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<font size=3>[Forwarding from John Houghton, via the LibLicense
list. --Peter Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
While finding 'The stm Report'
<<a href="http://bit.ly/1nGiCg" eudora="autourl">
http://bit.ly/1nGiCg</a>> interesting and informative, in reference to
work that I have been involved in I can't help noticing a repetition of
the number of mistakes that were made by representatives of some in the
publishing industry earlier this year and refuted at that time.<br><br>
I refer to Section 4.9 (pp56-57) of The stm Report, which addresses the
system-wide perspective on costs and cost savings. The text
reads:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">"A JISC report (Houghton et
al. 2009) published the following year by the economist John Houghton
estimated system-wide savings accruing to open access publishing in the
UK alone at GBP 212m, less the author-side fees of GBP 172m, giving a net
saving of GBP 41m. (This appears roughly comparable in scale to the GBP
560m global savings estimated in the RIN report.) The largest
single part of the savings (GBP 106m) came from research performance
savings, including reduced time spent by researchers on search and
discovery, seeking and obtaining permissions, faster peer review through
greater access, and less time spent writing due to greater ease of access
e.g. for reference checking. Funders should, according to Houghton,
therefore be comfortable with diverting research funds to pay for open
access charges because the savings in research performance etc. would
outweigh the cost.<br><br>
In response, publisher organisations (PA, ALPSP & stm 2009) have
argued that the analysis was deeply flawed. It underestimated the
efficiencies of the current subscription system and the levels of access
enjoyed by UK researchers. Many of the savings hypothesized would depend
on the rest of the world adopting author-pays or self-archiving models.
The calculated savings would remain hypothetical unless translated into
job losses; for example some 200 library job losses would be required to
realize the estimated GBP 11m savings in library costs. Critics also
argue that Houghton et al. underestimated the costs of switching to an
author-pays model because they underestimated the true costs of
publishing an article only, and because additional costs such as the
infrastructure required to manage the many small publication charges were
not included.<br><br>
In addition to the system savings, Houghton suggested increased economic
returns to UK public-sector R&D arising from increased access might
be worth around GBP 170m. This appears speculative, resting on flawed and
untested assumptions about the levels of current access and the marginal
rate of return to any increased access."</blockquote><br>
Just for the record:<br><br>
* The publishers' comments referred to (i.e. PA, ALPSP & stm 2009)
triggered a response from JISC which I note is not mentioned, but was
sent to the publishers' associations and can be found at<br>
<a href="http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/responseoneiaspmreport.pdf" eudora="autourl">
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/responseoneiaspmreport.pdf</a>
. <br>
Hence many of the mistakes (e.g. regarding job losses) could have been
avoided rather than simply being repeated.<br><br>
* In response to publishers' comments, an addendum to the JISC report was
issued which can be found at<br>
<a href="http://www.cfses.com/EI-ASPM/JISC%20EI-ASPM%20Report%20(Addendum%20April%2009).pdf" eudora="autourl">
http://www.cfses.com/EI-ASPM/JISC%20EI-ASPM%20Report%20%28Addendum%20April%2009%29.pdf</a>
<br>
Its primary purpose was to further tease out the differences between
models and between UK unilateral versus worldwide adoption of OA
alternatives. Hence the issue embodied in the comment "Many of the
savings hypothesized would depend on the rest of the world adopting
author-pays or self-archiving models" has also been dealt with
before and could have been avoided rather than simply being
repeated.<br><br>
* The phrase "Critics also argue..." (e.g. page 57 of The stm
Report and page 7 in the recent SME report also by Mark Ware (see below))
fails to carry any references or indicate who the critics are. Are there
such sources?<br><br>
* Page 57 of The stm Report states: "... because additional costs
such as the infrastructure required to manage the many small publication
charges were not included." This claim about the cost of author-pays
payment management is also repeated and is incorrect. A cost for
author-side payments was included in the model.<br><br>
* The stm Report states "... underestimated the efficiencies of the
current subscription system..." In fact, the returns to
R&D aspect of the analysis is based on introducing accessibility and
efficiency into a standard Solow-Swan model as negative or friction
variables and looking at the impact of reducing the friction. Hence,
"the efficiencies of the current system" are the baseline...
they are not underestimated, overestimated or estimated in any way at
all, they are taken as given.<br><br>
* The stm Report states: "... speculative, resting on flawed and
untested assumptions about the levels of current access...". The
levels of access are discussed at length in the JISC report, as is the
basis for the parameters used in estimating the potential impacts on
returns to R&D spending. Data sources and references are given.
Moreover, its difficult to see how the potential 5% increase in
accessibility modelled in the JISC study could realistically be described
as "underestimated... the levels of access enjoyed by UK
researchers" in the light of the evidence. Just to take one example,
a recent survey of UK small firm (SME) access to journal articles by Mark
Ware Consulting
(<a href="http://www.publishingresearch.net/SMEaccess.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.publishingresearch.net/SMEaccess.htm</a>) found that 73% of
UK-based SMEs report difficulties accessing the journal articles they
need, and that just 2% of SME, 7% of large firm and 17% of higher
education-based researchers reported having access to all the articles
they need for their work (page 13, table 2). The same report notes that
there are 4.7 million businesses in the UK of which 99.3% have fewer than
50 employees, and it would appear from reported sample sizes that 2% of
SMEs equates to just 4 firms. On page 22 the report notes that 71% of
SMEs reported using open access journals and 42% reported using
institutional repositories. On page 30 the report also notes
"Several firms were enjoying access via the libraries of the
universities where they had previously worked. It was not entirely clear
whether this use would have been legitimate under the terms of the
libraries' licences." Only Mark knows whether there was any overlap
between the 4 SMEs and the "several firms...", or between the 4
SMEs that reported having access to all the articles they needed and the
132 small firms that reported using OA journals.<br><br>
Regards,<br>
John Houghton<br><br>
Victoria University<br><br>
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