Excellent points Dana, I basically agree. In interpreting price increases it is important to take into account the base price, increase in dollar (or euro etc.) terms as well as % increase. A 1% increase can be many times greater than a 100% increase. For example, a 1% increase on a million-dollar big deal subscription is $10,000, while a 100% increase for a journal with a $50 subscription rate is $50.
It is quite common for new OA journals that intend to charge APCs to waive fees initially in order to attract content and grow the journal. MDPI and Hindawi, among others, have used this strategy, quite transparently. This makes sense from a business perspective. However as the transition from demand to supply side economics* to support OA moves forward, it is important for all interested parties to take this into account. For example, if APC payers keep track of all payments made and use this data to project future budget requirements, but then a large number of journals that currently waive fees start charging, budget projections could be very far off the mark. This practice is very common; in 2014 we reported a mode of $0 http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/3/1/1 Libraries and I assume other potential APC payers tend to have fixed annual budgets. If we are relying on OA by APC and payers run out of money part-way through the year, this is a difficult problem that increases the more people rely on APCs. Budget need uncertainty which includes noy knowing the precise volume of publishing and currency fluctuations is one primary downside of APCs. Another is redirection of funding from research per se which I argue is inappropriate (there is already more than enough spent on scholarly publishing) and counter-productive. * APC is just one model for production (supply) side economics. Others are supporting local journal production (local journals can publish international content); advantages of this model include pricing stability through payment in local currency, appropriate pricing as payment reflects local economic conditions, local jobs, and if university, research organization or funder based, returning control of more academic publishing from commercial interests to scholars which I argue is in the best interests of scholarship. Direct subsidy is another. Canada's SSHRC has an Aid to Scholarly Journals program. Journals can apply for 3 years of funding. The competition involves journal-level peer review; I think this is a great way to reduce the likelihood of predatory journals. My preference is for libraries to work together to transition subscriptions funding to Scholar-led journal publishing, with SSHRC and Library publishing services as two models to support. I study APCs but this does not mean I support this model. best, Heather Morrison sustainingknowledgecommons.org -------- Original message -------- From: "Roth, Dana L." <dzr...@caltech.edu> Date: 07-09-2016 5:00 PM (GMT-05:00) To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal@eprints.org> Subject: Re: [GOAL] Copernicus pricing: retraction of assessment of price tripling, re-affirming assessment of market volatility One additional thought ... I think it is a little disingenuous to talk about % increases in journal prices, if the actual amounts are not specifically mentioned. Heather's original posting on this topic, reminded me of when Annual Reviews [ http://www.annualreviews.org/ ] raised their print prices from $60 to $120/volume. There were loud protestations about the 100% increase in price ... conveniently ignoring the fact that at $60/volume ... Annual Reviews was virtually giving away their product and, that $120/volume was an exceedingly reasonable price. Dana L. Roth Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm -----Original Message----- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 1:07 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal@eprints.org> Subject: Re: [GOAL] Copernicus pricing: retraction of assessment of price tripling, re-affirming assessment of market volatility thanks Silke. I have updated the post again - highlights that may interest list members: Data change for 2 journals - ESurf and GI were “currently waived” as of June 15, 2016 but as of July 1, 2016 have page charges of €50 to €120 Clarification of my category “cost not specified”. The reason 4 journals were classified this way is because of language on their APC pages stating APCs “are" levied as of Jan. 1, 2016 but that charges are “currently waived”. This is conflicting language that suggests that there is an APC without giving the amount. That is what my category “cost not specified” is meant to cover. As per the sentence above, 2 of these journals have now implemented APCs and posted the amounts. I do not mean to suggest that the journals aim to deceive authors, rather that this language could be used in a situation where a submitting author might believe that the APC will be waived while an APC could be instituted in between submission and publication. This is not, in my opinion, a good practice. When journals are considering implementing APCs, to avoid confusion I recommend that a date be set in advance and clear information provided to potential authors before they submit. best, Heather Morrison > On Jul 7, 2016, at 11:48 AM, Silke Hartmann <silke.hartm...@copernicus.org> > wrote: > > Hi Heather, > > Thank you for updating the blog post. As Xenia will be on holiday from > tomorrow on, I will take over commenting on the remaining issues. > > Since Copernicus charges APCs on a page-by-page basis and not per article, it > is not possible to compare article prices when the lengths of the articles > are not taken into consideration. When comparing 2015 and 2016 papers, the > changes in our publication process have to be taken into consideration, too. > But even with these changes we do not see the 17–24% increase of the ACPs at > all. > > Regarding the websites for which there is no information on APCs, the > journals neither have APCs now nor do they intend to obtain APCs in the > future. We will discuss stating this more explicitly on the respective > journal websites. Thank you for this feedback. The six journals that state > that their APCs are currently waived indeed intend to introduce APCs at some > point in the future or want to keep this option open at least. The four > journals that you list as “cost not specified” do inform about their APCs (or > the lack thereof) on their websites. I have commented on the APCs chart in > more detail on your blog. > > Best regards, > Silke Hartmann > > > **************************************************** > Copernicus.org > Meetings & Open Access Publications > > Silke Hartmann > Media & Communications > > Copernicus GmbH > Bahnhofsallee 1e > 37081 Göttingen > Germany > > Phone: +49 551 90 03 39 17 > Fax: +49 551 90 03 39 90 17 > > http://www.copernicus.org > @copernicus_org > **************************************************** > Copernicus Gesellschaft mbH > USt-IdNr.: DE216566440 > Based in Göttingen, Germany > Registered in HRB 131 298 > County Court Göttingen > Managing Director Thies Martin Rasmussen > **************************************************** > > -----Original Message----- > From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On > Behalf Of Heather Morrison > Sent: 06 Jul 2016 15:21 > To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) > Subject: [GOAL] Copernicus pricing: retraction of assessment of price > tripling, re-affirming assessment of market volatility > > Thanks to Xenia van Edig (of Copernicus) and Dirk Pieper for providing > new substantive evidence. Following are highlights of my update. New > blog post title: Copernicus 2015-2016 comparison > > Update July 6, 2016: > > I retract my statement on tripling of page charges thanks to new evidence > indicating that the difference reflects a change in the stage at which papers > are assessed (now final publication stage generally one-third the pages of > discussion paper stage). The change is intended to be revenue-neutral but > more data from APC payers would be needed to confirm this. 2015 data from the > Open APC project includes values for 2 journals with papers at both stages, > and prices paid are 17-24% higher for papers at the final publication stage. > I re-affirm my assessment of the volatility of the APC market. I found 6 > journals with APCs indicated "currently waived", presumably journals that > will charge APCs of unknown quantities in future. I found 4 journals that > referred to APCs without specifying the cost and 2 journals with no > indication of whether or not there is a cost. This is a very substantial > percentage of Copernicus' journals for which the answer to the questions "is > there an APC or APPC, and if so, how much is it?" is not available on the > Copernicus' website. I regard Copernicus as a model OA publisher. It is > likely that this situation reflects journals that would rather not charge > APCs, feel they must charge APCs but are not sure how much to charge, etc., > rather than deliberate obfuscation. > > Clarification for the GOAL list: the OA APC project is a longitudinal study > of APC prices intended to be inclusive of all publishers with APCs, or at > least all that are or have been included in DOAJ at some point in time. The > purpose is to watch for early signs of trends to assist in ensuring that > transition to OA is sustainable. A premature push for global universal > funding of OA via APC based on data likely to undergo significant shifts in > the next few years risks global failure and potential burn-out of some of > OA’s best friends and supporters. > No journal or publisher is targeted or an enemy. The Sustaining the Knowledge > Commons blog includes a number of case studies. I/we publish these whenever > we notice something different or interesting and someone has time to write a > post. Critique is a necessary part of advancing our knowledge. > > best, > > > Dr. Heather Morrison > Assistant Professor > École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies > University of Ottawa http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html > Sustaining the Knowledge Commons > http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/ > heather.morri...@uottawa.ca > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 -- Dr. Heather Morrison Assistant Professor École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies University of Ottawa http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/ heather.morri...@uottawa.ca _______________________________________________ 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
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