PLOS Library Partnership FAQs 

Collective action is predicated on the assumption that entities that work together as a group – or collective – can achieve outcomes more effectively than working individually. Collective action, an economic, political, and sociological concept was enshrined in the work of Mancur Olson in his book The Logic of Collective Action. Common examples of “collectives” include condominium cooperatives, farm cooperatives, unions, academic library consortia, some forms of insurance and many more.

In the case of PLOS Medicine, PLOS Biology, and PLOS Sustainability & Transformation, the community goal is to cover the costs of the journals (plus a 10% capped margin) by equitably distributing cost, rather than have individual authors pay the high APCs required to cover the cost highly selective publishing. Members of the collective receive the “private benefit” of publishing in both journals with no fees. Authors from non-member institutions are subject to “non-member fees” which increase considerably year-on-year to encourage participation in the collective.

With the PLOS CAP model, any revenue above the targets is redistributed to community members at renewal.

The goal of this model is to use an alternative business model – “collective action” – to:

• Demonstrate that highly selective Open Access journal publishing can cover its costs without charging high APCs, or indeed any APCs 
  
• Equitably distribute cost amongst institutions that publish most in those two journals 
• Cap revenue and redistribute community fees amongst community members when revenue target is reached

Collective action is predicated on the assumption that entities that work together as a group – or collective – can achieve outcomes more effectively than working individually. Collective action as an economic, political, and sociological concept was enshrined in the work of Mancur Olson in his book The Logic of Collective Action. Common examples of “collectives” include condominium cooperatives, farm cooperatives, unions, academic library consortia, some forms of insurance and many more.

In the case of PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology, the community goal is to cover the costs of the journals (plus a 10% capped margin) by equitably distributing cost, rather than have individual authors pay the high APCs required to cover the cost of highly selective publishing. Members of the collective receive the “private benefit” of publishing in both journals with no fees. Authors from non-member institutions are subject to “non-member fees” which increase considerably year-on-year to encourage participation in the collective.

With the PLOS CAP model, any revenue above the targets is redistributed to community members at renewal.

• CAP focuses on making selectivity financially sustainable, NOT on revenue maximization. This means that additional revenue over and above the revenue target is redistributed to Community Action members at renewal. 
• The model is an entirely new method for funding highly selective journals. 
• CAP considers both corresponding and contributing author contributions in calculating publishing activity. 
• Institutions – not PLOS – drive the transition timeline by the speed in which they join the communities. 
• CAP integrates so-called “Read” institutions (addressing the larger concerns about “Read” institutions potentially exiting the publishing ecosystem when they no longer have to pay to read content) by recognizing the contributions/cost represented by institutions who only ever publish as contributing authors but never corresponding authors. 

This model is different from a subscription in that:

• It covers the cost of publishing content not reading content. 

• It transparently links fees and tiers. Historically subscription models have never been fully transparent about what constitutes the basis for their fees. 

• The margin is capped because the goal is sustainable selective publishing – NOT revenue maximization. 

• • Revenues return to community members at renewal if/when the group achieves the revenue target. PLOS does not keep additional revenue above the target.

These are publicly available on the PLOS website at https://plos.org/resources/community-action-publishing/ and progress towards these targets will be reported annually.

While community fees alone could achieve the target, it is more realistic that community fees and non-member fees together will achieve the target since 100% participation in each community is unlikely. 

Any additional revenue above the revenue target will be redistributed to community members in the form of reduced fees the following year.  

There are two main reasons: one mission-driven, the other practical: 

• Mission considerations: PLOS has always been deeply committed to reforming and reimagining the current practice of research assessment to focus less on individual proxy metrics for impact and more on the actual contributions of authors to research. Focusing on corresponding authors – indeed, building entire business models around their designations – further reinscribes the privileged position of corresponding authors, ignoring both the contributions of other authors and the benefits they receive when publishing.  
• Practical considerations: Including contributing authors in the model is a key step to highlighting their roles in the research process and ensuring institutions are covering that cost. 

By including contributing authors, the PLOS Community Action Publishing model begins the process of integrating so-called “Read” institutions into “publishing-based” models. Institutions that are affiliated with contributing authors but never corresponding authors “exit” business models focused on corresponding author designation. Their money goes with them. 

• Given the well-articulated concerns about the shift-to-OA placing undue burden on research intensive institutions to carry the costs for all academic publishing (while read institutions read for free), finding novel ways of integrating these institutions fairly is an important step in evolving business models.   

Community Action Publishing is currently only available for PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, and PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. However, each of our other journals offers a flat fee model for institutions who want to eliminate APCs for their authors publishing in any PLOS journal.

No. PLOS intentionally cross-subsidizes the PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology APCs to keep them lower than the “true APC” (the APC value that would actually cover cost). This is the problem with funding highly selective OA journals with APCs. They typically have to be very high APCs to cover cost. This is why we’re piloting the collective action model.

PLOS Sustainability and Transformation will be the first new title to launch with the CAP model and no APCs.

Highly selective journals have high publishing costs due to high rejection rates and bespoke author services. To make these articles Open Access using individual article processing charges (APCs), the resulting APCs are usually very high ($5K USD or more).

Rather than charge the costly “true APC” that would cover the cost of publishing in those journals (~$6100 USD for PLOS Medicine and ~$5400 for PLOS Biology), we have historically deflated the APC to make it more affordable. With the PLOS Community Action Publishing effort, we will eliminate APCs altogether.