[GOAL] Re: Fair Golf vs. Fools Gold

Thu May 14 20:19:40 BST 2015

Thanks Stevan. 

Your comments are very helpful to my research, especially the corrections to my estimates on editing, and so I've copied them and replied on the blog:
http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/05/14/1300-per-article-or-25k-year-in-subsidy-can-generously-support-quality-scholar-led-oa-journal-publishing/

For the benefit of those who prefer to keep the discussion on GOAL, some highlights focused on topics we haven't discussed a lot to date:

The journal per se as a separate entity may become irrelevant in an open access future, with the key functions subsumed in repositories. There are indications that technology and services are already evolving in this direction.

Academic editing is a role that some of us are seeing as important continuing to be essential into the future. Academic editing combined with peer review is a slightly different model than pure peer review with editing limited to a coordination role. I think it's a better model. Scholars are not trained to conduct peer review. A scholar with a lot of experience, and often a knack, for editing, can do a lot to facilitate the process. 

We need to talk about copyediting. There are arguments for and against blind vs. open peer review, but blind copyediting is just silly. Many authors can do their own copyediting and proofreading; and when outside help is needed, it makes more sense for a copyeditor to work closely with the author rather than the journal.

Food for thought...

Heather

On 2015-05-14, at 2:07 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> The subject header should of course have read "Fair Gold vs...." 
> 
> Apologies for the typo. (Someone will surely find a punny in there...)
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:
> Predictably, I won’t try to calculate how much a fair Gold OA fee should be because (as I have argued and tried to show many times before) I do not think there can be a Fair Gold OA fee until Green OA has been universally mandated and provided: Pre-Green Gold is Fools Gold.
> 
> Before universal Green OA, there is no need for Gold OA at all — not,  at least , if the purpose is to provide OA, rather than to spawn a pre-emptive fleet of Gold OA journals (indcluding many “predatory” ones), or a supplementary source of revenue for hybrid (subscription/gold) OA publishers.
> 
> The reason is that today — i.e., prior to universally mandated Green OA — both subscription journals and Gold OA journals continue to perform (and fund) functions that will be obsolate after universal Green OA:
> 
> Peers review for free. Apart from that non-expense, here is what has been mentioned “for a small journal publishing only 20 peer-reviewed articles per year”:
> 
> (a) “top-of-the-line journal hosting”: Obsolete after universal Green OA. 
> 
> The worldwide distributed network of Green OA institutional repositories hosts its own paper output, both pre and post peer review and acceptance by the journal. Acceptance is just a tag. Refereeing is done on the repository version. Simple, standard software notifies referees and gives them access to the unrefereed draft.
> 
> (b) “a senior academic to devote just a little less than one full day per article”: This is a genuine function and expense: 
> 
> The referees have to be selected, the reports have to be adjudicated, the author has to be informed what to do, and the revised final draft has to be adjudicated — all by a competent editor. The real-time estimate sounds right for ultimately accepted articles — but ultimately rejected articles take time too (and for a 20-accepted-articles-per-year journal there will need to be a no-fault submission fee so that accepted authors don’t have to pay for the rejected ones. (Journals with higher quality standards will have higher rejection rates.)
> 
> “(c) a part-time senior support staff at a nice hourly rate to provide over 2 days' support per peer-reviewed article”: Copy-editing is either obsolete or needs to be made a separate, optional service. For managing paper submissions and referee correspondence, much of this can be done with form-letters using simple, standard software. Someone other than the editor may be needed to manage that, but at nowhere near 2 days of real time per accepted article.
> 
> But perhaps the biggest difference between post-Green Fair Gold and pre-Green Fools Gold is the fact that Gold OA fees will be paid out of a small portion institutional subscription cancellation savings post-Green, whereas pre-Green they have to be paid out of extra funds from somewhere else, over and above subscription expenses.
> 
> That, and the fact that there is no need for pre-Green Gold OA and its costs, since Green OA can provide OA at no extra cost.
> 
> To summarize: pre-Green Fools Gold is (1) overpriced and (2) unnecessary, whereas post-Green Fair Gold will (3) fund itself, because Green will have made subscriptions unsustainable.
> 
> And, no, there is no coherent gradual transition from here to there other than mandating Green…
> 
> Harnad, S (2014) The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog 4/28 http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/28/inflated-subscriptions-unsustainable-harnad/
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Reckling, Falk <Falk.Reckling at fwf.ac.at> wrote:
> That data are supported by an initial funding programme of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for OA journals in HSS, see: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16462
> 
> best falk
> ________________________________________________
> Falk Reckling, PhD
> Strategic Analysis
> Department Head
> Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
> Sensengasse 1
> A-1090 Vienna
> Tel: +43-1-5056740-8861
> Mobile: +43-664-5307368
> Email: falk.reckling at fwf.ac.at
> 
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> 
> ________________________________________
> Von: goal-bounces at eprints.org [goal-bounces at eprints.org]&quot; im Auftrag von &quot;Heather Morrison [Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca]
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 14. Mai 2015 15:43
> An: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
> Betreff: [GOAL]  $1, 300 per article or $25, 000 annual subsidy can generously support small scholar-led OA journal publishing
> 
> Drawing from interviews and focus groups with editors of small scholar-led journals, I've developed one generous model that illustrates how $1,300 per article or a $25,000 / year journal subsidy can generously a support small open access journal. In brief, for a small journal publishing only 20 peer-reviewed articles per year, this amount could fund top-of-the-line journal hosting, free up the time of a senior academic to devote just a little less than one full day per article, hire a part-time senior support staff at a nice hourly rate to provide over 2 days' support per peer-reviewed article, with an annual budget of $2,500 for extra costs.
> 
> Calculations here:
> http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/05/14/1300-per-article-or-25k-year-in-subsidy-can-generously-support-quality-scholar-led-oa-journal-publishing/
> 
> 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
> Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
> 
> 
> 
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