Policy implications and the way forward

This chapter shows that a number of strategies are available to mitigate the social cost of a transition to OA academic publishing. At present, it seems advisable to proceed with both the green and the gold road to open access. An exclusive transition to gold OA might merely result in the big publishers exploiting the universities on publication fees rather than on subscription fees. The option of secondary publication via the green road leaves the decision to switch to gold OA with the publishers and exerts at the same time some pressure on their subscription fees or publication fees, respectively. Any successful policy towards the transition to OA has to make sure, that all and only those articles are published that meet some minimum quality requirement and that reliable quality signals facilitate potential readers to find the best papers for their purpose.