source : European Southern Observatory

The publisher provides authors (or their institution) with two alternatives: either apply the author-pays model involving upstream payment/subsidy to ensure open access to their articles or apply the reader-pays model that can be based on the traditional subscription system or on a pay-per-view system. Several "traditional" publishers now offer a solution based on this model.

Examples of initiatives launched by publishers

·       Oxford University Press (OUP): Oxford Open (May 2005), $2,800 per approved article; $1,500 if the author’s organisation has subscribed to the journal.

·       Springer-Kluwer: OpenChoice (July 2004).

·       Blackwell Publishing: Online Open, $2,500 per article or $1,250 vat. excl. (optional scheme for companies that publish via Blackwell).

·       American Institute of Physics (AIP): Since 2005, Author Select offers an Open Access option for 3 journals ($2,000 per article):

- Journal of Mathematical Physics.

- Review of Scientific Instruments.

- Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.

Sources : Wiki AO (in French) – URFIST of Nice.

List of publishers with Paid Options for Open Access

Access to a journal can also be only partly open if a publisher introduces an embargo with a more or less substantial "moving wall". A moving wall of 2 to 5 years is standard practice. Access to embargoed articles is restricted to subscribers whereas access to articles published earlier is entirely open.

Open Access journals represent a new business model that is based on the principle whereby the journal’s publication expenses are borne by the authors.

Funding therefore no longer takes place downstream of the publication via subscriptions. It is provided upstream through payment by the author of a lump sum for every article that is accepted.

In most cases, this sum isn’t directly paid by authors. Rather, it is subsidised and covered by their institution or by a research funding body.

Open Access can be implemented in a wide variety of ways:

·       Existing journals may switch to the new business model (refer to the list of journals / publishers that have switched from the traditional model to an Open Access model) and new OA journals may be created and even new publishing companies (e.g.: BioMed Central and Public Library of Science).

·       Some OA publishers are non-profit organisations (e.g. Public Library of Science or PLOS) while others are profit-oriented (e.g. BioMed Central or BMC).

This model is considered economically viable since the marginal costs related to peer-reviewing, writing and editing, and distributing articles are considerably lower than the prices currently charged for subscribing to a journal.

The transition period during which traditional journals and OA journals must coexist will inevitably result in additional costs for research organisations as they must continue to subscribe to journals while funding OA articles.

This barrier will only be removed if a number of existing journals quickly switch to OA. Regarding this, the CERN’s recent SCOAP3 initiative puts forth some interesting ideas. Considering that six authoritative journals (published by Springer, Elsevier, IOP and APS) cover over 80 % of the scientific output in the field of high energy physics, an international network of funding agencies, research institutions and libraries is being set up to raise the funds required to ensure open access to these journals. (French source: Couperin Open Archives).

See also: List of university funds that support Open Access journals

Some journals are assembled from preprints deposited in OA repositories such as ArXiv. When their editorial boards find a recent article in theses archives that is consistent with what they wish to publish, they take on the peer-reviewing process and handle the open access distribution of the article in what is known as an epijournal. "Epi" is Greek for "on". Epijournals can be considered an upper layer that promotes preprint servers.

• the CCSD[1]’s Episciences project  http://episciences.org/epimath.html 

• What's wrong with scholarly publishing today? II
  BREMBS, Björn. « What's wrong with scholarly publishing today? II », 2009. Disponible sur : http://www.slideshare.net/brembs/whats-wrong-with-scholarly-publishing-today-ii