[GOAL] Re: $1, 300 per article or $25, 000 annual subsidy can generously support small scholar-led OA journal publishing
didier.pelaprat at inserm.fr
didier.pelaprat at inserm.fr
Fri May 15 12:30:45 BST 2015
But in the maintime, the Max Planck, in a recent "white paper", seems to
consider as normal a $5,000 APC...
https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news.html
http://dx.doi.org/10.17617/1.3
Indeeed, the $1,300 per article (or less) seems to be fully sufficient
as far as the APC are considered to only cover the overall costs of
publishing, all being included (salaries, taxes, office furniture, and
so on).
But apparently this is not the case, be it for the "commercial" or the
"academic" publishers (see the ppt slide as an attached document).
Especially for the academic ones (Societies, University Press), which
will be to my sense the most difficult problem to solve since it arises
from the scientific community itself.
Indeed, the revenue brought by the journals is redistributed to support
many other things or activities.
For "commercial publishers", it enters in revenues distributed to
investors and shareholders.
Whatever we could think about this transfer consisting in selling the
report of scientific knowledge supported by public funds to the public
institutions which produced it and giving the money to stock exchange
gamblers, this does not appear to me to represent a difficult problem to
solve in long term.
Indeed, commercial publishers develop many other services that they sell
and, having already understood that the journal source is no longer a
guaranteed source, have begun to diversify and ensure other revenue
sources.
The other kind of private service providers, Societies or academic
publishers (University Press companies, etc..), similarly use the
revenues brought from the journals to support other things: congresses,
fellowships, iPad distribution if you answer to their survey (CAS), or
health care insurance for your favourite animal (uniquely for US
members: ACS).
The problem is that these services are rendered to the researchers (and
their animals, for US members only).
Therefore, the same researcher:
- who, in his/her lab, will rightfully complain that the subscriptions
increase scandalously (8%, 10%, 24%, 146%, 600% for the FEMS journals
arrived in Oxford University Press this year)
- will, with just cause, shout against the APC (EMBO journal: $3,900,
adding to the $2,460 “normal charges”, …) which dangerously puncture
their lab budgets,
- will rightfully complain for the lack of research budget
- will, at the same time, and with the most sincere mind, vote in the
Board of his/her Society, or decide, as the Chief Editor of “the Journal
of My Discipline”, $4,000 APCs and an 25% increase in subscription fee.
- with very true and sound arguments that
o it is difficult to maintain the journal alive without increasing the
prices
o the costs of congresses, postdoctoral fellowships, iPads (for survey
respondents, even those who are not US) and animal healthcare (only for
US members) are increasing.
It try to make it somewhat light to read.
But, very seriously, I think we do not have to hide the thing:
Subscriptions and APC are tremendous, not only because of the stock
exchange gamblers and shareholders, but mainly because the system
implies actors who are both judge and parties.
Last year, I directly raised the question to a high level representative
researcher member of EMBO, in a meeting.
The answer was clear: while he had shouted a few minutes ago against the
Elsevier shark publisher, he clearly explained to everybody in the room
that both the subcritption fees and the $6,360 OA publication fees for
EMBO journal were normal, because it served for congresses and
fellowhips.
The “fault” is nowhere.
However, maybe, if we want to make some advances in the topic, maybe we
should directly present the analysis of the system and address questions
to all Societies, of every country and world region:
- do you really think that transferring more and more public funds from
research publication objects, like journals, to other things will be
sustainable, while institution budgets are far from increasing.
- If yes, how will you manage the decrease in your lab budget?
- If yes, how will you manage your concept (or mission?) of “fair” free
and open access to the publicly funded research?
- In which aspects the Society policy towards auto-archiving and Open
repositories, that you personally supported by voting, is in accordance
with your vision of an open science and progress for humanity?
I really think that, if we do not very quickly ask these questions
directly to the involved actors, nothing will change.
From my side, I already had two very clear answers:
- the one from EMBO, aforementioned
- a striking silence from all in FEMS, including the Direction, whe I
raised the question of the 600% increase in subscription fee.
I would not bet, but I fear that it might be quite representative of the
opinion of the scientific community in the Biomedical field.
didier
Le 14-05-2015 16:48, Reckling, Falk a écrit :
> 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
>
> Web: https://www.fwf.ac.at/en
> Twitter: @FWFOpenAccess
> ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1326-1766
>
> ________________________________________
> Von: goal-bounces at eprints.org [goal-bounces at eprints.org]" im
> Auftrag von "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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
-------------- section suivante --------------
Une pi�ce jointe non texte a �t� nettoy�e...
Nom: OAGoldHybridLifeSciSlideDP20150515.ppt
Type: application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
Taille: 558592 octets
Desc: non disponible
Url: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20150515/b6bbe2dd/attachment-0001.ppt
More information about the GOAL
mailing list