Subscribe to Open: A practical approach for converting subscription journals to open access

Abstract

OA business models must be sustainable over the long term, and article processing charge payments do not work for all; Subscribe to Open (S2O) is proposed, and being tested, as an alternative model. The S2O model motivates subscribers to participate through economic self‐interest, without reliance on institutional altruism or collective behaviour. The S2O offer targets current subscribers, uses existing subscription systems, and recurs annually, allowing publishers to control risk and revert to conventional subscriptions if necessary. An Annual Reviews pilot is currently testing the S2O model with five journals.

Collaborative transition to open access publishing by scholarly societies

“…Also of particular appeal is Subscribe to Open (S2O), which has already demonstrated success (Annual Reviews, 2020) and is being piloted by a rapidly growing number of societies (American Society Cell Biology, 2020; International Water Association, 2020). S2O allows publishers to transition from gated access to OA one year at a time by offering a journal's current subscribers continued access at a regular subscription discount (Crow et al 2020). If current subscribers participate, content covered by that year's subscription is made OA.…”

Towards sustainable open access: A society publisher's principles and pilots for transition

“…A completely alternative approach to transitioning that we are closely following is the subscribe‐to‐open (S2O) approach from Annual Reviews (see Crow, Gallagher, & Naim, , and http://www.annualreviews.org/page/subscriptions/subscribe-to-open). The S2O approach involves harnessing the existing renewals cycle for the fully commissioned Annual Reviews journals where subscribers are offered a 5% discount to subscribe to the ‘open’ model, meaning that, if a certain threshold number of institutions take up the S2O offering, then all content in the subsequent volume of the journal will be published OA.…”

A report on the future of independent and scholarly publishing webinar by the Scholarly Kitchen

“…There is an ever‐increasing range of models that are being tested to try to accommodate this ever‐changing landscape. The subscribe to open model from Annual Reviews (Crow, Gallagher, & Naim, ) requires a complete subscriber base to continue to support a journal, thereby separating cost of support from the decision to go OA. There are also publish‐and‐read, as well as read‐and‐publish, models.…”