<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">On Jun 28, 2017, at 9:57 AM, Andrew Odlyzko <<a href="mailto:odlyzko@umn.edu">odlyzko@umn.edu</a>> wrote:</span><div><br></div><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">we could operate an adequate scholarly publishing business, with the current level of peer review, at $300 per article, or 10% what it costs Elsevier. The main obstacle is inertia.</blockquote><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;direction:ltr"><br></div><blockquote style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style="direction:ltr">"<font face="Verdana, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px">I think that the true figure for peer-review implementation alone </span></font></div><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style="direction:ltr"><font face="Verdana, arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px">across all refereed journals </span></font><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px;font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">probably averages closer to $200 per article, </span></div><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style="direction:ltr"><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px;font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">or even lower. Hence, quality-control costs account </span><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px;font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">for only 10% of the </span></div><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style="direction:ltr"><span style="font-size:12.960000038146973px;font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">collective tolls actually being paid per article.” </span></div></blockquote></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><blockquote style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail-AppleOriginalContents" style=""><i style="font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10.079999923706055px">Nature</i><span style="font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10.079999923706055px"> </span><b style="font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10.079999923706055px">410</b><span style="font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10.079999923706055px">, 1024-1025 (<b>26 April 2001</b>) | </span><span class="gmail-doi" style="font-family:Verdana,arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10.079999923706055px"><abbr title="Digital Object Identifier">doi</abbr>:10.1038/35074210</span></div></blockquote></div><div><blockquote style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6832/full/4101024a0.html">https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6832/full/4101024a0.html</a></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><div><blockquote style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><br></div></blockquote><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">Inertia indeed, on the part of the publishing industry, predictably, but on the part of the </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px">research community, deplorably…</span><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px"><b>Stevan Harnad</b></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 9:57 AM, Andrew Odlyzko <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:odlyzko@umn.edu" target="_blank">odlyzko@umn.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Perhaps a Kazhakstani graduate student can provide simple distribution<br>
of files at a very low cost. But once you get into providing anything<br>
resembling serious curation, and even more when you get into peer review,<br>
costs do mount up. For example, arXiv costs about $10 per preprint<br>
submitted (if we divide the annual cost of the arXiv by the number of<br>
new submissions, and so don't worry about the accounting niceties of<br>
splitting the costs between handling new and old papers). For a few<br>
million papers per year for all of scholarly publishing, this gets<br>
beyond the capability of a Kazhakstani graduate student.<br>
<br>
<br>
This rough estimate of $10 per preprint for arXiv, and others to be quoted,<br>
are all from the paper "Open Access, library and publisher competition, and<br>
the evolution of general commerce," Evaluation Review, vol. 39, no. 1,<br>
Feb. 2015, pp. 130-163,<br>
<br>
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0193841X13514751" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/<wbr>0193841X13514751</a><br>
<br>
and (for those who can't get inside the paywall), a preprint is at<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/libpubcomp.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~<wbr>odlyzko/doc/libpubcomp.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Going beyond preprint distribution (and the very light level of screening<br>
by volunteer editors, which does exist at arXiv, at no monetary cost),<br>
Elsevier collects about $5,000 in total on average for each article they<br>
publish. About $2,000 is their profit, and the remaining $3,000 covers<br>
what they claim are necessary costs. As many (including your truly) have<br>
been arguing for a couple of decades, the necessity of those costs (leaving<br>
the profit question aside) is extremely questionable, and we now have lots<br>
of examples of lower cost journals. It seems clear (some estimates and<br>
references in the paper cited above) that we could operate an adequate<br>
scholarly publishing business, with the current level of peer review,<br>
at $300 per article, or 10% what it costs Elsevier. The main obstacle<br>
is inertia.<br>
<br>
Andrew<br></blockquote></div></div></div></div>