The cost of properly and robustly preparing articles for preservation, archiving, machine-reading (TDM) etc. is more essential in my view, given the mess many authors (and, it has to be said, many publishers) make of that. That cost is but a fraction of the cost of arranging peer review by publishers. Prepublication peer review can perfectly well be arranged by academics themselves. See this: http://blog.scienceopen.com/2015/04/welcome-jan-velterop-peer-review-by-endorsement/
Jan Velterop Sent from Jan Velterop's iPhone. Please excuse for brevity and typos. > On 1 May 2015, at 10:10, Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > The only essential cost in peer-reviewed research publication in the online > (PostGutenberg) era is the cost of managing peer review. > > Harnad, S (2014) The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions > unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog > 4/28 > http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/28/inflated-subscriptions-unsustainable-harnad/ > Harnad, S. (2014) Crowd-Sourced Peer Review: Substitute or supplement for the > current outdated system? LSE Impact Blog 8/21 August 21 2014 > http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/08/21/crowd-sourced-peer-review-substitute-or-supplement/ > > Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need > Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8). > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21348/ > > > >> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 10:04 PM, Éric Archambault >> <eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com> wrote: >> Heather >> >> I think using the term "toll" when what we mean is "subscription" is quite >> limiting. There is always a toll charged or taken whatever the model used to >> diffuse scientific knowledge. The important question is not about toll or >> profit, it is about seeking an effective knowledge delivery system that is >> as close as possible to universal access to academic and scientific >> knowledge, while doing this relatively efficiently at the system level. Like >> anything else in our money-mediated society, there is a cost associated with >> achieving this objective. Several models are available, all with their own >> tolls. >> >> PLoS charges tolls at the entry point in the form of Article Processing >> Charge while Elsevier charges tolls in the form of subscription. Both limit >> access at one end of the communication pipeline (to publish, or to read), >> both charge money. Hence, Elsevier and PLoS both are toll access publishers. >> >> Everything being equal, between the two, the APC model is inherently more >> efficient as it more largely unleashes the $450 billion spent annually by >> governments the world over to support public research. However, it presents >> its own problems of equal access (that is, equal access to the capacity to >> publish equal quality papers) and is likely to perpetuate the North-South >> divide if no steps are taken. >> >> Gold with no APC is certainly also associated with large tolls, including >> resource allocation inefficiencies, and lack of sustainability which reduces >> the value of the published output (it takes a long time to build a >> reputation for a publication venue and papers in abandoned journals are less >> likely to be read over time). Individuals in the top 5% income bracket (e.g. >> university professors) producing journals is not a model of efficient >> allocation of public money. Finding long term sustainable income to pay for >> the rest of the personnel involved in APC-less gold also present some >> definitive challenges, sustainability being the toughest. >> >> Hybrid, à la pièce, gold probably present the worse of all worlds as it is >> expensive, paid twice for, and very difficult to discover considering that >> publishers are packaging these papers among the restricted access material. >> These should be duplicated on separate parts of the publishers' website and >> their metadata freely harvestable by anyone, and the papers themselves mass >> downloadable. This would increase their value, and facilitate oversight. >> >> Green alas does not seem to save it all. On the Southampton repository, >> there are only some 7000-8000 peer-reviewed published papers which are >> available for download out of about 57,000 claimed peer-reviewed papers in >> the repository. For most of these 57,000 items, there is only fairly unequal >> quality and often incomplete metadata (what is the purpose of putting >> varying quality metadata in a repo if no associated paper is available is >> something I still have to understand), and frequently, when there is a >> paper, access is restricted to Southampton. Postscript files (.ps) are nice >> for technically inclined users but most ordinary users do not what to do >> with them and having PDF presenting only a cover page is only a loss of >> time. Sifting through this is time consuming, presents a huge toll in time, >> as the signal to noise ratio really is poor. This model takes its toll on >> the those who depose, and on those who are audacious enough to search in >> there. In my opinion, for what it's worth, Green in institutional >> repositories needs to be re-loaded with clean, curated, and useful >> documents, as currently it is mostly a mess that hides too few gems. >> >> If we had proper economic models, we would probably find that the social >> optimum at the moment for green is in the form of central "repositories" >> such as arXiv, CiteSeerX, PubMedCentral and Scielo. If we had hard data, we >> would certainly find that they cost very little to operate per available >> paper. These are smart models as they present considerable economies of >> scale, reasonable user friendliness and good discoverability, in addition to >> making their metadata available and making papers fairly convenient to >> retrieve. This model of access is great. >> >> Getting closer to universal access to public knowledge is not a simple >> question of tolls - it comprises subscription costs, publications costs, >> production costs, distribution cost, opportunity costs. >> >> Eric Archambault >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf >> Of Heather Morrison >> Sent: April-29-15 8:42 PM >> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) >> Subject: [GOAL] Elsevier (and other traditional publishers) and PLOS >> >> Elsevier has much in common with Public Library of Science: both are >> scholarly publishing organizations, focused on science, and in my opinion >> both aggressively advocate sometimes for the best interests of scholarship, >> but often primarily for their own business interests. >> >> If policy-makers are aiming to help traditional publishers like Elsevier >> survive in an open access environment (a goal I am not sure we all agree >> on), then in formulating policies it is important to keep in mind some very >> basic differences. >> >> PLOS was born digital and open access and with a full commitment to open >> access. Traditional publishers like Elsevier have a legacy of works under >> copyright and a business model that involves selling rights to these works >> and integrated search services (rather a lot of money at that). In the case >> of Elsevier, this involves millions of works over a long period of time. >> Even if every single article Elsevier publishes from today on were open >> access, this would not impact previously published works. Unless I am >> missing something there is no business model for Elsevier to provide access >> to these previously published works free-of-charge. This means that >> traditional publishers like Elsevier are very likely to have to continue >> with a toll access business model even if they move forward with open access >> publishing. This is an essentially different environment from that of a full >> open access publisher like PLOS. It is not realistic to assume that a >> traditional publisher that must maintain a toll access environment will >> behave in the same way that born open access publishers do. PLOS was started >> from a commitment to providing works free-of-charge. Elsevier and publishers >> like Elsevier have thrived in a toll access environment, and will have to >> maintain a toll access environment. There will be far more pressure and >> incentive to revert to toll access for traditional publishers than for PLOS. >> This is why arguments along the lines that PLOS has been around for a while, >> therefore there are no problems with CC-BY, don't necessarily apply to a >> publisher like Elsevier. >> >> Elsevier, unlike PLOS, does have its own suite of value-added services such >> as Science Direct and Scopus. When friends of PLOS say there is no reason >> not to grant blanket commercial rights to anyone downstream, I think it is >> important to remember that this represents the perspective of one type of >> publisher. Other journals and publishers either provide value added services >> themselves, or receive revenue from providers of such services, e.g. >> payments from journal aggregators. >> >> Note that while Elsevier has no incentive to provide access to previously >> published works free-of-charge, they are a green publisher and so authors >> from recent years can make their works published with Elsevier freely >> available through institutional archives. This is one thing green open >> access can achieve right now that gold OA cannot. I'd like to acknowledge >> that Stevan Harnad has been right on this point for many, many years. >> >> I'm still signed on for the Elsevier boycott, in case anyone is wondering: >> http://thecostofknowledge.com/ >> >> 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 >> >> ----- >> No virus found in this message. >> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >> Version: 2015.0.5863 / Virus Database: 4331/9577 - Release Date: 04/19/15 >> Internal Virus Database is out of date. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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
