Open Access Could Mean Authors Pay to Publish

" ... APS has long been a supporter of open access, as underscored by its 2009 statement, balancing its innovative initiatives with the need to maintain the viability of its publishing responsibilities. For several years, APS has offered its journals free of charge to all public libraries and high schools for use on their premises. APS has also allowed journal authors to freely post the accepted, author-formatted manuscript on personal or institutional websites and on arXiv. Finally, APS has worked with other scientific publishers (See APS News, August/September 2015) to create the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS). But as new policies are enacted and immediate open access becomes more widespread, it is likely that APS will have to alter its publishing practices if it is to continue providing the physics community with affordable, top-quality journals ... Throughout the world, almost all scientific publishers of high-quality journals rely on subscriptions to support peer-review operations, editing, composition, and archiving. But if governments begin to compel publishers and authors to make articles freely available immediately after publication or if the vast majority of authors simply choose to make their work freely available immediately after publication, subscribers would have no reason to continue paying for content. The subscription model would vanish, and publishers would have to find other sources of revenue to support the services they currently provide, especially peer review.  At present the 'time to free access' set by U.S government directives is 12 months. But pressure to reduce the time has been building both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Pending legislation (H.R. 1477, 'The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2015,' also known as FASTR) in the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, would require access “as soon as practicable” but no later than six months (SeeAPS News, August/September 2015). Similar legislation is under consideration in France. And in the UK, Research Council policies in place since 2013 are setting the 'time to free access' on a glide path to zero ... APS believes that it won’t be long before the 'time to free access' will shrink to zero both at home and abroad. In that case, the way APS currently pays for peer-review operations will no longer be viable. And APS and other scientific publishers will likely have to adopt an 'author pays' model. Unless they have access to other sources of revenue, authors will have to use their research grant money, institutional funds or cash from their own pockets to cover the cost of publication (which may be in excess of two thousand dollars per article). Moreover, a change to an author-pays model would especially harm researchers with small grants or no grants at all. And if federal science budgets remain fixed, the amount of money available for conducting research would decline ..."