Ornithology and open access publishing

It is no secret that the world of scientific publishing is changing. Open access (OA) initiatives implemented over 30 years ago (Laakso et al. 2011), initially aimed at increasing the accessibility of scientific information for disadvantaged groups, have radically changed the model for scientific publishing. Historically, Emu Austral Ornithology has provided OA of any published articles under a hybrid publishing arrangement, where authors can choose to pay the article publishing charge (APC) to allow individual articles to be made freely available in the absence of an individual or institutional subscription. However, a recent publishing agreement seems likely to radically enhance OA uptake within the journal. In 2022, Taylor and Francis and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) signed a very significant agreement (https://caul.libguides.com/read-and-publish) that enables improved use of OA agreements for researchers in the environmental sciences. Under this agreement, participating institutions across Australia and New Zealand can combine institutional subscription and open access, allowing corresponding authors with appropriate institutional affiliations (Australian or New Zealand) to publish their papers as open access without directly incurring APC costs for individual publications.

The drive for this agreement has been acknowledgement of a need for a more open and inclusive model of publishing scientific advances. But why has this been deemed necessary? Over the last 20 years, changes in the funding models within the scientific publishing industry have radically reduced the prevalence of traditional publishing agreements with institutions and societies, in favour of open access policies sector-wide (Figure 1). Under OA publishing, the main costs of publishing scientific findings are now met directly by the authors of articles, their institutions or funders, rather than indirectly through academic institutional subscription costs or membership fees to societies. This is a transformative, if somewhat contentious arrangement (Van Noorden 2013). OA scientific publishing brings a range of benefits, including economic efficiencies, greater accessibility of knowledge for the non-academic sector, faster dissemination of new findings and great equity of access to new knowledge across the globe. The main initial drive was to improve consequences for human health, through initiatives such as the founding of OA publishing house Biomed Central in 2000, allowing fast, equitable access to rapid biomedical advances. Such drives for increased accessibility of scientific information have been boosted in recent years by increased obligations imposed by European and US-based research and funding agencies for researchers to publish their research findings in OA sources (Tennant et al. 2016). These obligations have led to a rapid rise in the number of journals offering OA publishing arrangements, particularly the hybrid model of scientific publishing (Björk 2017), under which authors can choose to pay for their paper to be published with OA or avoid author-related costs and retain their work behind a subscription firewall.

Figure 1. The rise of open access publishing globally in the last 20 years for all subject areas for UK, USA and China. Data show annual global gold and hybrid open access (OA) article publications, from 2003 to 2022. Gold OA is when a publication is published in a fully open access journal; hybrid OA is when a publication is freely available under an open licence in a paid-access journal. Digital Science & Research Solutions, Inc. (2023) dimensions [software]. Available at https://app.dimensions.ai [accessed 29 September 2023].

Unfortunately, in contrast to the original aims, the growth in OA over the last 30 years has not been associated with any consequent reductions in scientific publishing costs to researchers. As the prevalence of OA scientific publication has risen over the last few decades (Figure 1), the costs imposed on authors have also increased substantially. At the time of writing, article processing charges (APC) for OA publishing are around US$2–3,000 /article (up to US$10,100 for Cell) (https://beta.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/pricing). Interestingly, for UK academics publishing in purely OA journals, there is some evidence that higher APC charges may be associated with higher citation impact (Schönfelder 2020), a relationship which arguably may lead to a self-reinforcing market-driven cycle of higher publication charges from higher ranked journals. Unquestionably, despite reductions in print copy production, there has been a substantial rise in APC charges over the last 15 years. University librarians, authors and journal Editorial Boards, are all now struggling to find an arrangement that keeps APC charges manageable for authors, whilst promoting accessible and effective publication of new findings in a financially viable way.

In the world of scientific publishing, however, only one approach to publishing will never fit all scientific disciplines. Whilst there are many benefits to be gained from OA publishing, the author-associated costs and benefits associated with OA publishing vary greatly with discipline, in part driven by sector-specific funding levels. Biomedical research is funded more generously by orders of magnitude, in comparison to many other scientific sectors, enabling researchers within health-related research to meet the journal-specific APC costs at publication. Lack of equity to access to APC charges (Olejniczak and Wilson 2010) potentially creates disparity in the OA options across different disciplines, and this may explain why growth in OA journals in the biomedical sector has been faster than in some other scientific areas, such as environmental sciences – or even ornithology (Ruelas Inzunza et al. 2023). Indeed, within specialist ornithology journals (Figure 2), OA publication rates have outstripped the traditional subscription-model of research publication, only within the last 3 years. This change seems likely to have been driven by a change in practice among the top ranked 15 ornithology journals, in terms of increasing adoption of various OA policies, as well as arrival of purely OA publication journals (e.g. J Avian Research).

Figure 2. All open access (excluding green and bronze OA) and closed article publications in the top 15 ornithology journals, determined by 2022 impact factor ranking, from 2018 to 2022. Closed, no freely available version of the publication has been identified; remaining definitions as per Figure 1. Digital Science & Research Solutions, Inc. (2023) dimensions [software]. Available at https://app.Dimensions.ai [accessed 13 September 2023]. [Journal list: Ornithology (formerly Auk), Ornithological Applications (formerly Condor), Ibis, Avian Research, Journal of Avian Biology, Journal of Raptor Research, Ardeola – International Journal of Ornithology, Bird Conservation International, Avian Conservation and Ecology, Journal of Ornithology, Emu – Austral Ornithology, Ornithology Research, Ostrich, Journal of Field Ornithology, Ornis Fennica].

Emu Austral Ornithology adopted OA publishing through its hybrid publishing model over 10 years ago, in 2013. But ornithologists, working either in the academic or environmental sector rarely have access to funding levels which might support APC charges, in order to release their work for OA, and so the uptake of OA within the journal has been slight over this time. We therefore hope that the new CAUL agreement will change this, by allowing authors from across austral institutions to share their work more widely, without the associated APC costs, which have to date constrained the uptake of OA. As Editors, we therefore look forward to monitoring the impact of this impactful agreement on article accessibility within Emu Austral Ornithology. It seems likely that this agreement should improve OA access uptake, particularly for researchers unable to meet the ever-rising APC costs associated with OA publishing. The clear advantages to avian researchers lie in greater dissemination of their research across the globe, improved integration of research findings across the northern and southern hemispheres, as well as prompter, targeted and more efficient conservation interventions. We applaud the CAUL agreement and hope that it has a positive impact on OA publishing within the environmental sciences across Australia and New Zealand.