INFORMS Open Forum

The INFORMS Board of Directors is looking into the growing demand for research manuscripts and data to be available free to the public. The revenue generated from our current subscription model enables INFORMS to process and deliver journals of the highest standards that, in return, help it to achieve its mission to lead in the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge.

INFORMS recognizes open access (OA) as the unrestricted public access to data and manuscripts peer-reviewed and accepted on behalf of any of the association's publications.  INFORMS policy on open access will evolve. The Board discussed open access at its last board meeting, and will address it again at the July Board meeting. I am chairing an ad hoc committee to propose an INFORMS open access policy. 

INFORMS authors now have the option of paying a one-time fee (currently $3000) to have a paper be available online for free to readers.  Their article would appear in our subscription journals along with papers not available for free.

Gold open access option. In February 2013, the INFORMS Board of Directors approved the creation of INFORMS Open Option (IOO). IOO provides an open access alternative for articles accepted for publication in any one of 13 INFORMS journals that would have otherwise only been available through subscriptions or pay per view. Authors of an accepted manuscript who  want to take advantage of IOO are responsible for a one-time publication fee which ensures that the article would be made available to anyone online via INFORMS PubsOnline, for free and in perpetuity. The publication fee is set annually by the publications committee as part of its annual review of journal pricing.

We would welcome feedback via INFORMS Connect online or direct email on your experiences and opinions about open access. 

Are you required by your funding agency, institution, or country to publish your work in an open access format?

Does our gold open access option meet your needs?

Does your academic merit review require that your work be only open access?

Do you have to publish in fully open access journals (all papers are open access) only?

How should INFORMS respond to this open access trend?

What are other associations/publishers doing?

 

Open Access committee

L. Robin Keller, INFORMS President-elect, Chair, president_elect@mail.informs.org or lrkeller@uci.edu

Ozlem Ergun, INFORMS  Vice President, Membership/Public Recognition

Nick Hall, INFORMS Treasurer

M. Eric Johnson, INFORMS Vice President, Publications

Miranda Walker, INFORMS Director of Publications, miranda.walker@informs.org

 

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L Robin Keller
Professor
University of California-Irvine
Irvine CA
-------------------------------------------

Robin:

interesting! I cannot respond to all questions, but here are my 50 cent: OA journals often suffer from insufficient reputation. Adding an OA option to the excellently reputed INFORMS journals is a valuable add-on for those needing OA publication. A $3000 fee appears to be a lot in my personal perception (do authors pay per submission, or per accepted paper?). I would NEVER, regardless of prime journal or not, pay a fee of that amount "only" to get published, and would seek other outlets. An institutional ("gold"?) OA membership is good (per university?), an individual flatrate ("gold"?) is a little less attractive from an author's point of view (of course attractive from INFORMS' p.o.v. b/c of tying authors to our journals). Since many publishers will offer some kind of flatrate option, it would be an ideal service to the author if they could buy a flatrate for ORMS publishing, NOT TIED to a particular publisher, but to a consortium, but this dream appears far-fetched.

tl; dr; OA helps distribution of knowledge, adding OA to a reputed journal will not decrease submission numbers, institutional flatrate is much better than individual.

Marco


-------------------------------------------
Marco Luebbecke
Profess_OR
RWTH Aachen University
Aachen
-------------------------------------------

I like the OA modiel:

Last year I paid $750 for OA for an article of mine published in Operations Research Letters, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167637713001028

That paper had over 2,000 views from four different countries -- presumably far more than would have been the case if it wasn't OA. That said, I cannot imagine my employer willing to pay $3,000 for OA.

Les  Servi







Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2014 08:38
From: Marco Luebbecke
Subject: Your feedback on Open Access publications

Robin:

interesting! I cannot respond to all questions, but here are my 50 cent: OA journals often suffer from insufficient reputation. Adding an OA option to the excellently reputed INFORMS journals is a valuable add-on for those needing OA publication. A $3000 fee appears to be a lot in my personal perception (do authors pay per submission, or per accepted paper?). I would NEVER, regardless of prime journal or not, pay a fee of that amount "only" to get published, and would seek other outlets. An institutional ("gold"?) OA membership is good (per university?), an individual flatrate ("gold"?) is a little less attractive from an author's point of view (of course attractive from INFORMS' p.o.v. b/c of tying authors to our journals). Since many publishers will offer some kind of flatrate option, it would be an ideal service to the author if they could buy a flatrate for ORMS publishing, NOT TIED to a particular publisher, but to a consortium, but this dream appears far-fetched.

tl; dr; OA helps distribution of knowledge, adding OA to a reputed journal will not decrease submission numbers, institutional flatrate is much better than individual.

Marco


-------------------------------------------
Marco Luebbecke
Profess_OR
RWTH Aachen University
Aachen
-------------------------------------------

Normally I don't respond to discussion topics of this sort; however this got under my skin.  Pay to be published?  What is wrong with this model?  If you have the money, you can get published.  If you don't have the money, you don't get published.  Is that the kind of reputation we want our journals to have?  No matter that it is a peer reviewed journal with exceedingly high standards--that will soon be lost.  When people have to have publications listed on resumes in order to get jobs, or they perceive that is the case, then buying their way in to publishing something is flat out wrong. 
I know there are costs involved in publishing, but that is why we have membership fees to begin with and why we pay for the journals.

-------------------------------------------
Jeannette Blumenthal
Chief, Operations
U.S. Army TRADOC Analysis Center-Fort Lee
Fort Lee VA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2014 08:38
From: Marco Luebbecke
Subject: Your feedback on Open Access publications

Robin:

interesting! I cannot respond to all questions, but here are my 50 cent: OA journals often suffer from insufficient reputation. Adding an OA option to the excellently reputed INFORMS journals is a valuable add-on for those needing OA publication. A $3000 fee appears to be a lot in my personal perception (do authors pay per submission, or per accepted paper?). I would NEVER, regardless of prime journal or not, pay a fee of that amount "only" to get published, and would seek other outlets. An institutional ("gold"?) OA membership is good (per university?), an individual flatrate ("gold"?) is a little less attractive from an author's point of view (of course attractive from INFORMS' p.o.v. b/c of tying authors to our journals). Since many publishers will offer some kind of flatrate option, it would be an ideal service to the author if they could buy a flatrate for ORMS publishing, NOT TIED to a particular publisher, but to a consortium, but this dream appears far-fetched.

tl; dr; OA helps distribution of knowledge, adding OA to a reputed journal will not decrease submission numbers, institutional flatrate is much better than individual.

Marco


-------------------------------------------
Marco Luebbecke
Profess_OR
RWTH Aachen University
Aachen
-------------------------------------------

Jeannette:

There are purely OA journals (many of which have variations on the title International Journal of Indiscriminate Research on Whatever), but that' not the model Robin was proposing. As I understood the proposal, authors could continue to submit articles without paying an author fee, and those articles (if accepted after the usual review process) would appear in the print journal and be available to anyone who has a subscription, or whose institution has a subscription, or perhaps who is willing to pay a per-article access fee -- in other words, the current model. In addition to the current model, an author would have the option to pay an OA fee, in which case anyone with Internet access would be able to read the paper.

I've never paid for OA publication (and don't plan to), and I think $3K is rather steep for an author fee. I did a stint on my school's library committee, though, and it came out in discussions there that some grants (particularly in the life sciences, from what I gathered) require OA publication of results, either to maximize dissemination or because research paid for by taxpayers should be freely available to said taxpayers. The researchers factor the cost of OA publication into the grant budget.

As long as the INFORMS journals do not go 100% OA, I don't think we have to worry about tying deep pockets to promotion and tenure prospects.

-------------------------------------------
Paul Rubin
Professor Emeritus
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI
-------------------------------------------

While it may not directly address any of your questions, I will make one related comment.  Perhaps it is worth looking at what some of the finance journals have done.  In order to limit submissions, they charge a fee when an author submits an article.  Articles that are accepted for publication then have their submission fees refunded.  This prevents frivolous or substandard submissions that clog up the review pipeline. The amount varies depending on the economy or income level in the country of submission, but could be up to a few hundred dollars.  Some of the revenue collected is used to pay reviewers to provide prompt (not necessarily positive) reviews.  While it doesn't necessarily address access to journals, this approach does keep the review process moving along.

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Scott Nestler
Chief, Force Strategy Division
Center for Army Analysis
Alexandria VA
-------------------------------------------

Thanks for raising this issue on the forum, Robin. There are great benefits to authors and our field if we have open access to our journals. As Les Servi's case demonstrates, open access means more people will read the work. That will mean our work gets cited more and it could mean that our ideas get applied more in practice. However, as people have already said, there is a cost to publishing journals. The question is who will pay that cost. There are several possibilities and I wonder if people can suggest more:

1. The readers pay: the current model where our personal and library subscriptions cover the cost.
2. The authors pay: the OA model with the $3000 fee. I share Jeannette Blumenthal's concerns that authors at rich institutions can afford this fee, but this could deter authors from less well-off countries or institutions, which will hurt the field.
3. Pay for submission: as per Scott Nestler's post about Finance journals. Those journals were seeking to deter frivolous submissions. I always worry that my submissions are not good enough, so this could deter many submissions from new authors and again hurt the field.
4. Advertising: JUST KIDDING!

What other options are there? Are there combinations of these options (we currently do 1 with the option for 2)?

-------------------------------------------
Jason Merrick
Professor
Supply Chain Management & Analytics
Statistical Sciences & Operations Research
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond VA
-------------------------------------------

Here is a draft of an INFORMS Open Access Policy.  The INFORMS Board discussed it at the July Board meeting and will vote on a policy at the Board meeting in San Francisco in November 2014. (Comments are welcome, send to committee chair Robin Keller at LRKeller@uci.edu.)

********DRAFT*******

INFORMS recognizes open access (OA) as the unrestricted public access to data and manuscripts peer-reviewed and accepted on behalf of any of the association's publications.  INFORMS policy on open access will evolve. In its current state, INFORMS recognizes the following:

1.       Open access is part of the future of publications and is in line with INFORMS' mission to promote greater use of its knowledge by all organizations and the general public.

2.       The revenue generated from the current subscription model enables INFORMS to process and deliver journals of the highest standards that, in return, help it to achieve its mission to lead in the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge, basic and applied research and technologies in advanced analytics, operations research, the management sciences, and related methods of improving operational processes, decision-making, and management.

3.       Efforts to expand open access should not be done at the expense of the quality and status of INFORMS' publications. Every effort must be made to sustain these standards.

4.       INFORMS has worked to maintain extremely competitive subscription prices to ensure accessibility to members, the public, and institutions. This traditional subscription model can co-exist with open access as long as doing so does not disrupt the current journal revenue.

 

As part of its efforts to support open access, INFORMS commits to continuing to provide "the following  green" and "gold" open access options to its authors:

 

Gold open access option. In February 2013, the INFORMS Board of Directors approved the creation of INFORMS Open Option (IOO). IOO provides an open access alternative for articles accepted for publication in any one of 13 INFORMS journals that would have otherwise only been available through subscriptions or pay per view. Authors of an accepted manuscript who  want to take advantage of IOO are responsible for a one-time publication fee which ensures that the article would be made available to anyone online via INFORMS PubsOnline, for free and in perpetuity. The publication fee is set annually by the publications committee as part of its annual review of journal pricing.

 

Green open access options. Authors may post the accepted manuscript of their papers on personal websites immediately after acceptance.  Authors may post the accepted version of their manuscripts in non-commercial institutional repositories 12-months after INFORMS publishes the final typeset and copyedited paper online. Starting for papers published after January 1, 2015, INFORMS does not allow the final typeset and copyedited version to be posted on personal websites or in institutional repositories.

-------------------------------------------
L Robin Keller, Open Access committee chair (and INFORMS President-elect)
Professor
University of California-Irvine
Irvine CA
LRKeller@uci.edu
-------------------------------------------

Robin,

I shared the latest draft with a colleague in the public health research community, which is one area where open access has made some progress.  Her thoughts are pasted below.

R/
Scott

===

I think open access is part of a more complex business model that answers the question: How will we stay afloat when the use of the journal is no cost for all? Sometimes it is impossible to answer that question in a way that grants access to all. We are struggling with this with Wiley & Sons over the use of the Cochrane Library.

       

The steps toward authors paying for publication runs into problems with authors running out of grant funds by the time they go to publish and it puts authors from developing countries at a distinct disadvantage.

       

The 'green' option is a good option too--but harder for other researchers to find those articles if they do not appear 'open access' PubMed or other big databases.

       

If INFORMS wanted a big visual, easy win, they could join one of the WHO consortia for open access like HINARI or AGORA--although those are scheduled to close in 2015 unless action is taken to extend them. Conversely, INFORMS could take steps to make their publications open access in low income countries. Again--a group that does not have access and could most use the help.

       

I think it is great that INFORMS is pursuing open access.

-------------------------------------------
Scott Nestler
Chief, Force Strategy Division
Center for Army Analysis
Alexandria VA
-------------------------------------------



Original Message:
Sent: 08-18-2014 20:51
From: L Robin Keller
Subject: Your feedback on Open Access publications

Here is a draft of an INFORMS Open Access Policy.  The INFORMS Board discussed it at the July Board meeting and will vote on a policy at the Board meeting in San Francisco in November 2014. (Comments are welcome, send to committee chair Robin Keller at LRKeller@uci.edu.)

********DRAFT*******

INFORMS recognizes open access (OA) as the unrestricted public access to data and manuscripts peer-reviewed and accepted on behalf of any of the association's publications.  INFORMS policy on open access will evolve. In its current state, INFORMS recognizes the following:

1.       Open access is part of the future of publications and is in line with INFORMS' mission to promote greater use of its knowledge by all organizations and the general public.

2.       The revenue generated from the current subscription model enables INFORMS to process and deliver journals of the highest standards that, in return, help it to achieve its mission to lead in the development, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge, basic and applied research and technologies in advanced analytics, operations research, the management sciences, and related methods of improving operational processes, decision-making, and management.

3.       Efforts to expand open access should not be done at the expense of the quality and status of INFORMS' publications. Every effort must be made to sustain these standards.

4.       INFORMS has worked to maintain extremely competitive subscription prices to ensure accessibility to members, the public, and institutions. This traditional subscription model can co-exist with open access as long as doing so does not disrupt the current journal revenue.

 

As part of its efforts to support open access, INFORMS commits to continuing to provide "the following  green" and "gold" open access options to its authors:

 

Gold open access option. In February 2013, the INFORMS Board of Directors approved the creation of INFORMS Open Option (IOO). IOO provides an open access alternative for articles accepted for publication in any one of 13 INFORMS journals that would have otherwise only been available through subscriptions or pay per view. Authors of an accepted manuscript who  want to take advantage of IOO are responsible for a one-time publication fee which ensures that the article would be made available to anyone online via INFORMS PubsOnline, for free and in perpetuity. The publication fee is set annually by the publications committee as part of its annual review of journal pricing.

 

Green open access options. Authors may post the accepted manuscript of their papers on personal websites immediately after acceptance.  Authors may post the accepted version of their manuscripts in non-commercial institutional repositories 12-months after INFORMS publishes the final typeset and copyedited paper online. Starting for papers published after January 1, 2015, INFORMS does not allow the final typeset and copyedited version to be posted on personal websites or in institutional repositories.

-------------------------------------------
L Robin Keller, Open Access committee chair (and INFORMS President-elect)
Professor
University of California-Irvine
Irvine CA
LRKeller@uci.edu
-------------------------------------------