[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall the extreme variability of Hindawis APCs is, at the least, interesting especially the large number of free and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey Ignoratio elenchi? That's from Harry Potter, right? Spell meaning 'facts be gone'? Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia. If that is your area of interest then the profit margins of large commercial, legacy publishers are clearly of more interest than the profit margins of other players. From the figures I quote (from your blog), Hindawi takes $300 of profit from each paper it publishers. A large commercial, legacy publisher takes about $1200*. From where I sit (and I admit my knowledge of economics is almost as bad as that of Latin) it is clear that $1200 per paper is a significantly larger amount than $300 per paper and there is no way the figures back up your contention that 'It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another.' David *My conservative guess - happy to have people with access to the figures correct this. It's basically 30% of $4000 On 3 Oct 2013, at 23:04, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: David, Thank you for your ignoratio elenchi. --Jeffrey From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 3:03 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey in the comment section to your post Ahmed Hindawi points out that the average revenue per paper published by Hindawi is about $600. For people like Elsevier it is in excess of $4000 per paper. I think it is clear which publisher is taking (significantly) more money out of the system. David On 3 Oct 2013, at 20:31, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: Heather: Ive documented http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/04/04/hindawis-profits-are-larger-than-elsevier s/ that Hindawis profit margin is higher than Elseviers. So, I am correct in assuming that you include Hindawi in your advice below, no? Also, its been revealed that a number of the higher ups at PLOS are drawing salaries of over a quarter-million dollars a year, and one was even drawing a salary of over a half-million dollars. It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another. Thanks, Jeffrey Beall From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 11:43 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Scholars jobs not publisher profits My reaction to the EBSCO report on expected ongoing high price increases by some in the scholarly publishing sector at the same time that academics at my alma mater have been asked to consider voluntary severance has been posted to my blog: http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2013/10/scholars-lets-keep-our-jobs-and-d itch.html My conclusion: It is time for scholars, university administrators and research funders to wake up and realize that creation of new knowledge is done by researchers, not publishers. Don't give up your job or or let your colleagues give up theirs without demanding that the large commercial scholarly publishers give up their 30-40% profit margins. 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 heather.morri...@uottawa.ca ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 / Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30 sept-1 oct
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall … the extreme variability of Hindawi’s APCs is, at the least, interesting … especially the large number of ‘free’ and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey Ignoratio elenchi? That's from Harry Potter, right? Spell meaning 'facts be gone'? Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia. If that is your area of interest then the profit margins of large commercial, legacy publishers are clearly of more interest than the profit margins of other players. From the figures I quote (from your blog), Hindawi takes $300 of profit from each paper it publishers. A large commercial, legacy publisher takes about $1200*. From where I sit (and I admit my knowledge of economics is almost as bad as that of Latin) it is clear that $1200 per paper is a significantly larger amount than $300 per paper and there is no way the figures back up your contention that 'It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another.' David *My conservative guess - happy to have people with access to the figures correct this. It's basically 30% of $4000 On 3 Oct 2013, at 23:04, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: David, Thank you for your ignoratio elenchi. --Jeffrey From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 3:03 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey in the comment section to your post Ahmed Hindawi points out that the average revenue per paper published by Hindawi is about $600. For people like Elsevier it is in excess of $4000 per paper. I think it is clear which publisher is taking (significantly) more money out of the system. David On 3 Oct 2013, at 20:31, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: Heather: I’ve documentedhttp://scholarlyoa.com/2013/04/04/hindawis-profits-are-larger-than-elseviers/ that Hindawi’s profit margin is higher than Elsevier’s. So, I am correct in assuming that you include Hindawi in your advice below, no? Also, it’s been revealed that a number of the
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall the extreme variability of Hindawis APCs is, at the least, interesting especially the large number of free and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey Ignoratio elenchi? That's from Harry Potter, right? Spell meaning 'facts be gone'? Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia. If that is your area of interest then the profit margins of large commercial, legacy publishers are clearly of more interest than the profit margins of other players. From the figures I quote (from your blog), Hindawi takes $300 of profit from each paper it publishers. A large commercial, legacy publisher takes about $1200*. From where I sit (and I admit my knowledge of economics is almost as bad as that of Latin) it is clear that $1200 per paper is a significantly larger amount than $300 per paper and there is no way the figures back up your contention that 'It appears that the money is just moving from one set of publishers to another.' David *My conservative guess - happy to have people with access to the figures correct this. It's basically 30% of $4000 On 3 Oct 2013, at 23:04, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: David, Thank you for your ignoratio elenchi. --Jeffrey From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 3:03 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey in the comment
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Heather Morrison writes If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. I agree. And the way to stop it is to cancel subscriptions. Faculty who have not made their work open access just don't deserve it to be read or cited. -- Cheers, Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel skype:thomaskrichel ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Sally, As noted in my introductory blogpost on this topic, my comments are on the high cost of subscriptions and the 5-7% price increases as projected by EBSCO: http://www2.ebsco.com/EN-US/NEWSCENTER/Pages/ViewArticle.aspx?QSID=600 The only place where OA article processing fees fit into this picture is with hybrid journals / publishers. If the market were working, overall subscription prices should be decreasing, not increasing, to reflect the new revenue stream. In other words, this is further evidence of ongoing market dysfunction. In a separate thread, I am beginning a research project to track developments with OA article processing fees. To avoid confusion it might be best to keep these threads separate. best, Heather On 2013-10-05, at 2:21 PM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall … the extreme variability of Hindawi’s APCs is, at the least, interesting … especially the large number of ‘free’ and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey Ignoratio elenchi? That's from Harry Potter, right? Spell meaning 'facts be gone'? Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia. If that is your area of interest then
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Heather, if you look back over the thread you will see that I was responding to Dana Roth's posting about the variability of Hindawi's APCs. Nothing else Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 19:51 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Sally, As noted in my introductory blogpost on this topic, my comments are on the high cost of subscriptions and the 5-7% price increases as projected by EBSCO: http://www2.ebsco.com/EN-US/NEWSCENTER/Pages/ViewArticle.aspx?QSID=600 The only place where OA article processing fees fit into this picture is with hybrid journals / publishers. If the market were working, overall subscription prices should be decreasing, not increasing, to reflect the new revenue stream. In other words, this is further evidence of ongoing market dysfunction. In a separate thread, I am beginning a research project to track developments with OA article processing fees. To avoid confusion it might be best to keep these threads separate. best, Heather On 2013-10-05, at 2:21 PM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall the extreme variability of Hindawis APCs is, at the least, interesting especially the large number of free and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To:
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
On 5 October 2013 19:12, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukwrote: ** The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. More specifically, it's a function of what you are paying for. In an author-pays model, the author is paying in part for the peer-review, editing, production, distribution - which are all replicable and comparable services between publishers, and in part the reputation of the journal they are being published in (which isn't as immediately replicable, but there is always opportunity for journals to increase or decrease their perceived worth). As an author, you could (maybe) take your paper to another journal that has a lower APC, and it doesn't (shouldn't) affect the ability of others to read, share and use your paper. As a subscriber, you can't simply move your subscription to another journal and get access to the same material. G ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
I fully agree Sally. Where there is an APC for fully Gold journals (or free which is simply a limiting case) in a fully Gold publication industry, the normal economic processes will kick in to make an effective market. They dont with institutional subscription journals where the payers are non-beneficiaries, or only at second remove. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Sally Morris Sent: Sunday, 6 October 2013 5:12 AM To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall the extreme variability of Hindawis APCs is, at the least, interesting especially the large number of free and relatively low priced APCs for many of their journals. http://www.hindawi.com/apc/ Dana L. Roth Caltech Library 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 1:27 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Jeffrey Ignoratio elenchi? That's from Harry Potter, right? Spell meaning 'facts be gone'? Heather is interested in the flow of money out of academia. If that is your area of interest then the profit margins of large commercial, legacy publishers are clearly of more interest than the profit margins of other players. From the figures I quote (from your blog), Hindawi takes $300 of profit from each paper it publishers. A large commercial, legacy publisher takes about $1200*. From where I sit (and I admit my knowledge of economics is almost as bad as that of Latin) it is clear that $1200 per paper is a significantly larger amount than $300 per paper and there is no
[GOAL] Fool's Gold vs. Fair Gold
On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: In an author-pays model, the author is paying in part for the peer-review, editing, production, distribution - which are all replicable and comparable services between publishers, and in part the reputation of the journal they are being published in That's with pre-Green Fool's Gold. But with post-Green Fair Gold, the production and distribution and their costs are gone -- offloaded onto the global network of Green OA IRs. And the peer review costs are paid for as a service (most sensibly, a no-fault service for the review, regardless of outcome). And the reason you choose to be reviewed first by this journal is because of its track-record for quality (as reflected in its title). No extra charge. The editorial function of evaluating the submission, picking referees, and adjudicating the referee reports and revision is part of the peer review service. (There's not much else going on by way of editing and copy-editing any more anyway, with journals, hence nothing worth paying for.) Pre-Green Fool's Gold, with all that other stuff bundled in, can cost from $1000-$5000+ per accepted articles. My guess is that post-Green Fair Gold should cost around $200 per round of no-fault refereeing (because the costs of rejected or multiply revised and re-refereed papers will not have to be borne by the accepted papers only). The other downsides of pre-Green Fool's Gold (besides the price and needless extra products and services and their costs) are that it has to be double-paid by institutions (which must continue to subscribe to their must-have non-OA journals for their incoming content, and then pay Fool's Gold OA fees on top of that, for their outgoing content). If it's hybrid Fool's Gold, then their payments may even be double-dipped. Pre-Green Fool's Gold also has to be paid out of scarce funds at a time when research itself is underfunded and library serials budgets are over-stretched. The much lower cost of post-Green Fair Gold (for peer review) will be single-paid out of a fraction of the institutional windfall subscription cancellation savings. And it will all be fair, affordable, scaleable and sustainable. I can keep on repeating this as often it takes, until people begin to understand why it is premature and profligate to pay pre-emptively for pre-Green Gold. -- I've done it with other things before (such as the need for Green OA, Green OA mandates, Immediate Deposit, the Button, and the link to research evaluation)... Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
On 5 October 2013 19:51, Heather Morrison heather.morri...@uottawa.cawrote: The only place where OA article processing fees fit into this picture is with hybrid journals / publishers. If the market were working, overall subscription prices should be decreasing, not increasing, to reflect the new revenue stream. In other words, this is further evidence of ongoing market dysfunction. The short answer is that subscription prices in hybrid journals are only going to go down if the number of articles published closed decreases. That is not necessarily a given, when the number of open articles increases. The long answer is that the economics are far more complicated than that. Nominally, you may expect an inflationary rise if publication rates remain constant. But there is so much more that can happen behind the scenes. For example: 1) Higher submission rates may result in more labour intensive processes, even if the number published remains constant (or even decreases). 2) Investment in systems development (this could result in a reduction of ongoing costs though). 3) Providing production for, and distribution via, new means - e.g. mobile devices. I can't, and I'm not going to, justify any individual subscription rise. But there are lots of factors - lots of genuine costs - that can influence the pricing, some of which are not immediately apparent. However, in terms of the impact of OA APCs in hybrid journals, then I could direct you to the Wellcome Trust's presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/Wellcome/mandating-open-access-wellcome-trust-presentation See slide 11, they claim - certainly in the Oxford University Press case - that the take up of OA options in hybrid journals is having a material effect on the amount of closed publications, and from there, the cost of subscriptions. Given the high level of mistrust, and anti- campaigning with regards to hybrid OA options, availability of funds, and possibly even routing through the publication workflow, it's not entirely surprising if the take up of OA options is not high enough to cause a headline price reduction for the subscription prices. G ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
