[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits

Sat Oct 5 17:48:02 BST 2013

There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way.

For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line.

The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop.

Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group.

best,

Heather Morrison

On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, "Sally Morris" <sally at morris-assocs.demon.co.uk<mailto:sally at morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>> wrote:

Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors.  In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers.  Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same).  So what's odd about it?

Sally

Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
Tel:  +44 (0)1903 871286
Email:  sally at morris-assocs.demon.co.uk<mailto:sally at morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>

________________________________
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth
Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00
To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits

In defense of Jeffrey Beall … the extreme variability of Hindawi’s APCs is, at the least, interesting …
especially the large number of ‘free’ and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals.
http://www.hindawi.com/apc/
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> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Jeffrey
"Ignoratio elenchi"? That's from Harry Potter, right?  Spell meaning 'facts be gone'?
Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia.  If that is your area of interest then the profit margins of large commercial, legacy publishers are clearly of more interest than the profit margins of other players.  From the figures I quote (from your blog), Hindawi takes $300 of profit from each paper it publishers.  A large commercial, legacy publisher takes about $1200*.  From where I sit (and I admit my knowledge of economics is almost as bad as that of Latin) it is clear that $1200 per paper is a significantly larger amount than $300 per paper and there is no way the figures back up your contention that 'It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another.'
David
*My conservative guess - happy to have people with access to the figures correct this.  It's basically 30% of $4000
On 3 Oct 2013, at 23:04, Beall, Jeffrey wrote:

David,
Thank you for your ignoratio elenchi.
--Jeffrey
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 3:03 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Jeffrey
in the comment section to your post Ahmed Hindawi points out that the average revenue per paper published by Hindawi is about $600.  For people like Elsevier it is in excess of $4000 per paper.  I think it is clear which publisher is taking (significantly) more money out of the system.
David
On 3 Oct 2013, at 20:31, Beall, Jeffrey wrote:

Heather:
I’ve documented<http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/04/04/hindawis-profits-are-larger-than-elseviers/> that Hindawi’s profit margin is higher than Elsevier’s. So, I am correct in assuming that you include Hindawi in your advice below, no? Also, it’s been revealed that a number of the higher ups at PLOS are drawing salaries of over a quarter-million dollars a year, and one was even drawing a salary of over a half-million dollars. It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another.
Thanks,
Jeffrey Beall
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 11:43 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Scholars jobs not publisher profits
My reaction to the EBSCO report on expected ongoing high price increases by some in the scholarly publishing sector at the same time that academics at my alma mater have been asked to consider voluntary severance has been posted to my blog:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2013/10/scholars-lets-keep-our-jobs-and-ditch.html
My conclusion:
It is time for scholars, university administrators and research funders to wake up and realize that creation of new knowledge is done by researchers, not publishers. Don't give up your job or or let your colleagues give up theirs without demanding that the large commercial scholarly publishers give up their 30-40% profit margins.
best,
--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca<mailto:Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>

ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 /
Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
sept-1 oct 2013

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
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