Acquisitions as Advocate: Engaging the Business Practices of Gold OA Timberline Institute 2016

The Warning Date: Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 1:00 PM “Please note that if online payment is not made within 7 days an invoice will be issued and an administration charge will be added to your total APC. Once an invoice has been issued the option to pay online is automatically removed and cannot be reversed. Note, invoice (offline) payments will incur an additional charge of $75.00.”

The Justification ●  Authors are told when they submit about APCs. ●  Authors have experienced these conditions for a very long time. ●  Unlike the subscription model that generates hundreds of invoices per month, the APC model generates thousands. ●  Managing thousands of payments a month in various formats (check, credit card, deposit deduction) from various funding sources (individual, funder,

The Invoice Fees Terms of payment 20 days net Changes to the invoice will incur an additional charge of $55. If you make a bank transfer please make sure to cover your own bank costs. If paid by check, please add $23. If you wish to pay with credit card, a minimum of 3.4% will be added to the total sum to cover the PayPal service costs. We reserve the right to charge 10% interest on the gross amount if this invoice

Three Things Scholarly Publishers Should Know About Researchers - Charlie Rapple ASPIRATION: We don’t want to feel exploited; we want to trust that you share our goals.” “

Context: Putting institutional evaluation processes to one side, we publish so that our work can be found, read and applied by others. We want to feel that is your primary raison d’être too but feel sometimes that publishing has become an end in itself, rather than a means. ...We are losing trust in your ability to deal transparently with us or to put the needs of scholarship and research above all else. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/04/14/three-things-scholarly-publishers-should-know-about-researchers/

What Can Acquisitions Do? ●  Call-out aggressive practices ●  Communicate with Scholarly Communication peers about issues ●  Withdraw memberships or deposits

The Terms 1. Applicability: These terms … supersede any previous supply terms. 7. Intellectual property: Copyright and other intellectual property rights to all [Publisher] proposals, publications and other Products or Services shall remain with [Publisher] unless agreed otherwise in writing. … The [Customer] shall not acquire any intellectual property rights in the Products.

The Run Around “These T&C's are standard [Publisher] conditions and cannot be changed. Please be advised that Open Access is an online service.” Invoice emailed every two weeks from Publisher, each time I disputed the terms. Each dispute opened a new case in their CRM answered by a new customer service rep.

False Narratives: Interpersonal Miscommunication APCs represent payment for services rendered, similar to how a coffee shop expects to be paid at the completion of the tall, caramel macchiato. Ander Skastberg: “publisher is to communicate directly to scientists. Go to conferences, visit labs and campuses, and address researchers face to face. And then do it some more. Talk to the active researchers, make serious efforts to understand what their issues are, and explain your point of view. The thing that must be avoided is a widening gorge of ignorance between the two communities.”

What Can Acquisitions Do? ●  Seek legal and policy advice ●  Dispute with publishers ●  Manage expectations

False Narrative: APCs aren’t paid by Researchers “At the same time, though, it is crucial that we develop alternative models to fund gold OA for these disciplines. In the humanities, most research work does not come with external funding for dissemination. This makes the threat of APCs (which act to shift the entire burden onto a single institution, as opposed to subscriptions, which spread the risk) more pressing in these subject areas.” Martin Paul Eve http://crln.acrl.org/content/76/2/88.full

False Narrative: APCs aren’t paid by Researchers “What is needed, now that we have demonstrated an interest in open access among editors, readers, researchers, and libraries, as well as publishers and funding agencies, is a new model for wide-scale adoption. At this point, [APCs] are bringing the big publishers on board with open access, but I think it is clear to most everyone that this model will not work across the disciplines or on a global basis. The [APCs] set by the big publishers, whether profit or nonprofit, often run up to an unaffordable level, although some are more reasonably priced. The answer is not to calibrate the APF to the discipline’s funding base, as if the game is to get as much as you can per article.” - John Willinsky http://crln.acrl.org/content/76/2/88.full

False Narrative: APCs aren’t paid by Researchers “Whilst the majority of Open Access journals do not levy an APC to cover their costs, there are some that do. It is important to remember that the payment of APCs is intended to be routed through your institution and so you should contact your librarian for advice on the funds available. … As more publishers in the humanities begin to charge APCs, two principles should be followed to ensure fairness and sustainability: APCs should be waivable for anyone who does not have access to funds. Reputable publishers will list their fee waiver policy on their website. APCs should be transparent so you know exactly how the funds are being spent and the services they provide. This will ensure that they are kept as low as possible, which will save money for the overall research budget as more journals become Open Access.”

Responsibility & Waiver Pages - Sage “Can an institution pay the article processing charge for authors?” It is ultimately the responsibility of author(s) to arrange payment of the APC. However, a number of institutions and funding organizations have declared their willingness to make additional funds available to cover the costs of open access.”

https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/faqs https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/gold-open-access-article-processing-charge-waivers

Responsibility & Waiver Pages - BMC “Who is responsible for making or arranging the payment? As the corresponding author of the manuscript you are responsible for making or arranging the payment (for instance, via your institution) upon editorial acceptance of the manuscript.”

https://www.biomedcentral.com/submissions/article-processing-charges

Responsibility - Nature/Palgrave “What time period do I have within which to make the payment? Credit card payments are processed immediately. Usual credit terms are 30 days from receipt of original invoice. Invoices will be chased periodically, but if after 60 days no payment is received, the author will be contacted. Failure to pay invoices within the stated credit term may result in restrictions placed upon authors' ability to publish with Nature Publishing Group in the future, involvement of a third party debt collection agency and legal proceedings. However, NPG recognizes that often authors do not pay themselves and if an author's institution is to pay the APC, it may take some time for an invoice to be paid.”

Waiver Pages - PLOS “PLOS Publication Fee Assistance (PFA) Publication Fee Assistance is intended for authors who demonstrate financial need. Information about an applicant's application status for fee assistance will not be disclosed to journal editors or reviewers. PLOS publication decisions will continue to be based solely on editorial criteria.”

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees

What can Acquisitions Do? ●  Address the narrative of Open Access proselytizing peers ●  Assist in the review of OA publisher’s transparency

Open Discussion ●  Have you experienced aggressive practices by publishers toward APCindebted authors? ●  Do you have a place at the table regarding OA policy, procedure and marketing at your organization? ●  Do you think there is a role for acquisitions to advocate for non-exploitation within OA on a professional organization level? ●  What implications does advocacy have on our traditional relationships with publishers on a local and professional level?

Readings Beaubien, S., Garrison, J., & Way, D. (2016). Evaluating an Open Access Publishing Fund at a Comprehensive University. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(3), eP1204. http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1204 Eve, M. & Willinsky, J. (2015). Open access in humanities and social sciences Visions for the future of publishing. College & Research Libraries News. 76(2), p.88-91

Lawson, S., Gray, J. & Mauri, M., (2016). Opening the Black Box of Scholarly Communication Funding: A Public Data Infrastructure for Financial Flows in Academic Publishing. Open Library of Humanities. 2(1), p.e10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.72 SPARC Europe. (2013). Open Access for the Humanities. Retrieved April, 2016, from