[GOAL] [SCHOLCOMM] Recent APC price changes for 4 publishers (BMC, Hindawi, PLOS, PeerJ)

Tue Apr 17 11:09:59 BST 2018

Thanks Heather, I am glad you had a good experience publishing in 
/Publications/ (and /Data/)!

Our decision to introduce or increase the APC of a journal depends on 
many factors including the field of research, the reputation 
(visibility,citation, indexing), and volume (=age) of the journal. It is 
not always possible to cover the cost of our work directly and from the 
beginning. The newest journals are free for a few years, typically three 
years; researchers would not be able to raise funding to cover the APC 
of these journals. Also, some journals which support research fields in 
which OA funding remains marginal do not introduce an APC, even after 
Volume 6 or more, as it is the case for the journals /Publications/, 
/Arts/, or a few others. Therefore the costs associated with publishing 
in these journals must be subsided by the APC of established journals.

The "average 27.3% APC increase for 40 journals" we talk about here 
results in a mild increase in the average APC of these journals. Average 
increase is 219 CHF, from 802 CHF in 2017 to 1020 CHF in 2018 for these 
40 titles. This is on the lower end of APC distribution for 
international publishers: 
https://treemaps.intact-project.org/apcdata/openapc/#publisher/

Concerning the planned increase in July:
Eight journals which were accepted for coverage in SCIE in November will 
have their APC increased, following the reasoning explained before. As 
usual we give a >6 months notice to authors before the APC increase 
becomes effective.

About the partnership with Knowledge Unlatched:
We are running this as a trial for 9 journals which normally apply the 
indicated APC. We are exploring this funding model as a viable 
alternative for our HSS journals. For transparency reasons and to give 
credit to KU for their initiative, we decided to list the APC on the 
website with the note "* free for authors; APC funded by Knowledge 
Unlatched" rather than erasing the APC from the website.

Best wishes
Franck

Franck Vazquez, Ph.D
Chief Executive Officer, MDPI
St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
Tel. +41 61 683 77 34
http://www.mdpi.com
--
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7967-3798
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franck_Vazquez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/franck-vazquez-932a96a8/

On 16.04.18 16:57, Heather Morrison wrote:
> Thank you Franck this is very helpful.
> 
> 
> According to this website, the current inflation rate for Switzerland is 
> .8, i.e. less than one per cent:
> 
> https://tradingeconomics.com/switzerland/consumer-price-index-cpi
> 
> 
> I see that a quarter of MDPI's journals have an average price increase 
> of 27.3%. It appears that MDPI is not making decisions about price 
> increases based on such factors as consumer price increase or inflation 
> rates.
> 
> 
> List members who are interested in supporting OA through paying APCs 
> could benefit from understanding how this works in order to budget for 
> future needs. Can you explain MDPI's current and/or projected future 
> pricing strategy?
> 
> 
> MDPI is one of the publishers who offers "free for now" publishing in 
> order to attract content for new journals. As an author, I have 
> benefited from this as well as from MDPI's high quality professional 
> editing and peer review. However, if those who pay APCs do not take this 
> practice into account, they will find themselves short of funds in 
> future when established journals start charging APCs, as 10% of MDPI's 
> journals did this year by your account.
> 
> 
> Two other notes / questions from MDPI for this year that I wonder if you 
> would like to comment on?
> 
> 
>   * new pricing coming in July
>   * partnership with Knowledge Unlatched - on MDPI's APC price list that
>     some journals are
>     "* free for authors; APC funded by Knowledge Unlatched
>     <http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org>" from: http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc
> 
> 
> best,
> 
> 
> Heather Morrison
> 
> Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
> 
> Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
> 
> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
> 
> https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org
> 
> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
> 
> 
> PS: if CHF is not your local currency, you can find both current and 
> historical conversion rates through XE currency converter: 
> https://www.xe.com/currencytables/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* scholcomm-request at lists.ala.org 
> <scholcomm-request at lists.ala.org> on behalf of Dr. Franck Vazquez | CEO 
> | MDPI <vazquez at mdpi.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, April 16, 2018 10:02 AM
> *To:* scholcomm at lists.ala.org; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
> *Subject:* Re: [SCHOLCOMM] Recent APC price changes for 4 publishers 
> (BMC, Hindawi, PLOS, PeerJ)
> 
> Adding up the data summary for MDPI to the picture:
> 
> •164 journals with numeric data in 2017 (average APC 438CHF) and 2018
> (average APC 533CHF)
> •107 journals (65.2%) with no change in APC, including 40 journals free
> (average APC 375CHF)
> •40 journals (24.3%) with APC increase of 6% - 142% (increase range from
> 100 – 500CHF; average APC increase 219CHF; average percent increase 27.3%)
> •17 journals (10.3%) free in 2017, introduced APC in 2018
> (250CHF-550CHF; average APC 370CHF)
> 
> Original data can be found here:
> http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc
> http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc-2017
> 
> Some Publishers and Journals statistics can also be found here:
> https://www.scilit.net/rankings
> Please read the "Disclaimer & Notes".
> 
> Hoping this is useful,
> Best wishes,
> Franck
> 
> Franck Vazquez, Ph.D
> Chief Executive Officer, MDPI
> St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
> Tel. +41 61 683 77 34
> http://www.mdpi.com
> --
> http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7967-3798
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franck_Vazquez
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/franck-vazquez-932a96a8/
> 
> 
> On 13.04.18 18:14, Heather Morrison wrote:
>> Following is a summary of recent APC changes for 4 publishers, prepared 
>> on request but posted in case this might be of interest to anyone else. 
>> In brief, each publisher appears to be following a different pricing 
>> strategy ranging from flat pricing over many years with one rare 
>> exception, to a tenfold increase from 2016 – 2017.
>> 
>> 
>> *BioMedCentral*: mixed picture
>> 
>> • 269 journals with numeric data 2017 and 2018 (April 4 sampling date 
>> both years)
>> • 20 with price increases of 2% – 83% (30 – 620 GBP)
>> • 5 with price decreases of 1% – 15% (15 – 205 GBP)
>> • Of interest: 25 journals with no publication fee (appears to be 
>> society / university sponsorship)
>> • Of concern: 44 journals with “title not found”: some will reflect 
>> earlier title drop
>> 
>> 
>> *Hindawi *April 2016 – November 2017: mixed picture, price increases a 
>> bit concerning
>> 
>> • 281 journals with numeric data for 2016 and 2017 (including 0 = free 
>> for now*)
>> • 99 journals have price increases ranging from 14 – 108% (100% = price 
>> has doubled), increases of 250 – 650 USD
>> • 115 journals have no change in pricing
>> • 45 journals have price decreases of 6 – 25%, 50 – 100 USD
>> • Of interest: 230 Predecessor journals (ISRN series): good practice
>> • Of concern: 186 title not found (not limited to 2017), excluding 
>> predecessor
>> 
>> *Rotating free journals: 5 of the 281 journals were free in 2016; 1 is 
>> still free, the other 4 have APCs of 1250 – 1750 USD. 17 journals that 
>> had an APC in 2016 were free in 2017. Paul Peters sent an e-mail 
>> explaining this strategy a few years ago.
>> 
>> 
>> *PLOS ONE*: flat pricing with one exception
>>  From 2014 – 2018, there has been only one price change for PLOS 
>> journals: PLOS ONE was $1,350 USD in 2014 and is $1,495 USD today. The 
>> sample date was December 2017, a visual scan confirms the same prices 
>> are in effect as of April 13, 2018.
>> 
>> 
>> *PeerJ*: tenfold price increase from 2016 – 2017 (99 USD – 1,095 USD); 
>> new journal PeerJ Computer Science is 895 USD.
>> 
>> See also yesterday’s post
>> 
>> 
>> Frontiers: 40% of journals have price increases from 18 – 31% 
>> <https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/12/frontiers-40-journals-have-apc-increases-of-18-31-from-2017-to-2018/>. 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Blog post link (text is the same):
>> 
>> 
>> https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/13/recent-apc-price-changes-for-4-publishers-bmc-hindawi-plos-peerj/
>> 
>> 
>> best,
>> 
>> 
>> Heather Morrison
>> 
>> Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
>> 
>> Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
>> 
>> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
>> 
>> https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org
>> 
>> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
>> 