WBN Communication of 14 August 2019:
The WBN looks forward to the selection by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Elsevier journals for the pilot open publication programme. The programme is expected to start in the second half of August 2019.
More information on WBN website: https://wbn.icm.edu.pl/komunikaty/
The following information regarding the program may be subject to change, are of a working nature and are still subject to agreement with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (as at 25 July 2019)
Responses of the employee of the Virtual Science Library of the ICM of the University of Warsaw to the pilot program of open publication in Elsevier journals being prepared,
and in particular the invoicing of articles published at a discount:
- The programme has two parts: publication of articles financed entirely by the programme (500 articles in 2019, 1000 articles in 2020 and 1500 articles in 2021) and publication of articles financed by the institutions at a discount (30% discount on 2019, 20% discount on 2020 and 10% discount in 2021).
- An initial list of journals covered by the programme is already available at wbn.icm.edu.pl/licences/#elsevier_oa, but will be updated before the programme is launched. In addition, the Ministry will select from this list those journals in which articles financed entirely from the programme can be published. Other journals on the list will be able to publish articles at the expense of the institution at a discount. If the pool of 500 articles is exhausted by the end of 2019, the discounted articles can be published in all the journals on the list by the end of the year.
- The first part of the programme will be available to correspondent authors affiliated with any institution registered for a national licence. The second part of the program will be used by affiliated authors in those institutions, who will provide additional invoicing data, for which the form supplied by ICM is used. The provision of this information is not mandatory but is a condition for participation in the second part of the programme.
- The correspondent author whose article is accepted for publication in Elsevier will be directed to a special page on the publisher’s server, where the rules for publication will be established. On this page, the author will be asked to indicate the institution in which he is affiliated. If this is one of the institutions participating in the programme, the author will be informed of the forms of publication available for the first or second part of the programme, depending on the magazine.
- In the case of a hybrid magazine, the author will have a choice between a free publication in a subscription model and a publication payable in an open model. In the case of the first part of the programme, the author will be informed that the publication in an open model will be financed by the programme. In the case of the second part of the program, if the author wishes to choose an open publication, he will have to accept that an invoice for the publication will be issued to and sent to the institution where he is affiliated.
- In the case of an article published in a gold open access journal (i.e. offering only open access) under the second part of the programme, the author will also have to agree that an invoice for the publication at a discount will be issued for and sent to his institution.
- If the author chooses an open publication under the first or second part of the scheme, the article and its cost will be sent to ICM for approval of the publication under the scheme. This step is for additional verification that only articles whose author is affiliated with a licensed institution are published under the program. In addition, for the second part of the program, ICM will contact the institution designated by the author to confirm whether the institution wishes to pay for the publication. For this purpose, we would like to use the existing e-mail communication channels with WBN contact persons in institutions and additional e-mails provided by institutions to send invoices. In the future (probably from the beginning of 2020) it will be possible to transfer the process of article approval directly to the institutions, but this year we will have to test and refine the operation of this system together with Elsevier.
- If the institution fails to confirm its intention to pay the discounted publication fee, ICM will reject the article from the program, and the author will have to choose a subscription publication or at his own risk and at his own discretion provide invoicing data and ensure that the open publication fee is paid without the discount.
- If an institution confirms its intention to pay a discounted publication fee, ICM will approve the article and Elsevier will issue an invoice in accordance with its invoicing information attributed to the institution designated by the author.
- The provision of invoicing information does not imply any obligation on the part of the institution to use the scheme or to accept invoices. As described above, the author will choose the method of publication and the payment for each open publication will be confirmed by the institution.
- Non-use of the open access option by the author or failure to confirm the payment by the institution will not result in any restriction of access to the programme in the future.
The second part of the discount is only for institutions participating in the licence. Elsevier requires that the payer of an invoice for a publication with this discount is the institution and not the author or a third party. Elsevier requires the prior indication of the invoicing address in order to avoid the authors providing other addresses. However, it is not relevant to the programme, what are the sources of funding (grants, etc.). - The cost of publishing open access in Elsevier depends on the journal and ranges from EUR 450 to EUR 4600 per article. The median is €2400 in hybrid journals and €1600 in gold open access journals. The costs of each article will be known before it is accepted by ICM and the institution as described above.
- ICM and Elsevier still agree on various details of the implementation of the programme. We hope that the publication of the full description of the programme and its launch will take place at the end of July 2019.