TEXT OF EMAIL FROM LAURA BOWERING MULLEN, LIBRARIAN
 
From: Laura Bowering Mullen <lbmullen@rci.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Surcharge clarification Re: Senate Open Access Resolution update
 
I would like to (hopefully) provide some clarification about the concern expressed that authors would be required to pay a "surcharge" to make their work open access.  I think the surcharge issue comes from the practice of some of the large commercial publishers offering open access to a single article in return for a large payment. I think some Rutgers faculty may feel that this payment for open access would be required by our policy. Instead, we are focused on the "green road of self-archiving in RUcore. I hope I have read the concern correctly, and please let me know if I have not.
 
The issue: "The Senate discussion was docketed to allow the RGPEC to hear concerns, primarily from faculty, similar to those expressed at the EC meeting last Friday. Primary among the concerns with the report's proposals was the imposition by some journals of an additional -- and significant -- surcharge for allowing open access, and who would be required to pay those additional charges." [Excerpted from email sent by Ken Swalagin, Executive Secretary of the Senate, to Gayle Stein and Victor Greenhut, RGPEC Co-chairs.]
 
With an open access policy, there is no expectation of payment by anyone since the focus is on self archiving of articles in the repository, RUcore.  Open access for Rutgers scholars would be convenient and would not incur any additional cost to the author.
 
We can easily answer this question of “surcharges.” I believe the concern has to do with the practice employed by some commercial publishers of allowing authors the option of paying a large fee to make an article within an issue in a subscription journal “open access.” These journal issues are sometimes referred to as offering “hybrid open access.” An example of a publisher using this option is “Springer Open Choice.” Authors can pay Springer a payment of 3000 dollars to make their article open access (rather than closed to those without a subscription).  After paying the 3000 dollars, the individual article appears in the issue as a free article and the author has paid for more rights to reuse that article. In a single issue, readers will find free articles and closed subscription articles. Subscription fees have been paid, and open access fees have been paid also for the same material.
 
The author would not need to pay this surcharge, and the university would not need to cover this type of cost. The Rutgers policy would instead request that the author of an article in a Springer journal provide a final author’s version for deposit in the Rutgers repository RUcore (as the publisher allows).  The majority of commercial publishers allow the deposit of a final author version of the article into the repository, and the author and the university retain some rights rather than signing away all rights to the publisher. Rutgers authors are still able to choose the publication outlet that is most appropriate and advantageous for their work.
 
The Rutgers policy is instead focused on the type of open access that secures, disseminates and showcases Rutgers scholarly output without charge to authors. The two methods of open access which the report describes are the deposit of legal versions of articles into RUcore, the institutional repository -and the use of nonprofit open access journals. Many “free to reader, free to library” open access journals do charge authors a fee for publication, and those fees are most often paid out of grants. Universities with open access policies often do make some funding available for those few occasions when grant money is not available to cover the cost of publication.  At other universities with policies, uptake of these author funds has been limited because most articles are funded from grants.
 
An example of an open access journal that does not charge subscription fees and makes all articles open access for a fee is PLoS Biology. This journal, the #1 impact factor title for biology, charges 1650 dollars per article, and grant money often covers this sort of fee. The implementation committee will consider all issues of author funds, as recommended in the report.
 
There are thousands of open access journals in all disciplines, and many do not charge any fees at all.
 
In summary, the payment of a surcharge would not be necessary, and would not need to be covered by Rutgers. Instead, the author final version would be legally deposited in the repository.
 
Waivers are part of the policy, and are available for any article where a publisher does not allow deposit into the repository.
 
Laura