Re: The Economics of Open Access Journal Publishing

From: David Goodman <David.Goodman_at_liu.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 12:50:07 +0100

    [Moderator's Note: In line with the new policy announced recently,
    this is a multiple posting -- by David Goodman and by Vinod Scaria --
    on the same topic.]

Sally Morris wrote:

> Personally I think it is a risky economic model because I do not believe
> it could scale up to cover all the research literature (nor that it
> would be the best use of academics' time and universities' resources).
> Publishers are professionals at doing these things and, under one economic
> model or another, I think it makes sense to have them continue to do so -
> but I would say that, wouldn't I!
>
> How happy would we be about the independence of a totally state-funded
> system?

Sally has a point -- and that some journal publishers for some journals
add no value besides distribution of the camera-ready copy supplied
by an editor -- this is an effective way to publish a very inexpensive
journal if the generally low technical quality doesn't matter.

One conclusion is that the user/reader/consumer paid model of open
access journal publication offers a potentially great advantage over
the repository-based model: it preserves the existing journal structure,
both for the existing publishers and any new one which may be attracted
by the opportunities. This comes at a price: surely the repository based
arXiv-like model is much less expensive, but if price-based competition
lowers the cost of open access production in journal form, this may reduce
costs sufficiently. "Sufficiently" means low enough so that enough authors
and the organizations and sponsoring/publishing agencies can afford to
pay them. (Or, to be more exact, afford to pay them and be willing to
pay them and set up the infrastructure to pay them.)

This does not mean an entirely state-funded system. We've seen the need to
have organizations supporting research that the govenment does not wish
to support, and the same goes for this. As Subbiah mentions, there are
other agencies -- the private agencies that support research. And there
are universities themselves. That's what University Presses are for,
though some journals are still published by academic departments.
Many journals are now published by university presses, and their
sponsoring universities might well want to consider a partial subsiudy
for changing to this model.

Just as there are a great many places and ways for librarians, however
called, to work, there are a great many places and ways for publishers. If
we can free the system from the burden of monopoly pricing, there should
be room for yet more.

From: "Dr.Vinod Scaria" <drvinod_at_HotPOP.com>

Sally Morris:

> Personally I think it is a risky economic model because I do not
> believe it could scale up to cover all the research literature (nor
> that it would be the best use of academics' time and universities'
> resources). Publishers are professionals at doing these things and,
> under one economic model or another, I think it makes sense to have
> them continue to do so - but I would say that, wouldn't I! How happy
> would we be about the independence of a totally state-funded system?

Even when the model is not scaleable, I personally feel these Journals
should be able to influence the market significantly - especially the
economic models and profit motive.

It should also be noted that many of the universities have publishing
wings which can handle these Journals efficiently.

I disagree to your statement that it is not the best use of Universities'
resources. If universities were set up to advance science, I personally
see no reason why they should be kept away from exploiting the new
avenues and oppurtunities [especially through Open Access]. I would see
it as the best use of their resources.

Dr.Vinod Scaria
WEB: www.virtualmedonline.com
MAIL: vinodscaria_at_yahoo.co.in=20
Mobile: +91 98474 65452
Received on Tue Mar 30 2004 - 12:50:07 BST