article processing charge

File:DOAJ APCs.png

Journals use a variety of ways to generate the income required to cover publishing costs (including editorial costs, any costs of administering the peer review system), such as subsidies from institutions{{cite book|last=Suber|first=Peter|title=Open access|year=2012|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262517638|page=136}} and subscriptions. A majority of open access journals do not charge article processing charges,{{cite journal|last1=Kozak|first1=Marcin|last2=Hartley|first2=James|title=Publication fees for open access journals: Different disciplines—different methods|journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology|date=December 2013|volume=64|issue=12|pages=2591–2594|doi=10.1002/asi.22972}} but a significant and growing number of them do.{{cite journal|last=Laakso|first=Mikael|author2=Björk, Bo-Christer|title=Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure|journal=BMC Medicine|year=2012|volume=10|issue=1|pages=124|doi=10.1186/1741-7015-10-124|pmid=23088823|pmc=3478161 |doi-access=free }} They are the most common funding method for professionally published open access articles.{{cite journal|last1=Björk|first1=Bo-Christer|last2=Solomon|first2=David|title=Pricing principles used by Scholarly Open Access Publishers|journal=Learned Publishing|date=2012|volume=25|issue=3|pages=132–137|doi=10.1087/20120207|doi-access=free}}

APC fees applied to academic research are usually expensive, effectively limiting open access publishing to wealthier institutions, scholars, and students.

The APC model of open access, among other controversies, is part of the wider and increasingly global Open Access OA's ethics debate.{{cite journal|last1=Kember|first1=Sarah|title=Opening Out from Open Access: Writing and Publishing in Response to Neoliberalism|url=http://adanewmedia.org/2014/04/|journal=Ada New Media|date=21 April 2014|access-date=2018-03-12|archive-date=2019-03-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328215056/https://adanewmedia.org/2014/04/|url-status=dead}}

Most journals do not charge APCs. The global average per-journal APC is {{currency|amount=1,626|code=USD}}, its recent increase indicating "that authors choose to publish in more expensive journals".{{Cite web|last=Morrison|first=Heather|date=2021-06-24|title=Open access article processing charges 2011 – 2021|url=https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2021/06/24/open-access-article-processing-charges-2011-2021/|access-date=2022-02-18|website=Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs|language=en}}

A 2019 analysis has shown 75% of European spending on scientific journals goes to "big five" publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and the American Chemical Society (ACS)). Together they accounted for 56% of articles published.{{Cite web |last=Mehta2019-11-06T15:03:00+00:00 |first=Angeli |title=75% of European spending on scientific journals goes to 'big five' publishers |url=https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/75-of-european-spending-on-scientific-journals-goes-to-big-five-publishers/4010616.article |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=Chemistry World |language=en}}

Author fees or page charges have existed since at least the 1930s.{{cite journal | last=Scheiding | first=Tom | title=Paying for Knowledge One Page at a Time: The Author Fee in Physics in Twentieth-Century America | journal=Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences | publisher=University of California Press | volume=39 | issue=2 | year=2009 | issn=1939-1811 | doi=10.1525/hsns.2009.39.2.219 | pages=219–247}} Different academic publishers have widely varying levels of fees, from under $100 to over $5000, and even sometimes as high as €9500 (${{To USD|9500|EUR|year=2020|round=yes}}) for the journal Nature.{{cite web |url= http://openscience.com/how-much-do-top-publishers-charge-for-open-access/ |title=How Much Do Top Publishers Charge for Open Access? |first=Beata |last=Socha |work=OpenScience |date=20 April 2017 |access-date=26 April 2017}}{{Cite journal|last=García Martín|first=Miguel|date=2015-12-30|title=Las revistas de Geografía en el Journal Citation Reports: lucro económico versus acceso abierto|journal=Revista Española de Documentación Científica|language=es|volume=38|issue=4|pages=105|doi=10.3989/redc.2015.4.1248|issn=1988-4621|doi-access=free}}{{Cite web|last1=Brainard|first1=Jeffrey|date=2020-11-24|title=For €9500, Nature journals will now make your paper free to read|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/9500-nature-journals-will-now-make-your-paper-free-read|access-date=2021-01-15|website=Science {{!}} AAAS|language=en}} Meanwhile, an independent study indicated that the actual costs of efficiently publishing a scholarly article should be in the region of €200–€1000.{{Cite journal|last1=Grossmann|first1=Alexander|last2=Brembs|first2=Björn|date=2021-01-12|title=Current market rates for scholarly publishing services|journal=F1000Research|language=en|volume=10|pages=20|doi=10.12688/f1000research.27468.1|pmid=34316354|pmc=8276192|issn=2046-1402|doi-access=free}} High fees are sometimes charged by traditional publishers in order to publish in a hybrid open access journal, which make an individual article in a subscription journal open access. The average APC for hybrid journals has been calculated to be almost twice as high as APCs from full open access publishers.{{Cite report|last2=Solomon|first2=David|date=March 2014|title=Developing an Effective Market for Open Access Article Processing Charges|url=https://wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/developing-effective-market-for-open-access-article-processing-charges-mar14.pdf|last1=Björk|first1=Bo-Christer|access-date=2 June 2014}} Journals with high impact factors from major publishers tend to have the highest APCs.

Open access articles often have a surcharge compared to closed-access or paywalled content; for example, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences charges $1590–$4215 per article (depending on length) for closed-access, with a surcharge of $1700–$2200 for open-access (depending on licence).PNAS, [https://www.pnas.org/page/authors/fees Publication Fees] Similarly, AGU's Journal of Geophysical Research charges $1000 for closed-access and $3500 for open-access.{{Cite web |url=http://sites.agu.org/publications/files/2014/08/pubfeetablefinalAug2014.pdf |title=American Geophysical Union publication fee table |access-date=2014-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804021107/https://sites.agu.org/publications/files/2014/08/pubfeetablefinalAug2014.pdf |archive-date=2019-08-04 |url-status=dead }}

Even when publishers do not charge standard fees, excess or overlength fees might still apply after a certain number of pages or publication units is exceeded;{{cite web|url=http://www.ieee.org/advertisement/2012vpcopc.pdf|title=(IEEE) 2014 Voluntary Page and Overlength Article Charges|website=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141228235734/http://www.ieee.org/advertisement/2012vpcopc.pdf|archive-date=28 December 2014|access-date=2 February 2015}} additional color fees might apply for figures, primarily for print journals that are not online-only.

{{anchor|Submission fee}}While publication charges occur upon article acceptance, article submission fees are charged prior to the start of peer review; they are common among journals in some fields, e.g., finance and economics.{{cite web|title=Journals with Fees for Submitted Paper|url=http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/jfees.html|access-date=2 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150516032726/http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/jfees.html|archive-date=16 May 2015|url-status=dead}}

{{anchor|Page charge}}Page charge may refer to either publication or submission fees.

Article processing charges shift the burden of payment from readers to authors (or their funders), which creates a new set of concerns.{{cite web |url=https://www.grrjournal.com/docs/how-much-do-top-publishers-charge-for-open-access-open-Science.pdf |title=How Much Do Top Publishers Charge for Open Access? |first=Beata |last=Socha |work=openscience.com |date=20 April 2017 }} One concern is that if a publisher makes a profit from accepting papers, it has an incentive to accept anything submitted, rather than selecting and rejecting articles based on quality. This could be remedied, however, by charging for the peer-review rather than acceptance.Harnad, S. (2010) [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july10/harnad/07harnad.html No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501123717/http://dlib.org/dlib/july10/harnad/07harnad.html |date=2011-05-01 }}. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8) Another concern is that institutional budgets may need to be adjusted in order to provide funding for the article processing charges required to publish in many open access journals (e.g. those published by BioMed Central{{cite web |url=http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/apcfaq#why |title=Article-processing charges FAQ |publisher=BioMed Central |date=1970-01-01 |access-date=2014-01-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111126143503/http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/apcfaq#why |archive-date=2011-11-26 }}). It has been argued that this may reduce the ability to publish research results due to lack of sufficient funds, leading to some research not becoming a part of the public record.Eftekhari, A (2012) [http://research.criticpen.com/article/open-access-dream-m4zh Open Access Dream]. Critic Pen. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505174602/http://research.criticpen.com/article/open-access-dream-m4zh |date=May 5, 2013 }}

Another concern is the redirection of money by major funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust from the direct support of research to the support of open access publication. Robert Terry, Senior Policy Advisor at the Wellcome Trust, has said that he feels that 1–2% of their research budget will change from the creation of knowledge to the dissemination of knowledge.{{cite web |title=Interview – Wellcome support for Open Access |url=http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=18 |access-date=17 October 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090821073435/http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=18 |archive-date=August 21, 2009}}

Research institutions could cover the cost of open access by converting to an open access journal cost-recovery model, with the institutions' annual tool access subscription savings being available to cover annual open access publication costs.Harnad, S (2007) [https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/265753/1/greenroad.html "The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123021048/http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/265753/1/greenroad.html |date=2017-01-23 }}. In: Anna Gacs. The Culture of Periodicals from the Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99–106. Retrieved 2012-11-19. A 2017 study by the Max Planck Society estimates the annual turnovers of academic publishers amount to approximately €7.6 billion. It is argued that this money comes predominantly from publicly funded scientific libraries as they purchase subscriptions or licenses in order to provide access to scientific journals for their members. The study was presented by the Max Planck Digital Library and found that subscription budgets would be sufficient to fund the open access publication charges, but does not address how unaffiliated authors or authors from institutions without funds will contribute to the scholarly record.{{cite web |url=https://www.mpg.de/9202262/area-wide-transition-open-access |title=Area-wide transition to open access is possible: A new study calculates a redeployment of funds in Open Access |date=27 April 2015 |website=www.mpg.de/en |publisher=Max Planck Gesellschaft |access-date=2017-05-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170616161356/https://www.mpg.de/9202262/area-wide-transition-open-access |archive-date=16 June 2017 }}

Publishers' high operating profit margins, often on publicly funded research works, and their copyright practices have subjected them to criticism by researchers. For example, a Guardian article informed that in 2010, Elsevier's scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724m on just over £2bn in revenue. It was a 36% margin – higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon posted that year.{{Cite web |date=2017-06-27 |title=Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? |url=http://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=the Guardian |language=en}}

Unless discounts are available to authors from countries with low incomes, or external funding is provided to cover the cost, article processing charges can exclude authors from developing countries or less-funded research fields from publishing.{{Cite journal |last1=Jain |first1=Vijay Kumar |last2=Iyengar |first2=Karthikeyan. P. |last3=Vaishya |first3=Raju |date=2021-03-01 |title=Article processing charge may be a barrier to publishing |journal=Journal of Clinical Orthopaedics and Trauma |language=en |volume=14 |pages=14–16 |doi=10.1016/j.jcot.2020.10.039 |issn=0976-5662 |pmc=7919939 |pmid=33680812}} Some publishers justify part of the article processing charge by attributing it to the cost of producing print material when in reality they publish digital-only issues.{{Cite web |date=2023-07-10 |title=Sarahanne Field Wants To Put the Open Back Into Open Science |url=https://www.eurac.edu/en/blogs/connecting-the-dots/sarahanne-field-wants-to-put-the-open-back-into-open-science |access-date=2023-07-11 |last=Angler |first=Martin W. |website=Eurac Research Science Blogs |language=en-gb}} Under the traditional model, the prohibitive costs of some non-open access journal subscriptions already place a heavy burden on the research community.{{cite journal |last1=Harnad |first1=S. |author-link=Stevan Harnad |year=2011 |title=Gold Open Access Publishing Must Not Be Allowed to Retard the Progress of Green Open Access Self-Archiving |url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271818/1/logospaper.pdf |url-status= |journal=Logos |volume=21 |issue=3–4 |pages=86–93 |doi=10.1163/095796511x559972 |archive-url= |archive-date= |doi-access=free}} Many open access publishers do offer discounts or publishing fee waivers to authors from developing countries or those suffering financial hardship.Corrado, E. (Spring 2005). [http://www.istl.org/05-spring/article2.html The importance of Open Access, Open Source, and Open Standards for libraries] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111216144534/http://www.istl.org/05-spring/article2.html|date=2011-12-16}}. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

For these reasons, some funding bodies simply will not pay the extra fees for open access publishing: the European Union scientific research initiative Horizon Europe does not cover the APCs for articles in hybrid open-access journals.{{Cite web |date=2018-06-28 |title=Horizon Europe will not reimburse publication fees for hybrid open-access |url=https://icmab.es/horizon-europe-will-not-reimburse-publication-fees-for-hybrid-open-access |access-date=2022-04-06 |last=Masnou |first=Anna May |website=Institut de ciència de materials de Barcelona |language=en-gb}}

Diamond open access is a term used to describe journals that have no article processing charges, and make articles available to read without restrictions. In 2020, diamond OA journals comprised 69% of the journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals, but published only 35% of the articles.Crawford, W. Gold Open Access 2015–2020 Articles in Journals (GOA6); Cites & Insights Books: Livermore, CA, USA, 2021; p. 245 In 2021, it was estimated that 17,000 to 29,000 diamond OA journals published 8–9% of all scholarly journal articles and 45% of open access articles.Ancion, Z., Borrell-Damián, L., Mounier, P. et al., ACTION PLAN FOR DIAMOND OPEN ACCESS MARCH 2022, (2022). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6282402 Nearly all Latin American OA journals use the diamond model, whereas a little over half of African and Western European OA journals are diamond OA.{{cite journal | doi=10.3390/publications10010013 | doi-access=free | title=Diamond Open Access in Norway 2017–2020 | date=2022 | last1=Frantsvåg | first1=Jan | journal=Publications | volume=10 | page=13 }} However, the percentage of diamond OA articles covered in Scopus and Web of Science for the same year was below 1%, suggesting that "Scopus- or Web of Science-based (data) are skewed towards toll access and article processing charges-based publishing, as Diamond journals are underrepresented in (these databases)".{{Citation needed|date=April 2022|reason=The current citation makes a major claim of academic indexing bias that should be reinforced/verified by additional reputable sources.}} The same study also found that diamond OA articles comprised 81% of all OA articles in Humanities, but only 30% in Medicine and Sciences.

• Copyright transfer agreement
• Royalty-free
• Royalty payment
• Predatory publishing
• Academic journal publishing reform
• Plan S

{{reflist|30em}}

• University of California Libraries (2016) [https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ICIS-UC-Pay-It-Forward-Project-Final-Report.pdf Pay It Forward: Investigating a Sustainable Model of Open Access Article Processing Charges for Large North American Research Institutions]. Mellon Foundation. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408140450/https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ICIS-UC-Pay-It-Forward-Project-Final-Report.pdf|date=2019-04-08}}.
• {{cite web |title=Colour and page charges: results of a brief survey |author=Robert Kiley |year=2013 |url=http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Wellcome-survey-of-colour-and-page-charges-v-02.pdf |access-date=2015-07-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304082113/http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Wellcome-survey-of-colour-and-page-charges-v-02.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-04 |url-status=dead }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Curb | first1 = L. A. | last2 = Abramson | first2 = C.I. | year = 2012 | title = An examination of author-paid charges in science journals | journal = Comprehensive Psychology | volume = 1 | page = 4 | doi = 10.2466/01.17.CP.1.4 }}
• Guy, M., Holl, A. (2015) [https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.44318 Article Processing Charges]. Briefing Paper, PASTEUR4OA project

• [https://www.openapc.net OpenAPC: open database of APC]

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