Two Roads Diverged: Open Access Monographs in the United Kingdom

Jisc/CNI. Oxford, July 2018.

A research paper

Professor Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, University of London

HEFCE's core requirements for the proposed OA monograph mandate:

  • "... some monographs cannot be open-access, and we will be flexible..."
  • "as far as is practicable, the version that is made open-access should be academically equivalent to the final published version of record"
  • "The monograph should be free to access in its entirety, ideally immediately on publication."
  • "The monograph should at least be free to read, and ideally be [openly] licensed...]"
  • "There should be no requirement that any one particular business model be used..."

Q1: How much does it cost to publish a (digital) book?

  • Mellon Ithaka study (2016): $15,140 - $129,909
    • (Don't tell the Deans)
  • Palgrave: $95 x 200 copies = $19,000
  • Palgrave: Book Processing Charge: $17,000
  • CUP: Book Processing Charge: $10,000
  • Ubiquity Press: Book Processing Charge: £6,020
    • [~$7k USD]

Where do these costs go?

Assume fixed costs:

  • 3x staff + on and estates costs
  • Travel
  • CLOCKSS, Crossref, COPE, COUNTER memberships
  • Crossref membership
  • Around £190k per year

Assume production costs:

  • Typesetting: £500
  • Copyediting: £500

How many books with 3x staff?

(There are costs.) Book costs

BPCs for monographs scale badly + concentrate costs

  • 5,023 monographs in UK in 2013 by largest 4 publishers (source: Crossick)
  • At a £5,050 BPC (UP price): £25,366,150
  • At a £6,500 BPC (CUP price): £32,649,500
  • At an £11,000 BPC (Palgrave price): £55,253,000
  • UK spend on all books 2010/2011: ~£60,000,000 (source: SCONUL)

BPCs for monographs scale badly

BPC graph

UK REF costs for monographs taking market rate

"to publish 75% of anticipated monographic submission output for the next REF would require approximately £96m investment over the census period. This is equivalent to £19.2m per year. Academic library budgets as they are currently apportioned would not support this cost."

Eve, M.P. et al., (2017). Cost estimates of an open access mandate for monographs in the UK’s third Research Excellence Framework. Insights. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.392

Political Will

It is possible to achieve gold OA monographs at the market rate. It is a matter of political will. But: that will is not there to put money into the humanities.

Cost to UK would be 1.2% of QR funding, or 19.2% of the AHRC budget.

What are the alternatives?

  • A green road [with no embargoes?]
  • Withdraw QR from the humanities for non-compliance [change practice]

RE needs to decide and consult now. Timescale is very short given that books for this REF cycle are already in writing.

The End

Thank you!

Presentation licensed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. All institutional images excluded from CC license. Available to view online at https://meve.io/Jisc2018.