Diamond Open Access - Too good to be true?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Is Diamond Open Access (DOA) the savior of stressed academic library budgets and OA advocates who are clueless about how to deal with the lack of transformation of subscription-based journals and never-ending prolongations of transformative agreements[1]? One might get that impression from the enthusiasm in current debates on reshaping the academic publishing system, a billion-dollar market that absorbs taxpayer money and serves as a ‘gatekeeper of progress’, with journals determining which research gets published, read, and cited. An ever-increasing volume of research is published openly: Anyone with an internet connection can read and work with such an article. For journal articles with OA, generally, two options have existed: Gold OA for journals that are entirely published without subscriptions and Hybrid OA for journals that continue to sell subscriptions but allow for OA to specific articles. So-called “transformative agreements” make every paper from participating institutions in such outlets OA, but the universities pay for it — instead of paying for subscriptions[2]. These contracts come with a plethora of problems[3] and Gold OA struggles with its distorted incentive for publishers to accept more papers to redeem higher APC revenue[4]. DOA is meant to tackle both: Following the common definition, it implies that there exists neither subscription nor publishing fees. Does that sound too good to be true? [1] http://arxiv.org/abs/2409.20224 [2] https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adp8882 [3] http://arxiv.org/abs/2409.20224 [4] https://doi.org/10.1257/000282805774670112
Author: Herb, Ulrich
Institution: Saarland University
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7083167814
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