High-energy physics and SCOAP: proposing a new model for publishing

Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under open access |

An interesting development in alternative business models has been put forward by the high-energy physics community, through their SCOAP3 initiative (www.scoap3.org), Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing.  In short, they are attempting to turn the entire field of high-energy physics open access.  By creating a super-consortium, they would make a tender offer to the current publishers of HEP physics.  The publishers would be guaranteed operating money to cover the cost of editorial work, and in return, they offer up the content freely to the entire world.  National Labs, funding agencies, and libraries all might be part of this consortium, and one of the hopes is that the costs to the scholarly community overall would drop significantly, since we would be switching from the relatively inelastic subscription model, where libraries have to buy in or their community loses out, to an author/payer focused model where publishers will lose out if they don’t keep costs at a level that is supported by the consortium.  

With something this bold and ambitious, obviously there are a lot of details to be settled…but the idea is getting a lot of traction in Europe, and enthusiasm is building in the US, where HEPAP (the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel) “strongly supports this initiative”…contingent on the resolution of financial concerns (always a big if!).  

A good summary of the project was published in Symmetry:  http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000551

And the HEPAP presentations: one by a SCOAP3 representative, Salvatore Mele:  (http://www.science.doe.gov/hep/HEPAP/November2007/HEPAP-301107.pdf)

Another, cautionary one, by the Editor in Chief of the American Physical Society, Gene Sprouse: http://www.science.doe.gov/hep/HEPAP/November2007/hepap2-1.pdf)

–Michael Fosmire  

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