[GOAL] Elsevier, Flip your journals to Gold OA and/or offer an acceptable Hybrid Model

[christian.gutknecht at ub.unibe.ch]

Hi Alicia

Sometimes I wonder, do you guys at Elsevier really believe what you are
saying? Or are you just playing your role/doing your job to maximize the
 revenue, but in the same time you are fully aware that what you're saying
is just pure double talk?

Given the fact that in Switzerland the national consortium just renewed
the big deal with a yearly price increase of 4.5% I can confirm that
Elsevier is doing a very good job on financial terms. I really give you
that. But please stop claiming that you "serve the research community² and
that you are "mindful of their perspectives". Sorry, but that¹s definitely
not your interest, otherwise you would:

  

1. Flip your journals to Gold OA. Start with high ranked journals, because
as you know most researchers still care. Although the true cost of
publishing remains unclear (http://doi.org/kxz), I think it's safe to say,
that with an APC between $1500 and $3000 you still can make solid profit.
Probably not as much as with the subscription model, but still reasonable.
And if you really have a high ranked journal you can indeed increase the
price to whatever the demand on researcher side will support.

Others publisher are doing it:
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-109721.html
Why not Elsevier?


  
2. Offer an acceptable hybrid model. Avoid double dipping on an
institutional/consortium/national level (not on a global level as you do
now). We explicitly requested Elsevier to do so in Switzerland. However
Elsevier refused to come up with a solution that reduces our subscription
price according the amount of paid hybrid of our authors. Elsevier argued,
subscription and OA are two independent things and shouldn't be mixed
financially. This might be true for Elsevier, where local sales manager
obviously are not aware, what's going on about OA in the own company. But
it isn't true for any institution which has to care about its budget. How
can an institution justify additional hybrid costs in a budget if only a
tiny share will immediately come back with reduced global list prices.
This may temporary work in UK, but I¹m quite sure they soon will realize
that Hybrid without reducing the direct subscription cost is not
sustainable.

And yes, other publishers are doing it:
http://www.rsc.org/publishing/librarians/goldforgold.asp
Why not Elsevier?


In the whole OA-movement I think we¹re currently in the phase where we
debate how much OA should cost. And I completely understand that
subscriptions publisher (but of course also for-profit OA publishers) will
do whatever they can to keep their revenue high and the other side (thank
you Stevan) will try to keep the price low. But within that debate (where
I hope we will find each other in the middle) there should be an honesty
about the real motivation. And therefore I really can¹t stand Elsevier
claiming to serve the research community. Elsevier misses too much
opportunities to do so.

Kind Regards

--
Christian Gutknecht

University of Bern
University Library
Muesmattstr. 27
CH-3000 Bern 8
Tel. +41 31 631 9596
christian.gutknecht at ub.unibe.ch
http://www.openaccess.unibe.ch
http://www.boris.unibe.ch




>Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 20:37:48 +0000
>From: "Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF)" <A.Wise at elsevier.com>
>Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier Takedown Of Green Openaccess
>To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal at eprints.org>
>Cc: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal at eprints.org>
>Message-ID: <D1DFCB91-C35A-47D0-997A-00A11735A758 at elsevier.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>Hi Peter,
>
>
>We are not against green open access: we are for finding ways to make
>green open access work over time and at scale. Our view is that no one,
>including us, wants to spend time and money finding copies of final
>published journal articles online and asking for their removal. But as
>interest in scholarly sharing and green open access continues to grow, we
>do feel it is important  ? for researchers and for our business ? to find
>ways forward that are both scalable and sustainable for all stakeholders.
>
>If immediate open access to final articles is wanted, the gold open
>access publishing model works and Elsevier enables this by publishing
>more than 70 fully open access and 1,600+ hybrid open access journals.
>The immediate availability of final articles published under the
>subscription model is not sustainable at scale. Elsevier supports authors
>who want to share their research, and we have simple guidelines to
>support sustainable approaches to green open access.  For more
>information see:
>
>http://www.elsevier.com/connect/a-comment-on-takedown-notices
>
>With kind wishes,
>Alicia