Publisher 'open choice' is here to stay, should not faze repositories

The experiment is over: hybrid open access publishing, or 'open choice', where authors can choose to pay the publisher a fee to 'free' a paper published in an otherwise subscription-based journal, is here for the foreseeable future. While there may be no official point at which this could be said to have happened, with Wiley, Cambridge Journals, The American Physical Society and BMJ among the latest publishers to commit to hybrid OA as reported by Peter Suber, following moves by Elsevier and, much earlier, Springer, there is no going back on this model.

Nor was there ever likely to be. This is a no-brainer for publishers with established print journals. It produces two income streams - subscription and OA fees - where previously there was one, and it allows the publisher to monitor the market demand, journal-by-journal, for producer-paid open access while making a smooth transition to OA, if indeed the market wants that transition. It allows such traditional subscription publishers to compete on OA terms with fully OA publishers such as BioMed Central and Public Library of Science, without adopting their business models immediately. Like the 'big deal' bundled journal licensing, open choice appears likely to entrench the position of larger publishers.

Most publishers taking this route have indicated that subscription prices will be reduced pro-rata with growth in author fee income. We shall see. For journals where this approach is popular with authors, there will be two tipping points that will leave the publisher with a dilemma about when to switch to a fully OA model: the proportion of paid-OA articles and the consequent effect of library cancellations, and separately the general trend reduction in print subscriptions in favour of electronic-only delivery.

It is not inevitable that all hybrid journals will reach this tipping point. Many will remain hybrid with a mix of paid-OA and non-OA content, and others with low fee uptake by authors will remain effectively as subscription journals.

Now we can see the shape of this change, what are the implications for institutional repositories? Suber's article poses nine questions for authors to put to hybrid OA publishers, which include one with particular relevance to IRs: whether journals that allowed author self-archiving without an embargo still allow it for authors who do not choose the new OA option? In other words, has there been any backtracking from Romeo green policies among hybrid OA publishers? Logically there is no reason for this to be a consequence of hybrid OA; in fact, hybrid OA and self-archiving can continue to be mutually self-supporting just as before hybrid OA, especially while author uptake of hybrid OA is low (not forgetting that it has been suggested that some publishers might even seek this low-uptake outcome). Yet an assertion that such models give a "commercial disincentive to allow immediate archiving" was found to have some basis with Bill Hubbard's report that "out of 8 publishers introducing hybrid programmes ... Blackwell and OUP have also withdrawn archiving rights", effectively reverting to embargoes on OA, although Stevan Harnad interpreted such changes as a reversion to pale-green policies that allow preprint self-archiving.

The main message for repositories does not change at all. Repositories are the simplest, fastest and no-cost way for authors to provide open access and publish in their journal of choice. Romeo green publisher policies encourage this, and while the prospect of research funder and institutional OA mandates may be making publishers uneasy, the effect of hybrid OA models on Romeo green policies is likely to be limited.

Moves by publishers towards hybrid OA models ought to create a broadly helpful environment for repositories without pitting them against publishers.