Communication is essential for scientists. This includes communication with each other as well as communication with the non-scientific public. For the communication among scientists, the subscription model has been used as a common standard institution for some decades. But in recent years, the suitability of this institution has been doubted for three reasons: First, the profit margin of publishers that are trading in the scientific communication market is exorbitant (c.f. Johnson et al. 2018). The profit is generated by high subscriptions fees, that are in the case of scientific communication paid with public money. It is obvious, that cost-efficiency and exorbitant profits do not fit well. High profits of publishers cut resources for research. Second, commercial publishers, who often have monopolistic positions in the market (Schindler und Rummler 2018, 10), occasionally misused their position to communicate information that today would be called ‘alternative facts’ into the scientific community in order to increase their profit (Mühlbauer 2009). Third, increased institutional subscription fees have forced libraries to terminate subscriptions of some journals. Thus scientists were excluded from scientific communication. Exorbitant profits, misuse and exclusion suggest that the subscription system has become dysfunctional.

In recent years, it has thus been argued that the communication among scientists should be organised around an institution called open access model (Schindler und Rummler 2018, 12). This model is connected to the idea of open science. The aim is to cut exorbitant profits, prohibit misuse of market positions and include all scientists in the communication. Additionally it has been argued that a major part of scientific research is funded by public money. The results should thus belong to the public and be offered to the public in a cost-effective way.

Currently, the question for institutions that can accommodate the need for scientific communication most effectively is still open. While some researchers argue that the subscription system is more efficient (Jochum 2018), others say that open access is superior (Houghton 2010). In this debate, reliable data are rare. Most arguments are based on rather rough estimates (Houghton u. a. 2009), but not on actual budgets of journals. This is caused by a lack of data collection standards, common cost models as well as available data about the actual costs in detail. Calculations from commercial publishers are not available. Estimations for journals are often based on Article Processing Charges (APC) or subscription fees multiplied by the number of subscribers (c.f. King and Tenopir 1999; Morris 2005 Jubb et al. 2011). This applies considerably for education. While Jubb et al. (2011) give an overview to publication costs for Open Access journals in the United Kingdom, no data for publications costs in Educational Sciences is available on the level of a single journal or university journal publishing in Europe (for an overview to Edu-related Open Access journals see Rummler 2019). .

Thus the workshop aims at developing models for the calculation of the total costs of ownership for scientific communication systems based on detailed data provided by the presenters who are editors of Open Access journals. At the same time individual structures and demands of these journals need to considered. In the next step, the financing models including budget figures of these four international Open Aaccess journals from the field of Media Education will be compared and the measures discussed in order to create a common model.

Existing OA journals usually work on a revenue surplus account – system. Data from these systems will be compared for a first estimate of OA costs in detail. This includes to propose different sets of descriptors and cost categories, depending on different types of journals and their specificities. In contrast to the Golden and Green OA-journals covered by Houghton (2010) and Jubb et al. (2011) the four exemplary journals have applied the Platinum (or Diamond) model of Open Access as neither APC nor subscription fees are charged. It is thus not envisaged to compare this type of journals to those run by commercial publishers, or to compare these journals to monographic publications. During the workshop, the editors of the four journals will discuss different approaches to and needs for a common TCO-model with the experts from EERA Network: 12. LISnet in order to create exchange and further development towards a deeper understanding of publishing demands within European Educational Sciences.

A TCO-model for scientific publishing will be established in the workshop. It will be shown that the key to maintain these services is sustainability. The claim for sustainability is that Universities and learned societies, who often support not-for-profit Open Access journals, need to guarantee the continuing operation of the journals, including the voluntary work of reviewers, authors and editors. In this perspective, a financial model for these sample journals needs to account for the not-for-profit character of the journals, but needs to account that at least some of the costs should be covered.

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