Re: Institutional Journal Costs in an Open Access Environment

[JOHANNES VELTEROP <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

This quote from Walters' abstract is entirely intuitive and 
plausible (emphasis is mine, JV):

"Because institutional disparities in publishing productivity are 
far greater than institutional disparities in library holdings, 
the shift from a subscription-based model to either Open Access 
model would bring dramatic cost savings (greater than 50%) for 
most colleges and universities. At the same time, a *small number 
of institutions* -- the top research universities -- would pay a 
far higher proportion of the total aggregate cost."

The question is: is it problematic if a small number of 
institutions would pay more, particularly if they are the top 
research institutes.

On a conceptual level, I would say 'no'. The 'publish or perish' 
adage doesn't only apply to individual authors, but arguably also 
to institutions However, they get more 
visibility/recognition/prestige benefit for their share of the 
financial contribution than less productive institutes (e.g. 
education-oriented ones) who pay less. If one regards formal 
publication as integral to doing research, and I do, the cost of 
formal publishing is logically also integral to the cost of doing 
research.

On a practical level, of course there is a problem. 
Redistribution of cost is always painful to some, and redirecting 
money streams is not easy and often very complex. Political and 
power issues cloud the landscape as well. But productive 
institutes on the whole also receive far more money in terms of 
grant overheads (or similar) than less productive ones and thus 
could afford a higher contribution.

Assuming that the total amount of money involved in the aggregate 
remains the same, redistribution of costs has the important 
academic and societal benefit of enabling full open access. Given 
that the funders (mostly governments) inject this money into the 
system anyway, this could be a winners-only game, the funders, 
academia, and society as a whole being the winners.

Jan Velterop


--- Phil Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu> wrote:

> A very detailed study of the effect of three different pricing 
> models (subscription, plus 2 producer-pays models) at small, 
> medium, and large universities has been completed by Bill 
> Walters (see abstract and link below).  This is the first 
> analysis that I've seen that is based on actual cost data, and 
> not estimates, averages, or best-case scenarios.  The 
> conclusions support the early work reported at Cornell 
> University that research institutions (net producers of 
> information) will pay more in an producer-pays Open Access 
> environment [1, 2] --Phil Davis
>
> ****************
>
> Institutional Journal Costs in an Open Access
> Environment
> by William H. Walters
>
> http://www.library.millersville.edu/public_html/walters/journal_costs.pdf
>
> This study investigates the potential impact of Open Access 
> pricing on institutional journal expenditures in four subject 
> fields at nine American colleges and universities. Three 
> pricing models are evaluated: the Conventional Model (the 
> current subscription model), the PLoS Open Access Model (based 
> on the fees currently charged by the Public Library of 
> Science), and the Equal-Revenue Open Access Model (which 
> maintains current levels of total aggregate spending within 
> each subject field). Because institutional disparities in 
> publishing productivity are far greater than institutional 
> disparities in library holdings, the shift from a 
> subscription-based model to either Open Access model would 
> bring dramatic cost savings (greater than 50%) for most 
> colleges and universities. At the same time, a small number of 
> institutions -- the top research universities -- would pay a 
> far higher proportion of the total aggregate cost.
>
> References [1] Report of the CUL Task Force on Open Access 
> Publishing Presented to the Cornell University Library 
> Management Team August 9, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1813/193
>
> [2] Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current 
> Subscription Model. http://hdl.handle.net/1813/236