[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber

Thu Dec 13 09:01:57 GMT 2012

David,

The share of APC-charging OA articles was 49 % in 2011 and is growing. 
For more detailed empirical evidence check out our recent article

Bo-Christer Björk, Mikael Laakso
Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development 
and internal structure
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/124

Also as a comment to the discussion on APC levels, I suspect that the 
publisher lobby has been trying to give an impression of a higher 
average APC level than supported by empirical evidence. To me it seems 
pretty clear that researchers getting funding from Wellcome trust are 
among the top stratum of researchers in biomedicine, where APCs on the 
whole are higher and also tend to publish more in the top OA journals 
which charge at the higher end of the scale. Hence an average of 
Wellcome Trust payments is not illustrative.

Best regards

Bo-Christer

On 12/13/12 10:01 AM, David Prosser wrote:
> I must admit that intuitively (and with no real evidence!) I wonder 
> about the 50% figure for the proportion of Gold OA articles for which 
> no APC payment has been made.  The reason being that the biggest OA 
> journals and publishers - PLoS One, BMC, Hindawi - all charge APCs and 
> so although the proportion of journals may be 50%, I would guess that 
> the proportion of articles is significantly less.
>
> But these large publishers are mainly in the life and medical sciences 
> and if one looks at other disciplines the ratio may be closer to 50%. 
>  The reason I think this is an important distinction to make is that 
> we often hear objections from arts and humanities scholars that they 
> cannot support Gold OA as they do not have the funds to pay for APC. 
>  But in their fields (and others) there are many, many Gold OA 
> journals that make no publication charges.  This is where the 'Gold OA 
> journals charge APCs' shorthand becomes rather unhelpful.
>
> I must admit I am completely bemused by Alicia's comments.  She 
> suggests that Elsevier has pioneered a number of business models that 
> are now being clammed by the OA community as being Gold OA.  To help 
> could she give, say, three concrete examples?
>
> Best wishes
>
> David
>
>
>
>
> On 12 Dec 2012, at 23:15, Hans Pfeiffenberger wrote:
>
>> Hi Alicia,
>>
>> an hour before your mail, I suggested a blog article which seems to 
>> say that about 50% of all gold OA journals do not ask for APCs at all 
>> and APCs were indeed not paid for by half of all Gold OA articles.
>>
>> This is not reconcilable with the 3-4% you report. Are we perhaps 
>> talking about completely different ratios?
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Hans
>>
>> for your convenience: the link, again, was: 
>> http://svpow.com/2012/12/10/what-does-it-cost-to-publish-a-gold-open-access-article/
>>
>>
>> Am 12.12.12 13:59, schrieb Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF):
>>>
>>> Hi Richard,
>>>
>>> My colleague does an in-depth annual study on the uptake of 
>>> different business models, and suggests that this figure was 3-4% of 
>>> total articles at the start of 2012. Elsevier, and I'm sure a wide 
>>> array of other publishers, have used a range of business models to 
>>> produce free-to-read journals for decades. I find it very 
>>> interesting that these models are now claimed by the open access 
>>> community as 'gold oa' titles although I suppose that's much less of 
>>> a mouthful than 'free-at-the-point-of-use' titles!
>>>
>>> With kind wishes,
>>>
>>> Alicia
>>>
>>> *From:*goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] 
>>> *On Behalf Of *Richard Poynder
>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 12, 2012 8:42 AM
>>> *To:* 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
>>> *Subject:* [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
>>>
>>> Thanks for the comments David. Your point about not equating Gold OA 
>>> with APCs is well taken.
>>>
>>> But it also invites a question I think: do we know what percentage 
>>> of papers(not journals, but papers) published Gold OA today incur no 
>>> APC charge, and what do we anticipate this percentage becoming in a 
>>> post-Finch world?
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>> //
>>>
>>> *From:*goal-bounces at eprints.org <mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> 
>>> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] *On Behalf Of *David Prosser
>>> *Sent:* 11 December 2012 19:53
>>> *To:* Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
>>> *Subject:* [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
>>>
>>> As ever, Richard has put together a fascinating and entertaining 
>>> interview, and augmented it with a really useful essay on the 
>>> current state of OA policies.
>>>
>>> I have a small quibble.  On page two, Richard writes:
>>>
>>> "...or by means of gold OA, in which researchers (or more usually 
>>> their funders) pay publishers an article-processing charge (APC) to 
>>> ensure that their paper is made freely available on the Web at the 
>>> time of publication."
>>>
>>> APCs make up just one business model that can be used to support 
>>> Gold OA.  Gold is OA through journals - it makes no assumption about 
>>> how the costs of publication are paid for.  I think it is helpful to 
>>> ensure that we do not equate Gold with APCs.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> On 3 Dec 2012, at 18:51, Richard Poynder wrote:
>>>
>>>     /Stuart Shieber is the Welch Professor of Computer Science at
>>>     Harvard University,//Faculty Co-Director/
>>>     <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/sshieber>///of the//Berkman
>>>     Center for Internet and Society/
>>>     <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/sshieber>/, Director of
>>>     Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication (//OSC/
>>>     <http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/>/),  and chief architect of the
>>>     Harvard Open Access (//OA/
>>>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access>/) Policy --- a 2008
>>>     initiative that has seen Harvard become a major force in the OA
>>>     movement./
>>>
>>>     //
>>>
>>>     http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-oa-interviews-harvards-stuart.html
>>>
>>>     <ATT00001..txt>
>>>
>>> Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> GOAL mailing list
>>> GOAL at eprints.org
>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>>>
>>>
>>
>> <ATT00001..txt>
>
>
>
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