This is to invite comments from this group on my article at
http://www.stat.Berkeley.EDU/users/pitman/strategy.html
which concerns publication policies of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics)
and related statistics and mathematics societies. In terms familiar to this group,
the IMS currently supports four Green TA journals and two Gold OA journals.
The proposed strategy is to push the Green journals as far as possible in the direction of
Gold without incurring substantial subscription cancellations which would undermine the society's
revenue base.
Gradually over time it may be possible to replace TA revenue by revenue from other sources.
But it seems impossible to predict the rate of such a transition and irresponsible for
a society to make decisions on the assumption that this transition will occur at any particuular
rate.
As long as there are commercial TA journals in the field, I see no reason why
a professional society should forgo its TA income, provided it offers at least Green access.
So it is a matter of shades between Green and Gold.
I am proposing that IMS and related societies pursue a strategy of *society-archiving*
meaning that members are provided with technical support for archiving their preprints,
wherever they may submit them, and that at least some version of every article published
by the society should be found in an OA eprint archive administered to the society.
Other versions might be bundled as journals and offered on an OA or TA basis as the case may be.
Some questions for this group.
Has this strategy of society-archiving been advocated or adopted before?
Are there examples of societies pursuing this strategy while maintaining TA journals?
What version of articles do they allow to be openly archived?
History of what has happened to their subscription income?
Long-term sustainability of this strategy?
Other comments/suggestions?
I'd be glad to have some responses,
thanks
Jim Pitman
----------------------------------------------
Jim Pitman
Professor of Statistics and Mathematics
University of California
367 Evans Hall # 3860
Berkeley, CA 94720-3860
ph: 510-642-9970 fax: 510-642-7892
e-mail: pitman_at_stat.berkeley.edu
URL:
http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/pitman
Received on Thu Jan 29 2004 - 19:24:36 GMT