Good as gold: will fee-free diamond OA outshine the APC-based model?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Free-to-publish, free-to-read diamond OA may improve equity in publication opportunities, but uptake may be held back as authors are attracted to non-diamond journals with an established reputation.
- Questions remain around whether diamond OA will reduce the costs of publishing overall.
Open access (OA) is key to making research more accessible, with gold OA ever-growing: it accounted for 42% of Web of Science-indexed publications in 2023. In a recent article in Research Professional News, published by Clarivate, Ulrich Herb and Benedikt Schmal highlight that gold OA is no stranger to scrutiny. Article processing charges (APCs) can pose equity issues, and transformative agreements have not shifted the OA landscape as hoped. Diamond OA, providing both free-to-publish and free-to-read articles, has been hailed as a solution by funders, libraries, and OA advocates; however, it may not provide a complete fix.
Money, money, money
Herb and Schmal debate whether, on balance, diamond OA will lower the costs of publishing compared with the current landscape. They note that journals have many costs, including:
- managing peer review, editing, and quality control
- operational infrastructure
- indexing and archiving
- training and capacity building
- marketing and outreach.
Despite this long list, Herb and Schmal suggest that many assume large commercial publishers and non-profit outfits have the same costs. Think again. Diamond OA publishers are unlikely to replicate economies of scale at larger publishers, so face higher costs. By their nature, non-profit publishers also lack motivations to reduce costs to widen profit margins.
Is reputation everything?
Diamond OA levels the financial playing field for authors, but Herb and Schmal ask whether this will truly provide equity. With reputation often a key factor in journal selection, the authors question whether there is sufficient appetite for new diamond OA journals: these would need to compete with established rivals to build their reputation and gain broader appeal.
Diamond OA levels the financial playing field for authors, but Herb and Schmal ask whether this will truly provide equity.
Herb and Schmal push for a pragmatic assessment of diamond OA models to establish their viability and sustainability – or note that OA advocates once again risk disappointment.
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