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UC and Elsevier�A blueprint for publisher negotiations

Jeff MacKie-Mason�University Librarian, University of California, Berkeley, & Professor, UC Berkeley School of Information and Department of Economics

Günter Waibel�Associate Vice Provost & Executive Director, California Digital Library

Mathew Willmott�Open Access Collection Strategist, California Digital Library

CNI April 8 2019

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UC’s Elsevier negotiation

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Jeff MacKie-Mason�Univ Librarian, Prof. of Information and Prof. of Economics, UC Berkeley

@jmmason

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Our (public) goals

  • Cost reduction �
  • Default OA publication for all UC corresponding-authored articles�
  • Transformative agreement that integrates publishing and reading with offsetting

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Negotiations: UC’s final proposal

Cost-neutral with discounted APCs ($12M total UC payment)

Default 100% OA

Multi-payer:

* Library $1000 + author research funding

* OR Library pays all if author unfunded

* OR author opts out of OA

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Negotiations: July 2018 - Feb 2019

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Negotiations progress

After 6 months not addressing publish-and-read, ELS in January offered an integrated contract�

Agreed to support multi-payer workflow

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Negotiations: July 2018 - Feb 2019

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Elsevier Jan 31 offer

Integrated, but 100% OA would raise payment 80% ($30M over 3 yrs)

No OA for Cell, Lancet or many (> 400?) society journals

Forego perpetual access to many journals

No workflow support for Library to cover unfunded authors

Some willingness to move on last 3, but $$ gap huge

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Negotiations: July 2018 - Feb 2019

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Today

No contract since 31 Dec 2018

Negotiations terminated 28 Feb 2019

Access not yet terminated

Alternative access prepared, on stand-by

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Negotiations: July 2018 - Feb 2019

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UC’s coalition

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Jeff MacKie-Mason

@jmmason

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Public support statements

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The UC coalition

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Public support statements

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The UC coalition

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Public support statements

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The UC coalition

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Public support statements

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The UC coalition

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Crucial: Faculty as partners, not merely audience

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The UC coalition

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Faculty as partners in strategy development

UC case study

  • CoUL roadmap (Pathways to OA) - Feb 2018
  • Senate (Library committee) Declaration - April 2018
  • UC Provost advisory Call to Action - June 2018�
  • Only then, CoUL announces negotiations project - June 2018

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The UC coalition

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Keeping faculty informed

UC case study

  • Faculty Senate meetings (full & committee)
  • Town halls
  • Broadcast emails
  • Website banners and portal page with FAQs

  • Public media

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The UC coalition

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Faculty as partners in execution

Faculty on negotiations team (3 of 6)

Faculty as communicators

UC case study: Sequencing communications on termination day (28 Feb 2019)

  1. Faculty Senate letter of endorsement
  2. President's office press release
  3. Broadcast letter to faculty from Provost + campus Senate chair + UL
  4. UC Libraries website announcement

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The UC coalition

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UC’s model for a transformative agreement

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Günter Waibel�Associate Vice Provost & Executive Director, California Digital Library

@guwa

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Today

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Double dipping ● Uncontrolled, independent spending ● Unsustainable

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The alternative: a transformative OA agreement

For the UC, that means…�

  • Off-setting: Subscription fees decrease as OA publishing fees increase
    • addresses the issue of uncontrolled independent spending by two actors�
  • Multi-payer: Library subscription funds + researcher grants fund APCs
    • addresses the issue of sustainability

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What does that look like?

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The Author Experience

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● Library financial transactions are handled in aggregate each quarter ●

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Benefits for authors

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Components of the UC model

Reading Fee

+ Publishing Fees�_________________

Total Contract Cost

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Library subvention(on every article)

Grant-paid remainders(where grant available)

Library-paid remainders(where grant unavailable)

Fixed�at start of agreementVariable totalbased on author choices

Base setat start of agreement

Control�by restricting variance to +/- X%

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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Total contract cost

Total cost range

Reading Fee

Publishing fees

Theoretical cost

Actual payment

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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Total contract cost

Total cost range

Reading Fee

Publishing fees

Theoretical cost

Actual payment

Basis: Expected publication volume 4,500 articles, $2,000 negotiated APC

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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Year 1

Total contract cost

$10,000,000

Total cost range

+/- 2%

Reading Fee

$1,000,000

Publishing fees

$9,000,000

Theoretical cost

$10,000,000

Actual payment

$10,000,000

*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article

Year 1: Publication volume 4,500 articles as estimated

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article

Year 2: Publication volume increases 3% to 4,635 articles

Year 1

Year 2

Total contract cost

$10,000,000

$10,000,000

Total cost range

+/- 2%

+/- 2%

Reading Fee

$1,000,000

$1,000,000

Publishing fees

$9,000,000

$9,270,000

Theoretical cost

$10,000,000

$10,270,000

Actual payment

$10,000,000

$10,200,000

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Total contract cost

$10,000,000

$10,000,000

$10,200,000

Total cost range

+/- 2%

+/- 2%

+/- 2%

Reading Fee

$1,000,000

$1,000,000

$1,000,000

Publishing fees

$9,000,000

$9,270,000

$8,806,000

Theoretical cost

$10,000,000

$10,270,000

$9,806,000

Actual payment

$10,000,000

$10,200,000

$9,996,000

*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article

Year 3: Publication volume decreases 5% to 4,403 articles

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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The more grants participate, the more money is brought into the system.

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article; library subvention $1000 per article

The more grants participate, the more money is brought into the system.

Year 1: 20% of authors use grants

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article; library subvention $1000 per article

The more grants participate, the more money is brought into the system.

Year 1: 20% of authors use grants

Year 2: 30% of authors use grants

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article; library subvention $1000 per article

The more grants participate, the more money is brought into the system.

Year 1: 20% of authors use grants

Year 2: 30% of authors use grants

Year 3: 40% of authors use grants

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Scenario: UC model contract in action

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*Negotiated APC: $2000 per article; library subvention $1000 per article

The more grants participate, the more money is brought into the system.

Year 1: 20% of authors use grants

Year 2: 30% of authors use grants

Year 3: 40% of authors use grants

The model therefore lends itself to lowering costs for the library, so there’s money to reinvest in similar support for native OA publishers.

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What does that mean for grants?

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Assumptions in this analysis:

  • Grants pay full cost of APC when acknowledged by an article
  • Average APC cost is $2,586* (average hybrid APC cost in 2016)

NIH,

2016

NSF,

2016

All Federal

Funders,

2013

$23.3b

in research grants

1.0%

of research funding to cover all APCs

$6.03b

in research grants

$127.3b

in research grants

2.1%

of research funding to cover all APCs

0.9%

of research funding to cover all APCs

*source: Universities UK report, Monitoring the Transition to Open Access: December 2017

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What does that mean for grants?

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Assumptions in this analysis:

  • Grants pay remainder of APC after subvention when acknowledged by an article
  • Average APC cost is $2,586* (average hybrid APC cost in 2016)

NIH,

2016

NSF,

2016

All Federal

Funders,

2013

$23.3b

in research grants

1.0% 0.6%

of research funding to cover all APCs

$6.03b

in research grants

$127.3b

in research grants

2.1% 1.3%

of research funding to cover all APCs

0.9% 0.6%

of research funding to cover all APCs

*source: Universities UK report, Monitoring the Transition to Open Access: December 2017

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In summary, here’s the journey we’re on

Today - unmanaged, escalating OA economy�Subscriptions and APCs are funded and paid for separately in the same journals, without any relationship between them

Tomorrow (or sooner) - transitional OA agreements�Subscriptions and APCs covered by a single, transformative agreement, with one type of fee offsetting the other to eliminate double-dipping and help control the total cost to the university

Eventually - a primarily OA world�Subscription payments largely disappear with funding re-allocated to OA support (both APCs and other funding models)

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The critical role of data analysis

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Mathew Willmott�Open Access Collection Strategist, California Digital Library

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Why invest resources in data analysis?

  • Transformative agreements represent a new way of doing business with vendors. Therefore:�
    • We need to fundamentally understand what this means for our bottom lines, how financial flows are shifting, and what models match with local priorities.�
    • We need to be able to sell our models to stakeholders within the institution. Faculty are data-driven in their own work and want to see that from us as well.�
    • You can bet the vendors are doing the same, and we need to be on equal footing!

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What more do we need to gather?

Data represents fundamental information about the world. To expand our contracts to this scope means gathering added information about:

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Author Publication Patterns

  • Volume of publication
  • Year-over-year growth of publication
  • Distribution across journals
  • Distribution across disciplines
  • Lead/corresponding author
  • OA status of publications
  • Grant acknowledgements

Journal Characteristics

  • List-price APC
  • Known APC discount arrangements
  • Business model (Full OA, Hybrid, Delayed OA, No OA)
  • Portion of the journal currently OA

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Synthesizing, analyzing, and interpreting

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The path forward

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Jeff MacKie-Mason

@jmmason

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Does Elsevier care?

UC revenues? 👎

But tipping point?

  • Germany, Sweden, Hungary, UC, Norway…
  • Others lining up

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Does Elsevier care?

RELX stock price

  • Down 7.1% on announcement day
  • ELS only ⅓ of RELX so roughly 21% hit on ELS value

AND...ELS needs our authors (2 boycott petitions)

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JOIN US!�����(We’ll help)

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