{"id":737,"date":"2017-10-23T12:54:15","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T12:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/open-access-vs-subscription-model-what-do-journals-prefer\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:38:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:38:43","slug":"open-access-vs-subscription-model-what-do-journals-prefer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/open-access-vs-subscription-model-what-do-journals-prefer","title":{"rendered":"Open access vs subscription model: What do journals prefer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This post was originally published in 2015 and has been refreshed for Open Access Week 2017.  <\/em><\/p>\n

The age of the Internet gave momentum to the open access movement<\/a> as did the increasing awareness that access to scholarly literature is a public right. The OA movement gradually gained worldwide consensus as more and more scholarly societies, funders, publishers, and researchers joined the efforts to make research behind pay walls accessible. Consequently, the share of OA journal publishing is steadily increasing<\/a> through the launch of new OA journals as well as a phenomenon called \u2018flipping,\u2019 wherein toll access (TA) or subscription-based journals are making a switch to gold OA to give public access to published research. In the past few years, this has been one of the latest trends in publishing where publishers such as Wiley and Nature Publishing Group have flipped some of their journals, giving rise to various speculations about such journals\u2019 sustainability, quality, financial viability, etc. Let us take a closer look at the reasons for journals to flip, the potential consequences, and the future of open access.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Reasons for making a flip<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The ethical argument that publicly funded research should be available to the public has played a major role in convincing journals and researchers to prefer OA. Apart from this, decreasing the subscription costs is also one of the reasons journals switch to the OA model. To cite an example, proponents of OA in high energy particle physics started with the SCOAP3<\/sub><\/sup> initiative<\/a> that aimed at making all major journals in the field OA with the aim of cutting the subscription costs and making research widely available. Publishers may also decide to go the OA route if a newly launched TA journal is not generating expected revenue although it is highly valued in the field. Making a change from the subscription model to the OA model can help such a journal grow faster and attract more submissions, since authors would like to get published in a reputed journal that would also offer them visibility.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Criteria for flipping <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Journals cannot transition from the TA to OA model without meeting basic criteria. Wiley flipped eight of its journals to the OA model<\/a> and according to Alice Meadows, Director of Communications for Wiley’s Global Research, a journal should meet the following requirements<\/a> in order to consider a flip:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n