Open and Shut?: De Gruyter’s Sven Fund on the state of Open Access: Where are we, what still needs to be done?

"Like other traditional publishers De Gruyter has in recent years launched a number of Open Access initiatives. In April 2009 — five years after Springer pioneered Hybrid OA when it introduced Open Choice —  De Gruyter announced the De Gruyter Open Library, introducing OA options for both its journals (pure Gold and Hybrid OA), as well as books. In 2009 De Gruyter also announced that, from 2010, it would be publishing the “Topoi. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World” series, thereby expanding its OA efforts into the humanities. A partnership with the Excellence Cluster Topoi, with funding from the German Research Foundation, the series encompasses all the disciplines of Ancient Studies, from prehistory and early history through classical archaeology to antique philosophy, epistemology and theology. As well as being published in print book form, selected titles from the Topoi series are also available as OA eBooks on the www.degruyter.com website. The Topoi initiative was featured as an Open Access Success Story by Knowledge Exchange in 2009. Currently De Gruyter publishes twelve pure OA journals, and all of its 364 subscription journals now offer a Hybrid OA option. And to date it has published 47 OA books under its own OA books programme. This includes some that will be published next year. De Gruyter’s most daring OA move, however, came in 2010, when it acquired the Polish OA publisher Versita, which currently publishes 439 pure OA journals — an acquisition reminiscent of Springer’s decision to acquire BioMed Central in 2008. How much does De Gruyter charge for its different OA options? The article-processing charge for both pure Gold and Hybrid OA is currently €1,750 ($2,450). The cost of publishing a book is less clear. When I asked the publisher’s PR representative she said she did not know. So I emailed a few authors who had published OA books with De Gruyter. Those that replied said they had been given special discounted deals, with one citing a figure of €5,000. By way of comparison, we could note that Palgrave Macmillan currently charges £11,000 ($17,500) to publish an OA book, and Springer charges around €15,000.   What about Green OA? According to the SHERPA/ROMEO database, De Gruyter is a “yellow” publisher rather than a green one. Specifically, it allows authors only to archive their pre-prints, and only on their own personal web site. It also imposes a 12-month embargo ... What did I find noteworthy about Fund’s replies to my questions? A couple of things. First, I felt his answers tended to the elliptical ... However, for me the most interesting part of Fund’s answers to my questions were his comments on Hybrid OA. Contrary to most of the interviewees in this series so far, Fund is very positive about this form of OA. Indeed, he says, he personally 'would like to see more Hybrid OA.'  What of the dangers of double-dipping associated with Hybrid OA (where research institutions can find themselves having to pay both subscriptions and Hybrid OA charges for the same journal)? While sympathetic to funder concerns about this, Fund argues that if the research community wants to avoid seeing an unnecessary plethora of OA doppelgängers created to replicate current subscription journals, it will have to accept that some double-dipping is inevitable ..."