One of the factors that makes fee-free scholarly publishing possible is subsidy funding, for example government and/or institutional subsidies.
In North America, a majority of university libraries provide hosting and support services for journals that their faculty are involved in publishing, as documented by: Hahn, K. (2008). Research library publishing services: New options for university publishing. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.arl.org/sc/models/lib-publishing/index.shtml and Taylor, D., Morrison, H., Owen, B., Vezina, K., & Waller, A. (2011). Open access publishing in canada: Current and future library and university press supports. Preprint, http://summit.sfu.ca/item/49 Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has long had an academic journal subsidy program, because in Canada and most other countries with a very few exceptions, HSS publishing is not a profitable concern. Today, this program includes an Aid to Open Access Journals component. One way that traditional subscription-based publishers have found to move to full open access, is to move to electronic-only publication at the same time. For a not-for-profit publisher, the costs of subscriptions often barely cover the costs of printing, mailing, and tracking the subscriber base. Kevin Haggerty describes the bold move of the Canadian Journal of Sociology to open access here: http://informationr.net/ir/13-1/paper338.html One hypothetical (but realistic) scenario: with free or very low cost journal hosting (based on cost-recovery) provided by the organization, plus a little bit of subsidy funding to help out with editorial costs (e.g. a bit of teaching release time to clear some of an academic's time for editing, copyediting), means that many a small scholar or scholarly-society led journal can make the move to full open access. This is an approach that I would recommend for the consideration of others. Financially, this is much more prudent than subsidizing article processing fees of large, highly profitable commercial publishers. A smaller amount in dollars can help the scholarly society sector to survive and grow (important for other reasons besides publishing, this sector does much more). I would anticipate that the commercial sector will continue to survive and thrive, but they'd have to compete - there is room for profit, but not at the 30% profit margins that a select few have become accustomed to. best, Heather Morrison On 2012-08-16, at 10:13 AM, Peter Suber wrote: > See William Walters and Anne Linvill (August 2010): "While just 29 percent > of OA journals charge publication fees, those journals represent 50 percent > of the articles in our study." > http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2010/09/14/crl-132.abstract > > Peter > > Peter Suber > gplus.to/petersuber > > > On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 4:21 AM, Richard Poynder <ri...@richardpoynder.co.uk> > wrote: > [...] > > I realise that this thread is a discussion of how to document and support > "fee-free" OA journals, but it might be useful to put in context the comment > below that 70% of journals listed in the DOAJ (in 2009) were no-fee. > > I say this because some might conclude on reading the comment that 70% of > *papers* published in OA journals are being published without a fee. This is > clearly not so. While some of the journals in DOAJ may currently be > publishing no more than a handful of papers, others will be publishing many > more. Indeed, for-fee "mega journals" will be publishing a great many more. > Thus PLoS ONE (which charges an APC of $1,350) is now publishing around > 2,000 papers a month, and expects to publish 3% of the STM literature this > year > (http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2012/05/18/plos-one-a-personal-farewell/). > > Moreover, as subscription publishers increasingly embrace OA we can be sure > that they will be doing so by charging an APC. > > As such, I assume that we have no idea at all of how many OA *papers* are > being published on a no-fee basis. (Or perhaps someone does have some data > here)? > > Either way, list members will doubtless feel that this makes it is all the > more important to document and support fee-free journals. > > Best wishes, > > > > Richard Poynder > > > -----Original Message----- > From: open-access-boun...@lists.okfn.org > [mailto:open-access-boun...@lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gray > Sent: 15 August 2012 15:37 > To: open-acc...@lists.okfn.org > Subject: [Open-access] Fwd: Fee-free scholarly publishing > > Hi all, > > I'm forwarding a very interesting recent thread about fee-free scholarly > publishing started by Peter Murray-Rust with Rosemary Laurent from INRIA > [1], Richard Poynder, Peter Suber, Jenny Molloy, Tom Olijhoek, Ross Mounce > and several other OKFN folks. > > Peter Murray-Rust's original email to Rosemary is at the bottom, as well as > some of the subsequent correspondence with Rosemary Laurent, Richard Poynder > and Peter Suber. > > Basically the discussion is about how we can better document and support > 'fee-free' open access journals - which might include case studies, a > possible 'fee-free' OA handbook, publicity and community building > activities, and building a better 'best practises network' > with people and organisations who have done it. > > We all agreed that - rather than continuing discussion in private - it would > make more sense to open this discussion up to others on this list! > > All the best, > > Jonathan > > [1] http://www.inria.fr/en/institute/inria-in-brief > > > On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Peter Suber <peter.su...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I'd be glad to stay in the loop for this discussion. > > > > In May 2009, Stuart Shieber did a systematic survey of the journals in > > the DOAJ, and found that 70% were no-fee. As far as I know, that's the > > most recent systematic survey. > > http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2009/05/29/what-percentage-of-op > > en-access-journals-charge-publication-fees/ > > > > The DOAJ doesn't maintain a separate list of the no-fee journals. But > > if you browse the journals by field, the journal record will tell you > > whether or not the journal charges a publication fee. Here are the > > journals in botany just to show some examples. Look at the first two > > listed. The first charges a fee and second doesn't. > > http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=72&uiLanguage=en > > > > I've written about OA journals several times over the years, most > > recently (not very recently!) in November 2006, when most people > > didn't even realize they existed, let alone that they constituted the > majority of OA journals. > > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-06.htm#nofee > > > > I haven't seen a "handbook" of no-fee OA journal publishing. If you > > compile one, it would be very useful. Meantime, see the list of OA > > journal business models at the Open Access Directory. > > http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/OA_journal_business_models > > > > This list has no entry for "no-fee" OA journals because "no-fee" isn't > > a business model. Instead, look at the business models other than > > "publication fees" and "submission fees". > > > > Best, > > Peter S. > > > > Peter Suber > > gplus.to/petersuber > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
