[GOAL] Elsevier as an open access publisher

[Ross Mounce]

On 13 January 2017 at 16:57, Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>
wrote:

> Elsevier is now one of the world’s largest open access publishers as
> measured by the number of fully OA journals published. What are the
> implications?


There are precisely no implications.

The number of journals is an utterly irrelevant measure, but I'm assuming
you already knew this.
Journals are just vessels for content. It is actual content that is
important.
Article volume is what counts in publishing (economically), and Elsevier
are nowhere near the largest when it comes to immediate OA publishing.

Most of Elsevier's fully OA journals are recently created and are
low-volume. They can create and close (e.g.
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/new-negatives-in-plant-science/ )
journals at the click of button.

Perhaps though this is part of Elsevier's strategy - at a very very
superficial level (e.g. counting journal titles) it looks like they are
deeply invested in open access publishing. I hope no politicians or
librarians are fooled by this simple ruse.


Sincerely,

Ross
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