{"id":500,"date":"2017-09-07T15:33:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T15:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/?p=500"},"modified":"2017-09-07T15:33:54","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T15:33:54","slug":"major-german-universities-cancel-elsevier-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/2017\/09\/07\/major-german-universities-cancel-elsevier-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Major German Universities Cancel Elsevier Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

These institutions join around 60 others that hope to put increasing pressure on the publishing giant in ongoing negotiations for a new nationwide licensing agreement.<\/p>\n

By Diana Kwon | July 17, 2017<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\"BRYAN SATALINO<\/span><\/span>I<\/span>n Germany, the fight for open access and favorable pricing for journals is getting heated. At the end of last month (June 30), four major academic institutions in Berlin\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that they would not renew their subscriptions with the Dutch publishing giant Elsevier once they end this December. Then on July 7, nine universities in Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, another large German state, also\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0their intention to cancel their contracts with the publisher at the end of 2017.<\/p>\n

These institutions join\u00a0around 60 others<\/a>\u00a0across the country that allowed their contracts to expire last year.<\/p>\n

The decision to cancel subscriptions was made in order to put pressure on Elsevier during ongoing negotiations. \u201cNobody wants Elsevier to starve\u2014they should be paid fairly for their good service,\u201d says\u00a0Ursula Flitner<\/a>, the head of the medical library at Charit\u00e9\u2013Berlin University of Medicine. \u201cThe problem is, we no longer see what their good service is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charit\u00e9\u2013Berlin University of Medicine is joined by Humboldt University of Berlin, Free University of Berlin, and Technical University of Berlin in letting its Elsevier subscriptions lapse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe general issue is that large parts of the research done is publicly funded, the type setting and quality control [peer review] is done by people who are paid by the public, [and] the purchase of the journals is also paid by the public,\u201d says\u00a0Christian Thomsen<\/a>, the president of the Technical University of Berlin. \u201cSo it\u2019s a bit too much payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project DEAL<\/a>, an alliance of German institutions led by the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (German Rectors\u2019 Conference), has been working to establish a new nationwide licensing agreement with three major scientific publishers, Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley, since 2016. \u201cThe \u2018big three\u2019 cover up to 50 to 60 percent of many library budgets in Germany,\u201d says\u00a0Andreas Degkwitz<\/a>, the director of the library at Humboldt University, which is among those represented by DEAL. \u201cElsevier is the biggest of these.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources would not disclose the costs of subscriptions because their contracts are confidential. But according to Degkwitz, in general, the price of journal subscriptions across all publishers has been increasing on an average of about 5 percent per year.<\/p>\n

The universities that cancelled their contracts are supporting DEAL\u2019s three key demands: fair pricing based on the number of publications, open access to all publications by scientists at German institutions, and permanent access to Elsevier\u2019s electronic journals for scientific bodies represented by the DEAL project. If these objectives are met, payments would no longer be made for journal subscriptions\u2014instead, scientific institutions and funders would pay a certain sum per published article, which would immediately become openly available, Flitner explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see an immediate end [to the negotiations with Elsevier],\u201d Degkwitz adds. \u201cWith Springer and Wiley we might have a contract in the beginning or in the first months of 2018, and so far the cancellations of those subscriptions have not been discussed.\u201d He also points out that Springer has already agreed to implement the \u201cpublish and read model,\u201d which combines reading and publishing into one combined fee, with\u00a0some European institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, Elsevier pointed to a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0it released in June and would not provide further details. \u201cResearchers should also know that Elsevier is working diligently to find a mutually acceptable solution with the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) and to put a new agreement in place this year, ensuring uninterrupted access,\u201d the company writes in the release. \u201cElsevier agrees with all of HRK\u2019s basic requests for a national license and open access, and this is reflected in the numerous constructive proposals that we have submitted to HRK.\u201d However, what this means with respect to DEAL\u2019s three objectives remains unclear.<\/p>\n

The DEAL project also declined\u00a0The Scientist\u2019<\/em>s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Global pressure<\/h1>\n

With\u00a0increasing publication fees<\/a>\u00a0and a growing shift towards open access, academic institutions across Europe are pushing for better contracts with publishing companies.<\/p>\n

For example, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) engaged in\u00a0similar discussions<\/a>\u00a0with Elsevier in 2015, and came to an\u00a0agreement<\/a>\u00a0to make 30 percent of Dutch papers in VSNU-subscribed journals open access by 2018.<\/p>\n

However, \u201cthe Elsevier contract in the Netherlands is not very good, because you have limitations for open access, it\u2019s designated to certain journals, and so on,\u201d Degkwitz says. \u201cThe German DEAL group said we don\u2019t want a similar contract, we want to try to challenge Elsevier to an entirely new pricing or business model.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Finnish library consortium<\/a>\u00a0(FinElib), which represents universities, research institutes, and public libraries in Finland, is also currently negotiating with Elsevier and other major publishers to increase open access and to make pricing more affordable. \u201cI would say that it looks like we are in the same situation with Germany in that Elsevier is not willing to move towards open access,\u201d says\u00a0Arja Tuuliniemi<\/a>, who is head of the FinELib consortium and part of its Elsevier negotiation team \u201cOf course, Elsevier says they already have open access models, but the problem is that they charge big [fees] for open access, and that\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, the price of publishing a single open access article with Elsevier\u00a0ranges<\/a>\u00a0from $500 to $5,000 USD. The\u00a0fee<\/a>\u00a0for a\u00a0Cell, Neuron,\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Current Biology\u00a0<\/em>article, for example, is $5,000 USD, while publishing a paper in\u00a0Cortex<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Genomics Data<\/em>\u00a0costs $2,800 USD and $500 USD, respectively.<\/p>\n

FinELib\u2019s subscriptions to Elsevier continue until the end of 2017, and if an agreement is not reached by that time, the consortium will not renew its contracts. More than 400 members of the Finnish research community have already started a boycott of the publishing giant in the \u201cNo deal, no review<\/a>\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

Similar negotiations have also occurred outside of Europe. Last December, the Consortium on Core Electronic Resources in Taiwan (CONCERT), which represents more than 140 Taiwanese institutions,\u00a0cancelled<\/a>\u00a0Elsevier\u2019s services due to high fees.\u00a0Meng-ling Lin<\/a>, the project lead of CONCERT, tells\u00a0The Scientist\u00a0<\/em>in an email that the two parties have since come to an agreement, and that most institutions have now renewed their contracts. However, 17 percent remain unsubscribed due to \u201cbudget constraints,\u201d Lin adds.<\/p>\n

In Germany, it\u2019s unclear how long the boycott will last. \u201cWe all hope that Elsevier and other publishers will side with research again,\u201d Flitner says. \u201cBut if they don\u2019t, I think the publishing culture will change faster than before, and universities and researchers will find their own ways to publish over the Internet and to build up the information infrastructure best suited to meet their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These institutions join around 60 others that hope to put increasing pressure on the publishing giant in ongoing negotiations for a new nationwide licensing agreement. By Diana Kwon | July 17, 2017 BRYAN SATALINOIn Germany, the fight for open access and favorable pricing for journals is getting heated. At the end of last month (June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-i-learned-today","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/nurazean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}