Over the past decade the economic model of scholarly publishing has been challenged by rising costs, concentration of journal ownership in commercial hands and by government and particularly EU policy on open science and open access to research.
Open Access (OA) signifies free access for all to online scholarly research with few or no license restrictions. It has prompted the rise of complementary publishing platforms – including in our case STÓR, the digital repository for DkIT’s research output.
Increasingly subscriptions to published articles and resources include article publishing rights. Publishing and access to scholarly work is now intertwined. Transitional arrangements, including transformative publishing agreements, enable the OA switch.
Transformative publishing agreements are a temporary, transitional framework so that institutions can convert resources currently spent on journal subscriptions into funds to support sustainable OA business models. 54% of articles in Ireland become Open Access through transformative agreements, with 15.7% made available directly in fully Open Access journals.
In 2020, the output in article publication increased by 8% (a normal increase is 3%). Elsevier saw a 57% increase in submissions. 44% of journal articles will be Open Access by 2025, it’s predicted.
For an interesting overview of the transformation of scholarly publishing, including interactive graphs, click here.
