> But, in their words, when "...the prices for the next year's
> subscriptions are calculated. At that time, Springer will calculate
> the number of articles published under the traditional model in the
> previous 12 months. If that number is less than the twelve month
> period before that, then subscription prices will decrease
> accordingly." This apparently means that if half their authors pay
> the author/sponsor fee, the subscription price of the journal next
> year will be half. (There are many further complexities, which can be
> found on their pages.)
>
> In other words, as their authors/sponsors switch to a "gold" model,
> so will the journal.
The Springer announcement isn't clear about the formula that will be
used to change the price. In particular, it isn't clear that if all
authors in year n purchase Open Access then the journal will be free in
year n+1. (What does "decrease accordingly" mean?) Is there any
evidence, beyond that in the announcment, of the formula they will apply?
--
Martin J. Osborne
Department of Economics
150 St. George Street
University of Toronto
Toronto
M5S 3G7
Canada
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca
martin.osborne_at_utoronto.ca
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne
Received on Thu Jul 08 2004 - 15:10:44 BST