Guide reviews open-access income models

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has published a guide that reviews the sustainability of current and propective open-access publishers.

The guide, 'Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice', provides an overview of income models currently in use to support open-access journals with examples. It examines the use of supply-side revenue streams, such as article processing fees, advertising, and demand-side models, including versioning, use-triggered fees.

The guide aims to support the development of sound open-access publishing business models by providing an overview of current practice and helping publishers evaluate the viability and financial potential of selected income models.

'There’s not a single solution to creating the income stream necessary to support open-access publication that works for every publisher,' said Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC. 'Through this experimental phase, it’s important to be both flexible and pragmatic in the evaluation of new models.'