Thank you Franck this is very helpful.
According to this website, the current inflation rate for Switzerland is .8, i.e. less than one per cent: https://tradingeconomics.com/switzerland/consumer-price-index-cpi I see that a quarter of MDPI's journals have an average price increase of 27.3%. It appears that MDPI is not making decisions about price increases based on such factors as consumer price increase or inflation rates. List members who are interested in supporting OA through paying APCs could benefit from understanding how this works in order to budget for future needs. Can you explain MDPI's current and/or projected future pricing strategy? MDPI is one of the publishers who offers "free for now" publishing in order to attract content for new journals. As an author, I have benefited from this as well as from MDPI's high quality professional editing and peer review. However, if those who pay APCs do not take this practice into account, they will find themselves short of funds in future when established journals start charging APCs, as 10% of MDPI's journals did this year by your account. Two other notes / questions from MDPI for this year that I wonder if you would like to comment on? * new pricing coming in July * partnership with Knowledge Unlatched - on MDPI's APC price list that some journals are "* free for authors; APC funded by Knowledge Unlatched<http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org>" from: http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc best, Heather Morrison Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa heather.morri...@uottawa.ca https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 PS: if CHF is not your local currency, you can find both current and historical conversion rates through XE currency converter: https://www.xe.com/currencytables/ ________________________________ From: scholcomm-requ...@lists.ala.org <scholcomm-requ...@lists.ala.org> on behalf of Dr. Franck Vazquez | CEO | MDPI <vazq...@mdpi.com> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 10:02 AM To: scholc...@lists.ala.org; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: Re: [SCHOLCOMM] Recent APC price changes for 4 publishers (BMC, Hindawi, PLOS, PeerJ) Adding up the data summary for MDPI to the picture: •164 journals with numeric data in 2017 (average APC 438CHF) and 2018 (average APC 533CHF) •107 journals (65.2%) with no change in APC, including 40 journals free (average APC 375CHF) •40 journals (24.3%) with APC increase of 6% - 142% (increase range from 100 – 500CHF; average APC increase 219CHF; average percent increase 27.3%) •17 journals (10.3%) free in 2017, introduced APC in 2018 (250CHF-550CHF; average APC 370CHF) Original data can be found here: http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc-2017 Some Publishers and Journals statistics can also be found here: https://www.scilit.net/rankings Please read the "Disclaimer & Notes". Hoping this is useful, Best wishes, Franck Franck Vazquez, Ph.D Chief Executive Officer, MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland Tel. +41 61 683 77 34 http://www.mdpi.com -- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7967-3798 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franck_Vazquez https://www.linkedin.com/in/franck-vazquez-932a96a8/ On 13.04.18 18:14, Heather Morrison wrote: > Following is a summary of recent APC changes for 4 publishers, prepared > on request but posted in case this might be of interest to anyone else. > In brief, each publisher appears to be following a different pricing > strategy ranging from flat pricing over many years with one rare > exception, to a tenfold increase from 2016 – 2017. > > > *BioMedCentral*: mixed picture > > • 269 journals with numeric data 2017 and 2018 (April 4 sampling date > both years) > • 20 with price increases of 2% – 83% (30 – 620 GBP) > • 5 with price decreases of 1% – 15% (15 – 205 GBP) > • Of interest: 25 journals with no publication fee (appears to be > society / university sponsorship) > • Of concern: 44 journals with “title not found”: some will reflect > earlier title drop > > > *Hindawi *April 2016 – November 2017: mixed picture, price increases a > bit concerning > > • 281 journals with numeric data for 2016 and 2017 (including 0 = free > for now*) > • 99 journals have price increases ranging from 14 – 108% (100% = price > has doubled), increases of 250 – 650 USD > • 115 journals have no change in pricing > • 45 journals have price decreases of 6 – 25%, 50 – 100 USD > • Of interest: 230 Predecessor journals (ISRN series): good practice > • Of concern: 186 title not found (not limited to 2017), excluding > predecessor > > *Rotating free journals: 5 of the 281 journals were free in 2016; 1 is > still free, the other 4 have APCs of 1250 – 1750 USD. 17 journals that > had an APC in 2016 were free in 2017. Paul Peters sent an e-mail > explaining this strategy a few years ago. > > > *PLOS ONE*: flat pricing with one exception > From 2014 – 2018, there has been only one price change for PLOS > journals: PLOS ONE was $1,350 USD in 2014 and is $1,495 USD today. The > sample date was December 2017, a visual scan confirms the same prices > are in effect as of April 13, 2018. > > > *PeerJ*: tenfold price increase from 2016 – 2017 (99 USD – 1,095 USD); > new journal PeerJ Computer Science is 895 USD. > > See also yesterday’s post > > > Frontiers: 40% of journals have price increases from 18 – 31% > <https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/12/frontiers-40-journals-have-apc-increases-of-18-31-from-2017-to-2018/>. > > > > Blog post link (text is the same): > > > https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/13/recent-apc-price-changes-for-4-publishers-bmc-hindawi-plos-peerj/ > > > best, > > > Heather Morrison > > Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa > > Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa > > heather.morri...@uottawa.ca > > https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org > > https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 >
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