Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing's Top Table - Jay Flynn - The Scholarly Kitchen

"The transition to open access (OA) and open science is much more than just a business model change, and when I think about the implications of this paradigm shift, I get excited. Like a lot of established publishers, our introduction of open access journals a decade or so ago got us thinking about the author in a new way. We started to view the author as our customer at a more profound level, thinking about how to  improve their publishing experience. Before OA, I think it’s fair to say we were more focused on the content itself and its utility to the subscribing customer. Both approaches drive value to the research ecosystem, but for me personally this shift to focusing on the author was a breakthrough moment. Once you start thinking about improving the submission experience, it leads you to examine the researcher’s full workflow – her data challenges, funding challenges, and her need for career development and recognition, etc....

The future is open. It must be. Access to high-quality information can really change lives so we’ve committed to leading in open access for more than a decade.

In fact, Wiley was one of the first publishers to sign a major transformative agreement. Today, we have more than 60 agreements in 23 countries that support research access and publishing across more than 2,200 institutions, and even more will go into effect this year, including in Portugal, Greece and the U.S...."

But moving a centuries-old industry from subscription publishing to open access is no small undertaking. Organizations need to have both the infrastructure and resources to make the transition. Tactically, this presents a bunch of challenges.