[GOAL] Elsevier as an open access publisher

[Heather Morrison]

Oops - the average APC for Elsevier's fully OA journals that do charge APCs is $1,731 US, $660 if the non-charging journals are factored in with a cost of $0.

When calculating the potential cost of a full flip to open access, it is important to take into account the journals that do not charge APCs because:

- this is the majority of fully OA journals (even the ones published by Elsevier)

- to be sustained in the long term, these journals that do not rely on APCs will need supports of various kinds, eg volunteer or paid editors, journal hosting

It is useful to take average APC as surrogate for average cost per article for purposes of ballpark calculation of the potential cost of a full flip to OA, but in planning support services I suggest taking into account that there are a variety of business models and a range of needs.

Best,

Heather Morrison


-------- Original message --------
From: Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>
Date: 2017-01-13 4:55 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal at eprints.org>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Elsevier as an open access publisher

Thanks to Ross for this information which I argue supports my argument that Elsevier is now a major OA publisher.

With apologies for duplication, here are some other points made in the article others may wish to comment on:

- most of Elsevier’s fully OA journals do not charge APCs
- Elsevier’s fully OA journals that do have APCs charge an average of $660, about a quarter of what their hybrids charge at $2,550
- author nominal copyright, i.e. the author’s name appears beside the copyright symbol with CC license, but authors become third party to their own works. Clearly Elsevier is the licensor with respect to CC licensed works, a privilege that requires copyright ownership

My conclusion, based on a very broad-brush analysis of Elsevier revenue, article production, ownership of older works, and other business matters, suggests that a smooth flip to OA via APCs for Elsevier would be problematic at best.

As noted in the abstract, this is very broad brush. Additional information would be helpful.

best,

Heather Morrison

One specific reply below.


> On Jan 13, 2017, at 4:03 PM, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Elsevier self-report (trustworthy?) more relevant article-level data here:
> https://www.elsevier.com/connect/elsevier-publishing-a-look-at-the-numbers-and-more
>
> "We ended 2015 as the 4th largest open access publisher, with 20,000 open access (author or funder paid) articles in 2015."
>
> Note, to make themselves look good, they are counting _just_ articles published in 2015 for this statistic/ranking (not total articles all-time, as they would be further down the rankings!) and it heavily relies upon the inclusion of hybrid "open access" (?) content, not just articles published in fully OA journal titles.
>
> Heather: do you know the number of _articles_ Elsevier has published in their fully open access journals? That would be the more informative statistic to report.

OA article counts is not the objective of my research. If you or anyone else would like to pursue this research question, I agree it is a worthy research goal, please go ahead.


>
> On 13 January 2017 at 20:47, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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> Ross Mounce, PhD
> Software Sustainability Institute Fellow 2016
> Dept. of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge
> www.rossmounce.co.uk<http://www.rossmounce.co.uk>
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