Flipping, flapping, flopping? Community-based, scholar-led open access viewed as a Norwegian dugnad

Per Pippin Aspaas, UiT the Arctic University of Norway¹

The goal of Plan S was to accelerate the transition to open access, and to make sure that authors (or their institutions) retain copyright to their publications. The next step should be that the scholarly communities take control over the publishing landscape for academic journal articles and books. For decades, prices for electronic access to scholarly literature have been soaring, and the situation has gotten out of control. Flipping today’s dominant publishing system over to an open access model is badly needed. Open access means that quality-ensured, peer-reviewed full text content is made available online, free of charge, for any reader that has access to the internet – a vital building block in the democratisation of knowledge.

On 23 May 2023, the Council of the European Union adopted its Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing. This document provides an opportunity that should be embraced with both hands by scholarly communities. Ambitions are high, the European Council Conclusions could be seen as a way to take Plan S a giant step forward. In a kind of “Plan S 2.0”, member states are encouraged to help build infrastructures to provide fertile ground for community-based, scholar-led open access. Infrastructures are obviously extremely important and this is a welcome follow-up of the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access launched in March 2022. Both the Action Plan and the Council conclusions are, however, less specific regarding how the current flow of resources can be redirected in ways that make them reach the right stakeholders. With this opinion piece, I argue that appropriate sums of money must be available to those that really should be in charge of the process of publishing, namely, the scholarly communities themselves.

A caveat at first: I deal here primarily with small-sized publication outlets, initiated by communities that wish to contribute to the growth and spread of knowledge in their field. In terms of scale, I mean scholarly journals that typically publish from 5 to 50 articles per year and academic book series that publish from one book to ten books per year on average. Such small-sized outlets tend to be initiated and run by scholarly communities (sometimes called learned societies) that live for their work, not off their work. The major societies in the STEM disciplines and their journals are excluded; other mechanisms than those suggested here are needed to make these entities switch to a sustainable, non-commercial model of publishing. Particularly in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but also in many niches across the whole spectrum of the academic world, small-sized publication outlets already exist, in the thousands. For the sake of bibliodiversity and democratization of knowledge, we need these outlets to take off for real, in a new publishing landscape dominated by non-commercial, community-driven scholarly publishing.

The dominant economic models of scholarly publishing

Nowadays, there are three major economic models in the world of scholarly publishing: Hybrid Open Access, Gold (fee-based) Open Access, and Diamond (not fee-based) Open Access.²

First, there is the model known as Hybrid Open Access. Publishers of academic journals and books hide the full texts of articles behind paywalls, leaving only title, keywords and abstract free to read, as an advertisement. In case academic authors (or rather, the institutions funding their research) wish to publish their own work in open access, they can do so for a fee. The paywall to that particular work is thereby removed. As a result, part of the journal’s articles are behind a paywall, and others are available in open access, hence the term ‘hybrid’ open access.

A variant of the hybrid open access model is the so-called transitional or read-and-publish deals that have been closed with numerous publishing houses over the last several years. A consortium of research institutions negotiate deals to ensure that authors affiliated to their particular institution can have their works made available in open access. Ideally, more and more consortia will join over time and thus flip the entire model over to a system of publishing where exclusive, restricted access is replaced by open access. The flipping should go from hybrid to pure gold, it is argued.

Pure Gold (fee-based) Open Access means that authors (or the institutions funding their research) pay for open access publishing services individually, so-called Article Processing Charges (APC) or Book Processing Charges (BPC). It is seen by many as a natural state of affairs that commercial entities are the providers of such services. Publishing houses have, according to this line of thinking, always been there and will always remain. To the scholarly communities, it is only a question of negotiating good deals, whereby APCs and BPCs are kept as low as possible. If only all commercial publishers were forced out of the paywall-based, hybrid model and towards a purely APC- (or BPC-)based gold open access model, the job would be done, according to this logic. This notion is, however, being challenged by an increasing number of institutions, research funders, members of scholarly communities – and most recently, by the EU itself. According to its recent Council conclusions, the entire publishing ecosystem might as well be scholar-led.

Community-based scholar-led open access as a Norwegian dugnad

Scholar-led Diamond (not fee-based) Open Access means that publicly funded institutions, learned societies, libraries, charities and/or governments pool resources in order to help the full texts of scholarly books and journals become available online. A diamond open access journal or book series does not charge any publishing fee (APC/BPC), either to individual readers or to their institutions. The Norwegian word dugnad (talkoot in Finnish) can be used to characterize this model. Dugnad means volunteer work for the common good of a community. For example, people in a local building block community can either outsource the necessary gardening, repair of fences, and renovation of the façade to a commercial service provider or join forces and do this themselves. The latter option implies a real dugnad. A dugnad is a social act, where members of the community solve their needs themselves by acting collectively without economic transactions. The resources that are pooled together are human resources: everybody contributes according to their know-how and capacity, and they are ready to learn from and help each other.

By analogy, a scholarly community can join forces and set up its own ‘publishing service’ without paying anyone else to fulfil their needs. The social act of editing a journal or a book series, collectively helping each other by providing peer review, proofreading et cetera, can be a real dugnad. Within the institutions where scholars do their research, there is often a library running a publishing platform, or at least an IT department that can help set this up. The staff of such institutional service providers are professionals with vital insights into digital formats, metadata standards, peer review guidelines and so forth. They also know how relevant IT software should be used to streamline the workflows of articles and books, from the initial submission through peer review and editorial quality assurance to the finished product. With these key competences, they are able to interact with researchers in a publishing dugnad. Typically, no money is exchanged. Instead, people within the scholarly community (IT engineers, librarians, researchers) join forces to help publish quality-assured research articles and e-books online, professionally and in line with the best practices of scholarly publishing. The publishing software per se is typically open source; other necessary infrastructure, like computers, access to the internet and server storage are provided by the institution.

There is no need for outsourcing anything, people have come to realise. Scholarly publication outlets should be scholar-lead instead of working on the logic of a market geared towards maximising profit.

No dugnad without compensation

However, the core of the Norwegian word dugnad implies more than just the sum of everyone’s work, there is also the act of working together, in person, interrupted by coffee breaks or luncheons. Elderly people will bake a cake, lay the table, ring a bell when it is time for a break. The rest of the dugnad team will drop their utensils to the ground and walk over to the garden table, where they will recharge their batteries, chat along with neighbours and look ahead to the next stage of the dugnad process. Such dugnad gatherings typically happen once or twice per year. In-between each dugnad, a caretaker (often a resident of the same building block) will take care of everyday practical issues for a small salary. A board consisting entirely of local residents is elected at a (bi-)annual general assembly. The head of the board is responsible for financial issues and the caretaker reports to him or her. This system is in place to ensure that no money is misspent or even stolen.

Scholarly communities behind a diamond journal or books series can be compared to the above dugnad system. The caretaker will be the technical editor (aka editorial assistant), a gifted IT-minded person who maintains the daily business of the publishing outlet while reporting to the editor-in-chief. However, scholarly communities consist, like local communities of residents, of more human beings than just these two. Human beings are social. We need to get together, have a luncheon and get to know each other in order to function properly as communities. There is one fundamental difference between the dugnad of a local community in, say, Norway, and the scholarly communities of the world. Most scholarly communities are not local; there will be travel costs. Editors of a journal or book series tend to live far from each other and have their daily work at different institutions, often in different countries. In order to have proper, scholar-led, community-based diamond open access take off, it is not enough to ask scholars to flap their wings and start flying.

For diamond open access to take off for real, instead of flopping, we need to have a system which provides small amounts of cash money to the scholars involved in editing such publishing outlets. First, the editor-in-chief and the “caretaker” (the technical editor, or editorial assistant) need to have some economic compensation in order to legitimately spend a substantial proportion of their working hours on the daily business of running the service on behalf of the entire community. Besides managing the day-to-day workflow, they are the ones expected to plan and organise physical meetings. Without physical meetings where the entire editorial boards can work together on e.g. Calls for Papers for special issues, discuss suggestions for improvements with colleagues at the publishing platform, etc., diamond open access initiatives are likely to be flapping their wings for a limited period only. Without the annual ingest of energy in the form of physical meetings, they will in most cases be flopping as soon as the sense of community evaporates and the editor-in-chief finds her or himself alone with no real team surrounding her or him.

No big deal

Scholarly publication outlets should be scholar-lead instead of working on the logic of a market geared towards maximising profit. The EU has now taken the Plan S initiative a huge step in this direction by agreeing upon the Council conclusions. A Diamond Open Access Capacity Centre is in the making, the purpose being to help build capacity and professionalise the services offered by the numerous existing institutional service providers across Europe. However, in tandem we need to think, and think urgently, on how to finance the extraordinary (yet only part-time) workloads of technical editors as well as the regular meetings of editorial boards. Without the resources enabling editorial teams to meet and work together regularly, there will be no flipping of the system, merely flapping followed by flopping.

What sums are we talking about? My guess is that a community-driven journal that publishes 30 peer-reviewed articles per year will be more than happy to do this for 30,000 Euro. That would finance the part-time salary of the editorial assistant (“caretaker”) and allow for a meeting of the editorial board each year. Any extra costs for proof-reading, typesetting, xml-coding, DOI indexing and the like will also be included in that sum. Remember, there will be no shareholders eager to make profits on big deals. The publishing software is for free. The Diamond Open Access Capacity Centre offers its assistance for free. The community upholds the work by offering the most important resource for free, namely, their own knowhow and working hours. In case my estimate is correct, there is a need for 1,000 Euro per article, no more (30,000 Euro divided on 30 articles)³. This is far less than the average pricing of the commercial pure Gold Open Access model, not to speak of the strains put on tax-payer-based budgets by the big read-and-publish deals. Diamond Open Access will be cheaper in terms of economics. This does, however, require quick rethinking.

The time of the read-and-publish deals will soon be over, hybrid has to go. The money saved cannot legitimately be spent on just Gold Open Access. There are too many community-based initiatives already. We need to make these non-profit initiatives sustainable and at the same time stimulate more scholarly communities to leave the commercial models behind and become dugnad-based. 

Rudiments of a way forward: a Diamond Open Access Fund

How can the EU support scholar-led, dugnad-based Diamond Open Access? My suggestion is this: alongside the Diamond Open Access Capacity Centre, set up a Diamond Open Access Fund. Editors of journals and book series can take contact and hand in applications according to a simple set of criteria.

1. The publishing outlet has to be non-commercial. Any surplus from the grant shall go back to the scholarly community itself, typically a learned society with formal statutes.
2. All content (full texts and metadata) shall be published online with a CC license.
3. Applicants will apply for a five-year period. In their application, they stipulate the number of peer-reviewed articles or books they plan to publish. They will be granted in the range of 1,000 Euro per article and 7,500 Euro per monograph. Opinion pieces, book reviews and the like will count as 50 Euro each.
4. After the five years have passed, they report how much has actually been published and are free to apply for the next five years. The grants offered are adjusted accordingly.
5. Transition from one platform to another is particularly time-consuming. Therefore, a flipping grant for journals and book series that intend to make the move from a commercial platform will be donated in the form of a lump sum. The amount will depend on how long the back list is. Grants can be in the range of 100 Euro per paywalled article to be transferred to the platform.

The above list is not exhaustive, it is merely meant as a start for discussions. Personally, I think the Diamond Open Access Fund should be a European initiative, as so many journals and book series are international. At the same time, Europe is special with its linguistic diversity. Many European peer-reviewed journals and book series are published in languages other than English, an important element of bibliodiversity. 

“Plan S 2.0” can be a real game-changer. The European system is well equipped to boost the dugnad spirit and help communities that live for, not off their editorial work. A Diamond Open Access Capacity Centre with empty hands (financially speaking) is helpful, but can be no real game changer. In addition, we need a Diamond Open Access Fund. If all public money that has so far been spent on read-and-publish deals across Europe could be invested in this Fund as soon as those deals come to an end, this would give Diamond Open Access a flying start.

1. Early versions of this text  benefited from input from UiT colleagues Leif Longva, Aysa Ekanger and Jan Erik Frantsvåg. Together with the last-mentioned, I am active in the DIAMAS Project, which is designing the coming Diamond Open Access Capacity Center. The project leaders of DIAMAS, Pierre Mounier and Johan Rooryck have edited the text for publication, suggesting several improvements in the process [↩]
2. The standard definition by Peter Suber, characterizing all kinds of publishing at the publishers’ platform as “Gold”, appears no longer to be ubiquitously followed. In the prevailing discourse, “Gold Open Access” appears to have shifted meaning so that is now usually restricted to APC-based journal publishing (APC = Article Processing Charges). It is this restricted use of Gold OA that I will follow here as well. [↩]
3.  The estimate is based on studies such as those by Odile Contat and Anne-Solweig Gremillet in 2015, Publier à quel prix? Étude sur la structuration des coûts de publication pour les revues français en SHS and by Alexander Grossmann and Björn Brembs in 2021, Current market rates for scholarly publishing services. Exact figures are not the most important here, though I do think that my estimate is both realistic and fair. [↩]

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