An evolving business model for scholarly publishing: exploring the payment of article processing charges (APCs) to achieve open access

Abstract

In terms of scholarly publishing the academic library’s role in Kaitiakitanga is changing. Open access is growing in importance as library budgets contract. There are two main routes to open access: the green route through submission of manuscripts to institutional and subject repositories and the gold route which may require authors to pay article processing charges (APCs). Research Councils in the UK now provide UK universities with a block grant to help UK researchers publish using gold open access. So how are researchers in New Zealand responding to the availability of the gold open access road without similar support? Is this business model working in New Zealand, why are researchers choosing this route and what are the trends? This paper will report the results of a current survey of University of Canterbury researchers publishing their outputs using gold open access. It also aims to uncover the motives for going gold and indicate the demand and costs to an institution of this publishing route, so providing a case study of gold open access publishing in New Zealand.