Any author publishing a paper in a journal that uses citation charges, can be reasonably sure that the paper will almost never be cited. This is enough to justify rejecting the idea, even without considering the advisability of abolishing one of the most basic of fair use rights.
Dr. David Goodman Associate Professor, Palmer School of Library and Information Science Long Island University, Brookville, NY [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Markus Schneider [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 1:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Pay to Cite? [ Prior Thread: "Re: Author Publication Charge Debate" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3434.html ] Stevan Harnad wrote: >It is not clear what is being proposed here. Citations are already >tracked, by both TA journals and OA journals. That's partly how >libraries decide which TA journals to subscribe to and which to cancel. >And that's partly how authors decide which TA or OA journals to publish in. > >So what is being proposed? A high profile, non-commercial Journal C with a track record of citations agrees to implement a business model which is based on (a) either solely citation charges Cc or (b) on a combination of fixed/author charges Ca and usage/citation Cc charges. An author A citing a paper published by C would need to pay Cc (say 50) per citation to journal C in any case irrespective of which journal he submits the pre-print. Whether he needs to pay Ca depends on the journal he is submitting to: In a traditional journal, Ca would be zero; in a new OA journal, Ca costs are perhaps 1500 in addition to Cc, submitting to C would cost only if the journal utilizes a fixed-usage charge structure (e.g. 200 for peer reviewing paid by the author plus 50 per citation paid by the user). The most expensive paper would be the one that uses many citations of C and is submitted to an OA journal which relies only on author charges and which does not have enough confidence in the quality of their published work. Importantly, Cc only needs to be paid if the paper gets a DOI (and is being published). Before, citing publications of journal C in pre-prints can be done freely. What are the advantages over the author-pays model? Distribution of costs The costs for peer reviewing are distributed over a number of people (quoters) as opposed to only one author (who has already invested in the creation). The lower costs for a single institution make the costs easier to bear for them. Smooth transition >From a practical perspective, transition could be smooth; such a scheme could perhaps be implemented with the next edition. Publisher would not be harmed economically - due to the yearly subscriptions - if they make one whole edition of their journal freely available and add a note to the paper like 93citing this paper is permitted. If the citing paper is accepted for publication, the sponsoring institution agrees to pays X euros to journal C 94. Institutions with a subscription to C would not need to pay for citations. Today, technology makes the tracking which publication cites much more efficient and reliable. Publisher Competition for pre-prints Pre-prints which are cited very soon after their making public on pre-print servers could be peer-reviewed for free with a view of making a profit. In a good world, publishers would get an alert on their desktops about a pre-print that is being cited a few times soon after it has been made available on the pre-print server. In a perfect world, two or more of those publishers would ask the sponsoring institution for permission to publish the paper where pricing (of the citation) is not at the sole discretion of the publisher - since he is the one asking for permission to publish. Economic value is linked to the research value The economic value and reward for investment is linked to the research value of the paper - unlike the 1500 which is linked to the brand name and not the actual quality/research impact of the paper. If one looks at the tables presented by bergstrom (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0305628101v1) Today, the only link between economic and research value is within the type of publisher, but not within the overall market. Just remuneration scheme It is reasonable and just to let the user - as opposed to the author who has already invested in the creation - pay for using the intellectual work of someone else. Switching tool Non-commercial publishers have a high market share in the academic market for disseminating knowledge measured in numbers of citations. In economics, Bergstrom mentions 62% percent and cites 50% in chemistry. (http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucsbecon/bergstrom/2001C/). If non-commercial publishers would get an economic incentive to make the switch (which amounts only to a fraction of the total costs), the OAI network would be able to offer access to 62% of the relevant research in economics. Paying non-commercial publishers 10% more (in exchange for making the switch) accounts to an increase in total spending of 1% (10% of the 11644; see bergstrom 2001 at 185-186) . In absolute numbers, those additional costs would easily be offset by the savings due to the increase of the OAI network in terms of quality. It is difficult to see how sciencedirect can maintain their double digit annual price increases if 60 percent of the relevant research is freely available on the competing OAI network. Citation based remuneration would be a tool to offer journals - which produce high quality work and charge little for that - some economic incentive to make the OA switch and would exhibit tremendous pricing pressure on the sciencedirects. history shows that non-commercial publishers - especially in the light of their quality - charge reasonably for access. Why should the price tag for a citation be unreasonably? Even if they make more in absolute numbers now, society would get a big part of the research freely available and the additional costs for making non-commercial publishers switch would by far be offset by the competitive pressure the OAI network exhibits once it offers access to much of the relevant research and the likely price reductions which are caused by this competitive pressure.
