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

Fri Dec 20 19:10:44 GMT 2013

One wonders if the dramatic decline, from 2001 to 2012, in both the number published articles (692 -->288) & the subscription price ($12598 -->  $5931) had anything to do with Nuclear Physics B participating in SCOAP3?

Dana L. Roth
Caltech Library  1-32
1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125
626-395-6423  fax 626-792-7540
dzrlib at library.caltech.edu<mailto:dzrlib at library.caltech.edu>
http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 5:51 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier, Flip your journals to Gold OA and/or offer an acceptable Hybrid Model

SCOAP3 and the pre-emptive "flip" model for Gold OA conversion<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/421-SCOAP3-and-the-pre-emptive-flip-model-for-Gold-OA-conversion.html>

Fool's Gold: Publisher Ransom for Freedom from Publisher Embargo?<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1066-Fools-Gold-Publisher-Ransom-for-Freedom-from-Publisher-Embargo.html>

On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 3:35 AM, Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org<mailto:agosti at amnh.org>> wrote:
Dear Wouter

Though you refer to Wall Street Journal that infers journalistic scrutiny, it is in fact just a press release of Elsevier and thus, isn't this following  all the discussion on GOAL only part of the reality?  It might be interesting to the readers to link this press release to the publication of Elsevier's business<http://t.co/l3AHKTNU1Z> figures.

You could similarly add another press release<http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/pp-tot121813.php> that announces yet another deal regarding open access in a much more sophisticated way, providing through the domain specific semantic markup an even greater service to the society, and at a much lower rate. Similarly to SOAP3, it is free because the publisher and libraries got together to make if free. The publisher and editor is the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin who delegated the publishing to Pensoft . Why not compare these two business models, where a new publisher enters the field which has not the overhead and monopoly of Elsevier and thus can dictate the prize of the deal irrespective of the underlying real costs?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/pp-tot121813.php

In both cases time will tell  - but at simple press release does certainly not provide a balanced reply needed at this moment.

Donat

Von: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org>] Im Auftrag von Gerritsma, Wouter
Gesendet: Thursday, December 19, 2013 10:21 PM
An: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
Betreff: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier, Flip your journals to Gold OA and/or offer an acceptable Hybrid Model

Dear G.

Elsevier is doing exactly what you ask for
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20131217-903941.html

At least two of these are financed through SCOAP(3). That might be worth a discussion.

Yours sincerely
Wouter

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Graham Triggs
Sent: donderdag 19 december 2013 16:05
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier, Flip your journals to Gold OA and/or offer an acceptable Hybrid Model

On 18 December 2013 12:47, <christian.gutknecht at ub.unibe.ch<mailto:christian.gutknecht at ub.unibe.ch>> wrote:
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?

Every single one of those are association / society journals. So this wouldn't be a commercial decision by a publisher, but a political one by the association / society. After all, you can't really advocate open access, if your own journals aren't.

Simply making a hybrid journal into open access only would not be sustainable, unless a significant proportion of the articles are already utilising the open access option.

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.

I realise local budgetary issues are a concern. And if you do not have outside funding for research that includes the publication cost of an OA option, then making use of an OA option is going to be impossible whilst you are paying a subscription.

But this is not "double dipping". It's just a question of institution / national affordability.

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.

In theory, Open Access publishing ought to be justifiable in it's own right, in terms of doing the right thing and maximizing the benefit of funding in research.

Where the money comes from, how you allocate funds, etc. are a different matter, and it may well be that given the funding that you have, an Open Access option may only be an illusion of a choice.

But Hybrid is reducing the direct subscription cost - for Elsevier, it appears to be a very minor activity in their hybrid journals, so it is having minimal effect. But if you look at Embo Journal, various Springer hybrid journals - there are documented cases of the subscription costs not just increasing by a lesser amount, but actually reducing in price.

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

The publishing arm of a royal society. So, it is a political decision to expedite the transition to Open Access.

And you are right, there is no reason why Elesvier couldn't use the subscription income as a limited promotion to drive the adoption of Open Access.

(Note that under this model, as Open Access publishing increases, the subscription amount and the subsidy for next year's OA publishing would decrease. So the each year's expenditure would be made up of a decreasing amount of subscription, and an increasing amount of Open Access APC payments).

There is no reason why they can't offer such a promotion, but there is also no reason - for them - why they should. That isn't just an issue about revenue / profit either - there will be agreements in place that may make this tricky, there is investment and re-organisation that would be needed to cope with the transition, and then there are still people questioning trust of paying to publish instead of paying to read.

Whilst we are all very vocal about wanting Open Access, it still doesn't quite translate to the entire community just yet.

G

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