Double Dipping in Hybrid Open Access – Chimera or Reality?

The pros and cons of hybrid open access are heavily disputed. A main point of discussion is whether ‘double dipping’ takes place, i.e. paying twice to publish and read the same article. To examine publishers’ assertions that they do not double dip, a survey was conducted of 24 publishers with detailed questions about their pricing policy using hypothetical examples of hybrid open access publication in their journals. The outcome is quite sobering: while a small number of publishers appear to be fully offsetting their hybrid open access income, or making no additional charge for hybrid open access at all, for the rest of those surveyed no clear evidence could be gathered that double dipping does not take place, and many appeared to be double dipping to some extent.