ALPSP Guest Blog: Copyright Clearance Center (CCC): Top 3 Types of Transformative Agreements

Recently, funders and institutions have been reconsidering the established business models in scholarly publishing, particularly the subscription model favored by Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly publishers. In the year since the debut of Plan S, that conversation has rapidly accelerated and has expanded to include many other important stakeholders.

Now, given mandates from the funding community, government agencies, and research institutions, more journal content is published Open Access. Instead of a subscription fee, authors or their institutions/funders pay an article processing charge (APC) to make articles Open Access.

Beyond Gold Open Access and Green Open Access, many scholarly publishers are signing new types of annual or biannual agreements with institutions or consortia. In some cases, for example, these agreements combine one fee to access or read the publisher’s subscription content with a second fee or per-article-fee to publish the institution’s eligible research articles Open Access.

The three most common types of agreements being signed today between publishers and institutions include Read and Publish, Membership, and Deposit.

READ AND PUBLISH
Under a Read and Publish agreement, the institution pays an agreed upon amount for “read” access to subscription-based journals (the subscription fee portion of the agreement) and receives “publish” benefits: all eligible and accepted manuscripts from the institution’s researchers are published Open Access immediately (the APC portion of the agreement).

• Within these agreements, the APCs are often discounted
• The transactions reflect a zero-balance due from the author and institution, but all parties need a record that the “transaction” has occurred or that an eligible article has been published Open Access.
• Sometimes, these agreements have caps and when the APC cap or monetary threshold is reached, a retail or discounted Open Access charge must be paid “out-of-pocket” by the author or institution.
• Sometimes institutions must approve manuscript eligibility, but increasingly the agreements expect no approval, by the institution or the publisher, in advance of articles being published Open Access.
• When the larger share of an agreement’s value provides publishing benefits, the term “Publish and Read” may be used to describe the arrangement (instead of “Read and Publish”).

MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENTS/PARTNER AGREEMENTS

Under a Membership Agreement (or Partner Agreement), the institution pays a “membership fee” to the publisher.

• In exchange for enrolling as a member or partner in the publisher’s Open Access program, authors from the member institution(s) receive discounted Open Access charges.
• When a manuscript is accepted and the Open Access transaction is placed, usually by the author, the APC due reflects the discounted membership price.
• Sometimes institutions must approve funding requests before the invoice is generated.

DEPOSIT ACCOUNTS/PREPAID ACCOUNTS

In some cases, an institution prepays or deposits an agreed-upon amount to the publisher to cover all anticipated APCs for a given time period, usually a year.

• In exchange for the upfront deposit, the institution is eligible for discounted APCs.
• Open Access transactions reflect a zero-balance due from the author and institution, but all parties need a record that the “transaction” has occurred. On an agreed upon cycle, as articles are published Open Access, the publisher deducts the net price transaction value (retail prices less the agreed upon discounts) from the deposit account.
• When the deposit is exhausted, the discounted Open Access charge must be paid “out-of-pocket” by the author or the institution. 
• Sometimes institutions must approve funding requests before the APC debits can occur. 
• Some agreements require the author to complete the APC payment workflow. But, increasingly, other agreements provide that the articles will be published under an Open Access license without the author completing an APC payment workflow.

LOOKING AHEAD
While these models of Transformative Agreements are common, new models are constantly evolving based on the unique complexities involved in any particular negotiation. To get a sense of the variety, browse ESAC’sAgreement Registry for dozens of recent Transformative Agreements.

Stakeholders, including publishers, funders, and institutions, may feel a different level of urgency based on their location or other factors, but many participants in the scholarly publishing industry are committed to the shift to Open Access. While January 1, 2020 loomed large as a significant deadline for Europeans over the last year, under the May 2019 revisions to the Plan S principles and implementation guidelines hybrid Open Access journals can be accepted under Transformative Agreements until 2024. 

Author: Kurt Heisler, 

Biog: Kurt Heisler is Director of Sales, Publisher, at Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). He has been with CCC for over a decade assisting global publishers in expanding their licensing and permission business. For the past five years, he has focused on the Open Access aspect of the publishing business with RightsLink®. Prior to CCC, he worked in Silicon Valley with internet start-ups, cable TV, video-on-demand and online gaming industries. 

Many thanks to Copyright Clearance Center for sponsoring the ALPSP Frankfurt Member Dinner which will be held at Quattro Ristorante Italiano, Frankfurt on 15 October 2019. You can book your place here