JHEP [Journal of High Energy Physics, published by SISSA and IOPP] was set up many years ago in order to fight the overwhelming power of commercial publishers, who make huge profits at the expense of the scientific community....JHEP currently operates successfully as a high-quality online-only journal under a traditional subscriber-pays model.
In addition to the above, JHEP also offers other methods to access full-text peer reviewed content:
Recent JHEP articles are made available as open access via IOP Select. In this service, all articles published within the last 30 days are made free.
JHEP also operates a so-called “delayed” Open Access policy where the JHEP archive (1997-2004) is freely available in 2006. A subscription to the current year is required to gain access to current year plus prior year’s content.
IOP and SISSA offer several ways for researchers in low-income countries to gain free or low cost access to their journals including JHEP. These methods include eJDS (ICTP) and the eIFL and PERI programmes....
JINST [Journal of Instrumentation, also from SISSA and IOPP] is a new journal launched under the same principle “run by scientists for scientists”. Launched in 2006, the journal has got off to a flying start with more than 100 articles submitted and approaching 40 published. JINST is free to all in 2006.
The objective of the “Task Force on Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics” that was set up at CERN is to work towards a transition of the current subscription model for journals to a more stable, more competitive and more affordable future for the dissemination of quality-assured scientific information adapted to the electronic era....
Proposal for JHEP and JINST
Starting from January [2007], JHEP and JINST will introduce an annual fee to be called the institutional membership fee. The institutional membership fee entitles an institution paying the fee to have articles from their institution to be published open access and made available in this way to the entire world. Article made open access in this way would remain open access in future years.
The institutional membership fee also entitles readers at that institution to access the full-text of all of the journal’s content regardless of the status of the paper.
The institutional membership fee would scale according to the number of papers published from that institution in the previous year. There would be a number of bands according to publishing output....[PS: Omitting a worked example.]
We strongly believe that this approach is fully in line with CERN’s objectives and is scalable and affordable for the SCOAP consortium. It also provides institutions with choice to take up the OA model or maintain a low-priced subscription.
SISSA and IOP will promote the institutional membership option and monitor uptake with a view to accelerating take up of this option thereby making JHEP and JINST OA.
After the first, experimental year, we will change both our subscription and institutional membership fee price list according to the results achieved.
Institutions in developing countries (who do not pay for subscriptions on current terms) would continue not to be charged and would have free access to the peer review for their authors.
Comment. This is an interesting new variation. First, it's a hybrid in which the fees are paid by institutions on behalf of all of their authors and all their articles. In that respect it differs from the hybrids we've seen to date in which the fees are charged article by article, each author making an individual choice. Of course it also differs from conventional TA journals in which fees are paid by institutions on behalf of their readers. PLoS and BMC offer institutional memberships, but not in hybrid forms that coexist with subscriptions. Second, it's designed to mesh with the ongoing CERN project to convert all particle physics journals from TA to OA. I commend SISSA and IOPP for working within the constraints of the CERN project, for setting the institutional membership fees so that they're competitive with the subscription prices, and for promising to reduce their subscription prices in proportion to institutional uptake.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/11/2006 11:59:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
