot worked in practice in UK?
● UK pilot 2014-2016
● 22 participating universities responsible for 75% of papers
published by UK authors in our subscription journals in 2014
● Eight universities invited to participate declined to do so
● In 2014, the 22 universities funded hybrid open access
publication of 24% of the papers their authors published with us,
and 70% of those emanating from RCUK-funded research
● Six of the eight non-participants funded hybrid open access
publication of 10% of their authors’ papers, and about 41% of
RCUK-funded research papers
How has the IOP offsetting pilot worked in practice in UK?
● Nine of the participating universities funded hybrid open access
publication of all papers by their authors emanating from RCUKfunded research
● Three funded open access publication of 50% or more of their
authors’ papers, regardless of funder
● Four participating universities paid for hybrid open access
publication of no papers at all, though between the four of them
their authors published around 50 papers in our subscription
journals, including RCUK-funded papers
How has the IOP offsetting pilot worked in practice in UK?
● 25 papers published on a subscription basis in 2014 were
converted late in the year to open access, out of a total of 220
which could have been converted
● Institutions were willing to convert 43 papers in total, but only 25
authors signed the required form to do so
● Two authors at two different institutions refused to allow the
conversion using a CC-BY licence
● 2015 slightly ahead of 2014 at mid-year
Lessons learned
● Three major challenges in the first year of the pilot
● Identifying articles emanating from RCUK-funded research;
the universities couldn’t do this
● Providing information to relevant authors to encourage them
to apply for funding from their institutions
● Varying open access policies and processes at the 22
institutions
● Funding to support open access publication remains limited
● But – we published more articles by UK authors on an open
access basis than in any previous year, stimulated by RCUK
funding and our pilot
● 63% growth in hybrid open access articles at IOP in 2014
(outside SCOAP3)