In the last decade, Open Access (OA) has become an integral part of the funding conditions of European research funders. Recommendations are increasingly becoming mandates that set fixed goals for the implementation of OA up to full obligation (Fournier 2017: 25). The EU, e.g., defines a clear mandate for the Horizon2020 funding program (European Commission 2016: 5).

The clear demands of the research sponsors are opposed to a variety of models of how OA can be implemented in the scientific publication system. Various business models for OA publishing have been developed since around the turn of the millennium. In addition to completely new publishers that are solely oriented towards OA (e.g. PLOS), the established publishers reacted by offering optional OA for individual articles for considerable fees (e.g. open choice at Springer). Only a small number of genuine OA journals for the educational sciences found their way into the portfolios of publishers. The proportion of articles published immediately OA (gold OA) remained limited, and the hybrid model in particular put an even greater strain on the already tight budgets due to the fees charged in addition to the subscription costs.

As a way out of the stagnation, various measures have been tried for several years that aim to flip entire journals or entire journal portfolios from a subscription cost model to a publication-based cost model (Solomon et al. 2016).

The paper examines the effects of three selected transition models, on the expected cost development in the publication market and the roles of scholars and libraries in the publication system compared to the subscription model.

By far the most effective model in terms of quantity is that of the national consortium with the aim of a publication-based cost model, as represented in Germany by the project DEAL (Projekt DEAL). The consortium's strategy is to cover the costs for reading access and the publication fees in a uniform, per-article "publish and read" fee for all of the publisher's journals during a transitional phase. During the transition period, the publisher's claims to remuneration for the articles previously sold via subscriptions (article archives) are to be settled, after which the entire portfolio will be switched to genuine OA and the publisher will only receive publication fees. The amount of these fees is the subject of the consortium negotiations. The basic assumption here is that the sum of the subscription costs paid nationally to the large scientific publishers is sufficient to finance the new, publication-based cost model (Schimmer et al. 2015).

The second transition model examined is based on ​​crowdfunding. Under the subscribe2open label, there are various initiatives that expand the subscription model to include OA components (Crow et al. 2020). The publishers secure their subscription income by ensuring that an upcoming volume of a journal is only made OA if a previously defined number of subscribers renews their subscriptions for this volume. If too many subscribers withdraw from their subscriptions, the volume remains in closed access. Publication fees are not foreseen. Subscribe2open is mainly popular with smaller publishers and extends mainly to journals from the HSS.

The third model sees the best way of transition to OA in taking the journals out of the care of the publishers and transferring them to independent publication platforms that are financed and organized by library consortia (Eve 2017). An example is the open Library of Humanities (2022), a not-for-profit publishing partner, whose operating costs are covered by a "Library Partnership Subsidy Model" with currently around 300 participating institutions. There are no publication fees for scholars.

The paper analyses the transition models to Open Access publishing and contrasts them with the traditional subscription model. The three models have been selected as they represent clearly different approaches in the interaction between publishers, authors and libraries. The selected transition models contrast strongly with regard to the role of the agents involved, in order to analyze the different options and consequences of the transition. A stakeholder analysis focuses systematically on the intended benefits for scholars and research communities and presents new support services from libraries in scholarly publishing. Further on risk factors are worked out that can endanger the goal of sustainable control over the costs of the public sector for the publication system.

It turns out that the effects on the aspects of the cost development and the roles of the stakeholders scholars and libraries are remarkably different in the examined OA transition models. With a view to the development of costs, it is of crucial importance whether the reputation of the scholars remains linked to the market power of the publishers. Even the switch to a new, publication-based payment model does not change the oligopoly position of the publishers and the decoupling of pricing from the actual costs incurred in the production process of the journals. The risk of a second Serial Crisis is manifest (Khoo 2019). It is worth taking a look at alternative models of OA publishing, especially for disciplines in the HSS area, in which research budgets are tight and publications are often produced outside of project funding. The model of the national publication-based consortium brings scholars into a new responsibility, since they act as cost drivers through their publications. Aspects of budget allocation, such as distribution of costs between co-authors, and the responsibility to raise publication funds from research funders pose new challenges. In particular, solutions must be found so that scholars are not faced with an insurmountable publication hurdle caused by publication fees. The opportunity to publish must not become dependent on career status or organizational affiliation. For libraries, the subscribe2open model means the least change compared to the subscription model. Their role in a publication-based model, on the other hand, requires a major restructuring of all processes, whereby their task of balancing interests against the background of the distribution of publication budgets takes on new explosiveness. The model of OA transition represented by the OLH revives the tradition of university publishers customized to the digital age.

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