Open Access @ Strathclyde

Posts from the Scholarly Publications & Research Data Team at the University of Strathclyde about all things open scholarship.
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Running a no-hybrid Open Access funding policy: some results

Pablo de Castro, Open Access Advocacy Librarian

Five months ago we reported that a no-hybrid Open Access funding policy had been introduced at Strathclyde as of mid-Nov last year following the running out of the block grant that the Research Councils UK (currently UK Research and Innovation) had allocated to the university for 2018/19. In that post we promised “regular updates on the progress around the updated APC funding eligibility policy, ideally including a list of the funded journals since the change in the policy”. This is the first one of such follow-up posts.

One caveat to keep in mind is that we’re only applying a no-hybrid policy to the UKRI block grant and not to the one allocated by the Charities Open Access Fund (COAF) since this one specifically supports hybrid Open Access for the time being (though not for much longer according to the updated Wellcome Trust Open Access policy).


No-hybrid policy results

1. Lower number of funded APCs

An automatic result from the application of a no-hybrid policy is the decrease in the number of funded APCs per month. This is in fact the main reason for the implementation of such policy, since a lower number of funded APCs will mean a lower aggregate expenditure that will make the 2019/20 UKRI block grant last for the whole period it’s intended to be used, i.e. until Mar 31st, 2020.

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The extrapolation for the annual figure for 2019 shows we’re back onto an annual average of a 100 APCs paid from the library. This is roughly where we were in 2016, but a significant underspend forced us to increase the dissemination for the available Open Access funding in 2017 and 2018, something we did so effectively that it eventually led to an overspend.

2. Much more balanced distribution across publishers

The most relevant impact of the introduction of a no-hybrid policy is by far the immediate shift in the distribution of APC funding by publisher, see the figure below. 

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Not only the number of APCs paid to large ‘hybrid’ publishers has very significantly decreased with regard to the past two years, but the number of funded APCs with fully Open Access publishers like MDPI, Frontiers, PLoS or Copernicus has increased in parallel. 

It’s not like fully Open Access titles are terribly popular among Strathclyde researchers beyond the very well-established Scientific Reports or Nature Communications, but we’re happy to see our first Copernicus entry ever (not that frequent outside German-speaking countries) and to see MDPI topping the table for 2019.

A parallel table to this one charts the number of rejected Open Access funding applications for manuscripts accepted in hybrid titles and their distribution by publisher. The results are not surprising, and researchers are generally well-inclined to follow the Green OA route for these papers. We have nevertheless introduced a 1-paper-per-author-per-year exception under which they may still be able to exceptionally apply for hybrid Open Access funding for excellent papers of theirs (something for them to judge, not for us at the library, it goes without saying).

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3. A parallel increase in the use of the Springer Compact

This is not something we were expecting, and in fact we still consider it to be a potential coincidence until we have more data, but it is a fact that since we introduced the no-hybrid policy, the number of publications funded under the Springer Compact has stabilised and is gradually increasing. It’s been a while since we stopped trying to predict this monthly trend, as it showed a seemingly erratic behaviour. However, the number of monthly Springer Compact papers remains unusually easy to predict since Dec'18.

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Whether or not this is related to the introduction of the no-hybrid policy it’s hard to tell, the samples are too small to be statistically significant. If it were so, though, this would hint at a very preliminary Plan S-aligned transition whereby the APCs are transferred to Read & Publish deals. It’s still hybrid titles and there’s probably not that much of a correlation after all, but it’s something we’re keeping an eye on anyway. This is definitely the way it should happen, and we now have an ACS R&P deal to test too.

4. List of fully OA titles funded since Nov'18

Not all funded manuscripts have been published in fully OA journals, partially because of the above-mentioned exception and also because authors had occasionally checked their funding eligibility before the no-hybrid policy had been introduced and had received confirmations upon manuscript submission. The list below includes the fully OA titles we have funded in the past few months since the policy was introduced.

  • ACS Omega (American Chemical Society)
  • Aerosol and Air Quality Research (AAQR)
  • APL Photonics (AIP)
  • Applied Network Science (Springer)
  • Applied Sciences (MDPI)
  • Biology Open (Company of Biologists)
  • Biomedical Optics Express (OSA)
  • Biosensors (MDPI)
  • BMJ Open (BMJ)
  • Bone and Joint Research (British Editorial Society of Bone and Joint Surgery)
  • Bone Reports (Elsevier)
  • Cell Death Disease (NPG)
  • Communication Physics (NPG)
  • Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine (Hindawi)
  • Design Science (Cambridge)
  • Energies (MDPI)
  • Entropy (MDPI)
  • F1000Research
  • Fibers (MDPI)
  • Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (Frontiers)
  • Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (Frontiers)
  • Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology (Frontiers)
  • Frontiers in Immunology (Frontiers)
  • Frontiers in Neural Circuits (Frontiers)
  • Frontiers in Neuroscience (Frontiers)
  • Geofluids (Hindawi)
  • High Power Laser Science and Engineering (Cambridge)
  • IEEE Access (IEEE)
  • International Journal of Molecular Sciences (MDPI)
  • International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance (Elsevier)
  • International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering (Elsevier)
  • Journal of Biological Chemistry (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
  • Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (MDPI)
  • Letters in Biomathematics (Taylor & Francis)
  • Machines (MDPI)
  • Marine Drugs (MDPI)
  • Materials (MDPI)
  • Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering (AIMS Press)
  • mBio (American Society for Microbiology)
  • Micromachines (MDPI)
  • Molecules (MDPI)
  • Nature Communications (Springer Nature)
  • New Journal of Physics (IOP/DPG)
  • Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford)
  • Ocean Science (Copernicus)
  • Oncotarget (Oncotarget)
  • Optica (OSA)
  • Optics Express (OSA)
  • Optics Materials Express (OSA)
  • Pharmaceutics (MDPI)
  • Photonics Research (OSA)
  • PLoS One (PLoS)
  • Royal Society Open Science (The Royal Society)
  • Science Advances (AAAS)
  • Scientific Data (NPG)
  • Scientific Reports (Springer Nature)
  • Sensors (MDPI)
  • Solid Earth (Copernicus)
  • Systems Science & Control Engineering (Taylor & Francis)
  • Wind Energy Science (Copernicus)