Facilitated publishing model

["Julian H. Fisher, MD" <fisher@medico.com>]

The publishing cooperative model that Raym Crow has proposed 
(<http://www.arl.org/sparc/pubs/papers/Cooperatives_v1.pdf>) is 
an innovative non-profit alternative to the traditional 
for-profit publishers who have customarily locked content behind 
fiscal firewalls. Concerned that academic entities might not be 
able to offer the speed and flexibility needed to speed the 
development of small open access journals, not-for-profit 
Scholarly Exchange began offering at the beginning of 2006 a 
next-step-beyond-cooperative model, one that we call facilitated 
publishing (<http://www.scholarlyexchange.org>).

Our belief is that scholars and journals benefit from 
transitional assistance - the move from print to electronic, from 
subscriptions to open access - and need guidance in the critical 
area of sustainability - archiving content appropriately and 
developing an alternative revenue stream - everything that works 
to guarantee long-term viability for the container (the journal) 
and the content.  In fact, one can view the journal as both 
conduit and filter, moving content from creation to storage.

Under this model, SE as a neutral and independent entity provides 
a free platform (utilizing OJS at present), fully implemented and 
hosted free (costs offset by advertising or donations), available 
for immediate use, and accompanied by a range of free advisory 
and self-help services to facilitate the development of open 
access e-journals.  Journal editors benefit from their 
colleagues' experience, submissions are processed, evaluated, and 
published, and content is free to reside on the journal's site 
and be archived in a manner of their choosing.  The startup 
process can be reduced in time and complexity, and editors can 
devote their energies to the recruitment and harvesting of good 
content.

The cost of publishing an article consists essentially of content 
production costs (research), review-and-editorial oversight, 
article preparation, display (in the electronic world), and 
archiving.

Content creation, the research itself and manuscript preparation, 
is assumed to be a part of everyday academic activities and is 
covered by salary and grants. So too is the review process and 
much of the editorial oversight - all part of the daily 
give-and-take of academic life.

The only real costs - out-of-pocket costs - are such items as 
copy editing, file conversion to PDF, HTML or XML, and the cost 
of maintaining the electronic publishing platform. Rapid 
evolution in and simplification of technology have driven many of 
these cost elements down dramatically.

As one simple example, documents created in Microsoft Word or 
Open Office can be converted automatically to PDF as a final step 
in document processing - and at virtually no cost. There are 
services available globally to convert documents to 
structured-and-tagged XML or HTML (for submission to specific 
electronic archives) for well under $1 a page. A 5-page article 
could be available in both PDF and HTML for $4.50. Copy editing 
is in a state of flux as well, with many journals asking their 
authors to submit final versions fully copy edited. Should a 
journal wish to handle the process itself, the cost per article 
should be in the $40-60 range after the journal editor and the 
author have polished the content.

Add to this a free or minimal cost publish-and-display 
environment, and the per-article cost should be in the $10-$100 
range rather than $4000 as commercial publishers reported - two 
orders of magnitude less.

The university-based cooperative publishing model and the neutral 
facilitated publishing model offer two viable options for the 
development and dissemination of what has heretofore been a 
costly and constrained intellectual environment.

Julian H. Fisher, MD
Managing Director

Scholarly Exchange, Inc.
...a not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation devoted to scholarly publishing...
www.scholarlyexchange.org
320 Dudley Street
Brookline, MA 02445
617 232-4151
fisher@scholarlyexchange.org