MacKenzie Smith
University Librarian
University of California, Davis
To succeed, the “gold” open access (OA) model, paid for with article processing charges (APCs), must be financially viable for academic research institutions and other stakeholders in the scholarly publishing system. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded “Pay It Forward” project examined the viability of gold OA by looking at institutional costs, faculty and graduate student opinions, and various models for funding APCs. The Pay It Forward research teams gathered a variety of qualitative and quantitative data from publishers, research libraries, and faculty and students including: current APC charges, current subscription charges, journal publication costs, opinions and behavior of graduate students and faculty members regarding publishing, reading, and OA. Previous presentations at CNI described the project plans and provided updates on the work. This session will discuss the final findings of the research and its implications for the viability of the gold OA model.