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. 2016 Mar 17:2016:baw018.
doi: 10.1093/database/baw018. Print 2016.

Sustainable funding for biocuration: The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) as a case study of a subscription-based funding model

Leonore Reiser  1 , Tanya Z Berardini  2 , Donghui Li  2 , Robert Muller  2 , Emily M Strait  2 , Qian Li  2 , Yarik Mezheritsky  2 , Andrey Vetushko  2 , Eva Huala  1
Affiliations

Sustainable funding for biocuration: The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) as a case study of a subscription-based funding model

Leonore Reiser et al. Database (Oxford). .

Abstract

Databases and data repositories provide essential functions for the research community by integrating, curating, archiving and otherwise packaging data to facilitate discovery and reuse. Despite their importance, funding for maintenance of these resources is increasingly hard to obtain. Fueled by a desire to find long term, sustainable solutions to database funding, staff from the Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR), founded the nonprofit organization, Phoenix Bioinformatics, using TAIR as a test case for user-based funding. Subscription-based funding has been proposed as an alternative to grant funding but its application has been very limited within the nonprofit sector. Our testing of this model indicates that it is a viable option, at least for some databases, and that it is possible to strike a balance that maximizes access while still incentivizing subscriptions. One year after transitioning to subscription support, TAIR is self-sustaining and Phoenix is poised to expand and support additional resources that wish to incorporate user-based funding strategies. Database URL: www.arabidopsis.org.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
User fee-based funding models. The three main types of user fee models and variations. With the pay to submit model, data are open access and users pay to publish or deposit data. In the pay per use model, uses must pay a fee for data access. User fees can take the form of memberships (ICPSR) or subscriptions. The ‘freemium’ is a hybrid pay for use model in which data access is free but users pay a premium for additional services. Voluntary contributions allow for the broadest data access.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Usage based classification of academic/nonprofit institutions. A histogram showing the distribution of academic and nonprofit institutions grouped into tiers from highest (Tier 1) to lowest (Tier 4) usage. Usage is based on the number of visits tracked by Google Analytics over the period of 1 year, from 1 September 2012 to 31 August 2013. Data for institutions with more than one network domain are combined into a single data point. From a total of 685 institutions, 57 are Tier 1, 63 are Tier 2, 109 are Tier 3 and 456 are Tier 4. Florida State University (arrow), a large 4 year university has low usage (Tier 4) whereas Dartmouth College (asterisk), a medium size 4-year college, has relatively high usage. Both are research intensive institutions.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Subscription management services. The subscription management service software layer serves as an interface between users (researchers and librarians) and databases hosted by Phoenix (e.g. TAIR) or external databases hosted by partners. The software functions include subscription enrollment and payment processing, access control and usage monitoring. It can be customized to accommodate variable metering limits, different user fee models, and display of partner logos. Phoenix staff functions include account management, marketing and business analytics for databases hosted and managed by Phoenix (e.g. TAIR) as well as partner databases that continue to be hosted and managed externally, operating as independent entities with their own staff and infrastructure.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
TAIR subscription distribution by type. The majority of revenue (55%) comes from institutional academic subscriptions followed by country/government academic subscriptions (27%), and companies (16%). Individual subscribers contribute about 2% of revenue.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Global Distribution of TAIR users and revenue. (A) Global distribution of TAIR users for the period of 1 year from (1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015), countries with <2% of usage are pooled (All Others, 22.7%). (B) Global distribution of revenue. Annualized revenue from institutional/government subscriptions for the same time period. Note that this does not reflect the total distribution by country because individual subscribers are not included in the figure.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
TAIR historical and recent usage trends. (A). Annual usage of TAIR database shown as both number of sessions (blue, left axis), and total number page views (purple, right axis). (B) Close up snapshot comparing pre- and post-subscription usage. Google Analytics dashboard showing the number of sessions and page views over an 8-week period from September to November 2015 and an equivalent period in 2013. Dates were adjusted to include the same number of weekday and weekend days for each period. Similar to the year-by-year comparison in panel A, the number of sessions (dark blue) shows a slight decrease while the number of page views shows an increase (dark orange).
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