The University of California (UC) took a bold decision last year by terminating its contract with Elsevier as it could no longer afford the high publishing costs of the very popular open access model of publishing. In June 2020, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) followed the footsteps of UC and terminated its contract with Elsevier, stating that the publisher did not provide a business proposal that aligns with the Publisher Contracts Framework of MIT.
This is a major jolt to the world of academic publishing, given that UC has more than 280,000 students and as much as 227, 000 faculty members. On the other hand, MIT has approximately 24,000 students studying at its campus currently. The MIT Framework of Publishing Ethics was introduced in the year 2019, and more than 100 academic institutions have openly supported this framework within just one year of publication.
The Framework emphasizes on disseminating latest research studies free of cost and immediately. Moreover, it acknowledges the publication output of authors and institutions in academia. The main goal of this framework is to support “open sciences” without barriers. According to Chris Bourg, the director of MIT Libraries: All the faculty member of MIT are disappointed to know that Elsevier could not reach a consensus with the MIT Publishing Framework; however, all the staff members and students across the country stand by the principle of “open science and knowledge without barriers.”
The negotiations between publishing giant Elsevier and MIT officials failed because the institute wanted all scholarly articles to deposited in MIT repositories immediately after their publication. Elsevier has never really implemented the concept of automated deposit for scholarly articles. Presently, Elsevier has the “read and publish” model of open access publishing, which does not align with the MIT Framework of Publication Ethics.
In the year 2019, UC had challenged the open access policies of Elsevier and was disgruntled with the publisher’s enormous monetary expenses. The officials at UC did not like the exorbitant article processing fees charged by Elsevier for providing “open access publishing option” to UC authors. Moreover, UC wanted Elsevier to draft a contract that allows 100% open access to all articles written by UC authors.
On the other hand, Elsevier offered “the open access model” on a much smaller number of journals, yet the cost of publication was increased significantly for UC authors. The officials at the UC issued a press release stating that they could not bear the publication cost of $30 million over a three-year period, yet they wanted to achieve 100% open access model of publishing.
In the proposal provided by Elsevier, UC authors had to forgo access to a number of subscription-based journals of Elsevier. Moreover, Elsevier did not provide any financial assistance to authors who lacked research grants. However, UCLA’s student newspaper Daily Bruin published a recent report stating that the effect of Elsevier’s ban was not really pronounced on librarians and researchers working at the campus. Very few students and researchers have complained about how the ban has negatively impacted their work.
To make amends, UCLA came up with an innovative “Inter-Library Loan program” that provides subsidized access to articles from libraries located outside the UC campus; these libraries may be located in the US or abroad. However, librarians at the UCLA campus have seen only a slight increase in the number of students availing this program. The increase has been only 15 to 20 percent of the projected value. This means that both students and researchers are now subscribing to articles of other publishers.
According to Virginia Steel, a librarian working at the UCLA campus, the effect of the ban on Elsevier has not really been dramatic. However, the officials at UC and MIT were open to a fresh round of negotiations with Elsevier; however, they both stand firm on the principle of “open access publishing.” The officials of Elsevier are now focusing their efforts on renewing negotiations with officials of both universities.
If Elsevier manages to come up with a contract that aligns with MIT’s Framework of Publication Ethics, then it would be strong step in propagating latest scientific studies to the general public. Although Elsevier shares the ethos of the MIT Framework, it is still not sure how to make a dramatic shift in its subscription-based model of academic publishing. Nevertheless, Elsevier is determined to find out a middle path that satisfies both the parties, thereby promoting the interests of the global community of researchers.
The year 2020 seems to be challenging the monopoly of Elsevier, a leading scientific publisher with a global presence. Interestingly, Elsevier’s negotiations also failed to impress officials at the State University of New York (SUNY) and University of North Carolina (UNC). Both these universities have also not renewed their contract with Elsevier. The officials at the UNC said that Elsevier is not really providing affordable publishing solutions, so they would not go ahead and renew subscription to 2000 e-journals. The UNC officials said that they would be subscribing only to a few selected journals of Elsevier from May 1, 2020.
Following on the footsteps of UNC, the officials at SUNY also decided not to renew their contract with Elsevier for “ScienceDirect” but they declared to subscribe to a short list of titles from Elsevier’s stock of journals. The negotiations between SUNY officials and Elsevier had taken place over a period of one year, but all those efforts seemed futile in changing the minds of the university officials.
The charges proposed by Elsevier were found to be too exorbitant by officials of SUNY. The “open access model of publishing” has changed the dynamics of academic publishing, and Elsevier no longer has an overwhelming control over the content. The officials of SUNY were of the opinion that the publishing charges proposed by Elsevier were inflated to make a whopping profit.