User:MaryMO (AR)/sandbox/Subscribe to open

Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a  publishing model for converting subscription journal content to  open access (OA). In the S2O model, subscriptions are offered by publishers to institutions in their subscriber base. If enough institutions agree to subscribe under the S2O model, the journal is published as open content, freely accessible to read by both subscribers and non-subscribers. If enough institutions do not subscribe, content remains (or returns to being) limited to subscribers. S2O follows a subscription procurement model and does not involve article processing charges (APCs).

The Subscribe to Open model was introduced by the publisher Annual Reviews. Publishers, agents, journals, scholarly societies, scholars, funders, libraries, licensing services and others who are interested in the Subscribe to Open model can engage with the S2O Community of Practice. The Subscribe to Open model has been described as a "groundbreaking" approach for journal publishers seeking to achieve open access. It builds on other collaborative initiatives, including SCOAP3 and Knowledge Unlatched. It has been endorsed by cOAlition S as aligning with Plan S requirements for open content publishing and by OA2020 and SPARC.

The most commonly expressed concern about S2O’s viability is that libraries may try to take a "free ride" instead of subscribing, causing the model to become unsustainable. In the absence of evidence until the model is tested, opinions are speculative. A survey commissioned by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers to determine how publishers aligned with Plan S, identified Subscribe to Open as one of the models that were "most promising because they offer a predictable, steady funding stream." Subscribe to Open has also been described as "an effective and financially sustainable OA model for HSS journals embraced by publishers and libraries alike.” S2O has inspired attempts to create a similar model for monographs and books through MIT Press (Direct to Open, D2O) and the Central European University Press (Opening the Future).

How S2O works
Subscribe to Open is based on a mutual assurance contract. While S2O is sometimes referred to as a type of transformative agreement, it has been argued that the fundamental characteristic of a transformative agreement is that it shifts payment "away from subscription-based reading". This definition does not apply to Subscribe to Open, which is a subscription procurement model and continues to use existing procurement processes. The Subscribe to Open model uses subscriptions in a way that supports collaborative or collective funding  but is not a voluntary donation approach. S2O avoids a number of problems that can be associated with transformative agreements.

In Subscribe to Open, subscription expenditures are used to support a transition to open access. Pricing and subscription options for journals are announced one year, and apply to the following year. Publishers may offer either their regular subscription rate, or a discounted rate for S2O journals, depending on the publisher. If enough institutions agree to subscribe under the S2O model, the journal is published as open content, freely accessible to read by both subscribers and non-subscribers. If enough institutions do not subscribe, content remains (or returns to being) limited to subscribers. The offering of S2O journals is compatible with the normal subscription procedures for a library. Ideally, S2O offerings should be synchronized with the subscription renewal cycle to ensure that offers will reach libraries at a time when they have resources to allocate. In this way S2O appeals to the individual subscriber's economic self-interest (receiving a discount instead of paying full price), and avoids reliance on collective behavior or altruism. The approach allows participating publishers to convert content from gated to open access on a year-to-year basis.

Annual Review of Public Health pilot, 2017
In 2016, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded six grants for examining the potential for open science and open access, as part of an initiative for Increasing Openness and Transparency in Research. Transparency and openness in publishing are increasingly seen as supporting open science and open research.

One of the RWJF awardees was the journal publisher Annual Reviews, which was interested in finding ways to remove barriers to access to scientific publications. Publishing consultant Raym Crow and Richard B. Gallagher and Kamran Naim at Annual Reviews jointly developed the S2O model. Annual Reviews used the RWJF grant to release Volume 38 of the Annual Review of Public Health under an open access license in April 2017, and tracked the impact of the change in licensing.

By May 2019, usage of the journal had increased eight-fold relative to 2016 to about 200,000 downloads monthly. For comparison, the titles for clinical psychology and medicine that maintained gated access showed no change in usage. In addition, the audience for the journal increased from 1,100 institutions in 57 countries (2016) to 7,220 institutions in 137 countries (2018).

Project MUSE study, 2021
In 2021, Project MUSE received funding as part of the Mellon Foundation's Public Knowledge Program, to study the viability of S2O. As an aggregator of digital content, Project MUSE has access to over 700 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. Project MUSE will work within its community to assess the potential for a multi-publisher S2O pilot.

To libraries
Libraries and librarians are seen as key stakeholders in the Subscribe to Open model. The S2O model gives librarians an active role in curating OA content by allowing them to select the journals they wish to support. Because S2O builds upon existing library subscription procurement processes, there is no need to negotiate substantially different legal agreements. Existing library infrastructure and workflows can continue to be used, ensuring ease of participation in transitioning to and working with the S2O model. S2O publishers such as Annual Reviews offer subscription incentives to appeal to the economic self-interest of subscribers.

S2O also offers transparency in pricing. Transparency in pricing is identified as a cornerstone of the Plan S principles. Respondents in a survey of the S2O Community of Practice ranked transparency in pricing as S2O's most important feature, and one that would encourage their institution to participate in S2O. S2O publishers such as Annual Reviews, EDP Sciences and Pluto Journals support transparency by making financial information public, following FAIR data guidelines in choosing the information they release.

To authors
Removing barriers to access can dramatically increase both access to and use of a scholar's work. This was clearly demonstrated in the 2017 pilot by Annual Reviews. Readership of the Annual Review of Public Health expanded from 57 countries to 137 countries, and from 1,100 academic institutions to 7,220 institutions, when it  transitioned to open access.

Subscribe to Open does not charge article processing charges (APCs), an important difference between Subscribe to Open and many transformative agreements. APCs can add new requirements and increase bureaucracy and costs for libraries and authors. APCs have been criticized for raising barriers to authors and worsening global inequality. This is especially important for early career faculty and those with less access to grants and other funding sources.

In contrast, S2O distributes the costs of supporting open access among publishers and subscribing institutions. This avoids placing a financial burden for open content on authors, researchers, and research institutions, particularly smaller institutions and those in the humanities and social sciences.

Critics of APCs express concerns that author-based fees will be a disincentive to research, and bias publication towards wealthy institutions and established researchers who have better access to funding. By providing equal levels of support for open access to authors from all institutions and areas of research, the S2O model avoids these issues and hopes to protect author equity.

To readers
While the base for converting a journal to open access may be its existing subscribers, opening the journal makes it widely readable. The collaborative impact of changing a journal to open access through Subscribe to Open goes beyond the individual author writing for the journal to the entire research community in that field. This can include researchers from countries where the subscription rates would not be affordable.

Converting a journal to S2O also expands the reach of all of its content beyond academia. Making the Annual Review of Public Health open access expanded its readership to include city public health departments, farmers, and social justice and advocacy organizations, to name only a few examples. In this way, the Subscribe to Open model supports democratization of knowledge and the pursuit of an equitable and inclusive society. "Eliminating barriers around access is a major step forward and a foundational imperative to achieving an equitable, just, and inclusive world."

To publishers
Subscribe to Open offers the potential to create "a predictable, steady funding stream" that can provide financial sustainability for a journal and its publisher. S2O may be particularly helpful for smaller independent publishers, such as those representing scholarly societies, university presses, and library presses. Smaller publishers are reported to face greater challenges in transitioning successfully to open access publishing, as required by Plan S, than large publishers. S2O is also a desirable option for publishers in the humanities and social sciences.

EDP reported that all of its Subscribe to Open offerings in mathematics received substantially higher-than-previous rankings on Clarivate's Journal Impact Factors ™ following their S2O release.

Plan S compatibility
Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who receive funding from state research organizations and member institutions to publish their work in open repositories or in journals that are available to all. Plan S has put additional pressure on publishers to make some form of open access available to authors. It also has increased pressure for transparency in publisher pricing.

In cases where an author is required to publish in an open access journal, in accordance with Plan S, an S2O publisher can make the required article open access on an individual basis, regardless of whether or not the journal in question has reached its Subscribe to Open target. This type of "Green Open Access" makes S2O compliant with Plan S. As a result, Subscribe to Open has been endorsed by cOAlition S as aligning with Plan S requirements for open content publishing. It is accepted by the Wellcome Trust as Plan S compatible.

Participating publishers and journals
As of September 1, 2019, the pilot program for S2O in 2020 included two publishers, Annual Reviews and Berghahn Books, both of whom opened part of their content. In 2019 Annual Reviews offered five titles which were released under the Subscribe to Open model in 2020: the Annual Review of Cancer Biology, the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, the Annual Review of Political Science, and the Annual Review of Public Health. In 2019 Berghahn offered 13 titles in anthropology as possible S2O candidates, all of which were released as open content in 2020.

As of June 3, 2021, Berghahn announced that Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, the journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) would become part of their open-access set of anthropology journals, starting with Volume 30 in 2022. EASA members "voted overwhelmingly" to leave their existing publisher, Wiley, and "to take our journal Open Access in a way that is sustainable and equitable."

Since 2019, more publishers have adopted the Subscribe to Open approach, which is seen as benefiting libraries, researchers and publishers alike. S2O is also supported by negotiation and licensing services such as Jisc, LYRASIS, Knowledge Unlatched and EBSCO Information Services.


 * Amsterdam University Press: 5 journals (history, education)
 * Annual Reviews  : 8 journals (annual reviews, primarily science and social sciences)
 * Berghahn Books   14 journals (anthropology)
 * De Gruyter: 1 journal (library research and practice)
 * EDP Sciences: 7 journals (mathematics, astronomy, astrophysics)
 * EMS Press (European Mathematical Society): 17 journals (mathematics)
 * IWA Publishing (International Water Association)  : 10 journals (water)
 * Liverpool University Press: 2 journals (development and planning)
 * Pluto Journals: 21 journals (social sciences and humanities)

Concerns
The most commonly expressed critique of S2O’s viability is that libraries will try to get a "free ride" instead of subscribing. Several features of S2O put a check on free-riding, first of all the feature that publication access will be limited to subscribers if subscription levels are low. The only way to ensure that patrons will retain access is to subscribe, making it in the library’s best interest to participate. S2O journals also attempt to counter the possibility of free-riding by providing incentives such as access to back catalogs, pre-publication content, and usage statistics.

The question has been raised of whether such a model can support increased subscription and financial growth for publishers. Another concern is whether the model will be vulnerable to rapid changes and budget pressures. Some suggest that the model is most likely to be "successful for publishers whose subscription prices are close to their publishing costs, have small price increases year to year, have lower costs in general, and currently have little reliance on APC revenue", and low variations in their subscription rates. Others suggest that the model may have potential to scale.

A concern raised within the S2O community is how to access support made available for publishing by funding bodies. The latter is provided in the form of APC payments, and along with subscription provides the income for many journals. Maintenance of an equivalent level of funder support seems essential for the success of many S2O programs, and although funders have expressed approval for S2O, a mechanism for financial support is not yet in place.

Since S2O projects to date have focused on converting journals with existing subscriber bases to OA, the potential to launch new titles using S2O is untested. Monographs and book projects that are similar to S2O offer some insight onto how such this might be developed.

best practices and standards continue to evolve, through various initiatives and the S2O Community of Practice. Issues under discussion by members include the setting of deadlines for participation commitments, handling of scheduled Plan S-funded papers if a journal does not reach its threshold for opening, ability of publishers to establish viable S2O price points standards for transparency, the type of licensing involved for articles, and the type of metrics that would be useful to administrators and librarians when budgeting their subscription renewals.