rscrap2019mpdl

Publisher

RSC- Royal Society of Chemistry
Agreement ID rscrap2019mpdl
Agreement labeling RSC Read and Publish
Has the agreement been disclosed and published? No
Agreement period 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2020
Consortia / Institution MPDL
Country Germany
SIZE

Approximate range of annual corresponding author publications

 150
COSTS

How do the costs of the agreement relate to previous subscription-only agreements with the publisher?

 Cost increase
Comments on cost development Former subscription spend cannot fully cover oa publishing costs, the price increase therefore reflects the stepwise alignment with our publishing output.
FINANCIAL SHIFT

Transfomative agreements vary by their transformative mechanisms, meaning the way in which financing is shifted from the subscription side to open access publishing. What are the characteristics of this agreement to this regard?

 Our former read and publish agreement nearly fully converted subscription fees to publishing fees. However, this agreement reintroduced a substantial reading fee.
RISK SHARING

How do entitlements for open access publishing correlate to the anticipated article output? Which mechanisms for risk sharing have been agreed in cases of exceeding or not reaching the number of oa publishing entitlements?

 Each publication beyond our publishing allowance will have to be paid extra (no corridor). If the number of expected publications will not hold true at all (meaning there was a massive decrease in publications due to whatsoever reasons), a fallback to a subscription only agreement can be negotiated for the following year.
OA COVERAGE

Are all journals relevant to your affiliated authors (in which you expect them to publish) eligible for oa publishing under the agreement?

 Yes
Are fully open access journals covered by the agreement? NO
OA LICENSE CC-BY mandatory
ARTICLE TYPES
 Original research articles
Review articles
Communications
ACCESS COSTS

What is the approximate share of access related costs of the overall agreement costs of the agreement?

 5%-20%
Comments Reading fee has been re-introduced to the agreement model by RSC. In our first round of “read and publish” 2017-18 the reading fee was rather insignificant.
ACCESS COVERAGE

Are all read relevant journals covered by the agreement?

 Yes
PERPETUAL ACCESS RIGHTS Yes
WORKFLOW ASSESSMENT Ok
Comments on workflows See https://esac-initiative.org/about/oa-workflows/workflow-assessment/
OVERALL ASSESSMENT AND COMMENTS

 

 In general, RSC’s approach to the oa transition has been very promising, and they have started very early to experiment and to search for ways of transitioning their business (Gold for Gold). When looking at RSC’s hybrid pricing, they also offer a reasonable value for money (https://esac-initiative.org/about/apcmarket/). However, their current strategy with regards to the re-introduction of a reading fee may discourage customers from entering in a transformative agreement as it becomes more expensive and as the level of the reading fee seems to be the same for all institutions. RSC states to calculate this reading fee according to the number of articles still behind the paywall, and that this fee will naturally decrease the more open access articles will be published. However, at the sime time, it is the reading fee itself that contradicts the progress of oa publishing within transformative agreements. Moreover, reading fees are an anachronism from the subscription area which we want to leave behind.
Request contact to the licensee contact [at] esac-initiative [dot] org