Weighing the Cost: Open Access Article Publishing Charges, Waivers, and Society Membership - Science Editor

"The business model for publishing has evolved substantially in the past 20 years. The subscription models for academic journals first changed from primarily print journals to online subscriptions and eventually broadened to include open access (OA) and hybrid journals (a combination of subscription and OA). BioMedCentral and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) were the first to charge article processing charges (APCs) to finance the professional publication process as a means to offset the loss of subscription income.¹ In 2012, the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) launched their first OA journal, ACG Case Reports Journal (ACGCRJ), which is dedicated to the publishing of case reports. The journal operates as an online-only Gold OA publication. Initially, the journal did not charge APCs, as its target audience is gastroenterology and hepatology fellows, as well as other early career researchers. Many early career researchers see fees as a disadvantage or roadblock to having work published, and do not see it as a sustainable model due to rising APCs.² However, as submissions grew and the number of articles published each month increased, production costs to both the publisher and the ACG also increased. Prior to 2022, ACGCRJ had an overall page limit of 46 pages per month. The fee for additional pages was $10,000 and in 2021, ACGCRJ was 86 pages over budget. In an effort to keep the publication sustainable, in 2022, ACGCRJ initiated APCs for articles accepted for publication. However, being mindful of its audience, the ACGCRJ APC was set at $500 and is waived for corresponding authors who are ACG members, authors whose submissions are transferred from another ACG journal, and authors whose submissions were initially received prior to January 1, 2022, when the APC was rolled out. The page budget would remain in place for articles published that were submitted by members, but since nonmembers would be paying an APC, the page budget would no longer apply to those. We sought to study how this altered the landscape of both submissions and published authors in terms of ACG members versus nonmembers."