Not all hybrid is equal | Australian Open Access Support Group

"The hybrid publication landscape is not a case of “you can have any colour as long it is black”. Hybrid publishing involves a rainbow of different hues – with different charges for different ‘services’. This complexity is creating confusion and obfuscation, contributing to apprehension about open access amongst the academic community ... Hybrid OA articles are not always clearly marked ... Anecdotally there have been some issues with the availability and discoverability of hybrid open access articles. In some cases authors have complained that where an APC has been paid to make an article open access under a hybrid scheme, the published article does not differ from any other article in the otherwise subscription journal by stating that is is available open access.  In other instances a user clicking on one of these articles hits a paywall as noted in August 2013 by Peter Murray-Rust, a prominent commentator in open access issues. He blogged againin March 2014 about continued issues with Elsevier charging for access to CC-BY articles.Elsevier has replied it is working on resolving the issue.  There are also issues related to clarity about the licensing that is attached to a particular article where an APC has been paid. In March 2012 one blogger noted that a ‘free’ to read Elsevier article still had a ‘Permission’s link which when followed charged to download the work.  In another case, an open access Taylor & Francis article states it allows use for research, private teaching and research, but the article cannot be reproduced or distributed. What can be specifically done with the article is defined by the license – which can be challenging to ascertain ...  Paying for hybrid doesn’t mean the article is discoverable ... Some publishing contracts state that authors should link to the article within the online journal rather than depositing a pdf into their own repository. Open access articles need to be discoverable and publicly accessible. This can be an issue for ensuring the work is being indexed by search engines because in some cases publishers don’t always have data available about the access conditions of individual articles. A blog about this issue notes: 'In many cases, [publisher] discovery and link-resolution systems describe access terms only at the journal level, so OA papers that are published in hybrid journals might not be made visible to patrons because of the systems’ presumption about access.'  An item is not open access if it is only available on a publisher’s ‘platform’ but not indexed by search engines. It is advisable for authors intending to pay for hybrid to check contracts carefully to ensure the license will be applied immediately to the published pdf of any article where a payment has been made for open access ...  Which license? And at what cost? ... Possibly the greatest influence on the recent hybrid landscape has been the RCUK policy which requires funded authors to publish their articles in a journal with “immediate and unrestricted access to the final published version of the paper, which should be made available using the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence”. This policy came into force on the 1 April 2013. An example of multiple hybrid options is the American Chemical Society (ACS) which ‘expanded their offerings’ under their hybrid scheme, which has been in operation since 2006. This expansion allows authors: [1] Immediate or embargoed (after 12 months) open availability of the final published article [2] Open access options as low as $750 for ACS members at subscribing institutions [3] Creative C