Re: Misperceptions clarified

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

Do any of the leading publishers committed to Open Access use 
this software and hosting capacity? I am sure that they do not 
want to spend money unneccesarily even if there are those who 
would believe (for reasons that I cannot understand) that for 
some reason commercial publishers want to spend money.

In particular what is the view from BioOne?

As I have said, I have not myself in this area but would 
appreciate finding out more. The posting from Dr. Fisher and the 
previous posting from Heather Morrison makes big claims. I find 
on the site of Scholarly Exchange the names of eleven journals 
which use the system. I have checked out about half of them. They 
are very small and mostly (as far as I can tell) just starting. 
Of course one has to start somewhere. They do not provide 
evidence in themselves for the usefulness of the services they 
are using.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Fisher, MD" <fisher@scholarlyexchange.org>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:49 AM
Subject: Misperceptions clarified

> The lack of familiarity that many academics have with open 
> source journal publishing software is unfortunate, as it now 
> often exceeds the capabilities of commercial offerings - and at 
> a unbeatable price.  It does, like any software, require some 
> support.  Even those costs can be kept to a bare minimum.
>
> Anthony Watkinson raised the question in a response to Heather 
> Morrison about whether Scholarly Exchange supported large 
> journals.  Many of our journals are recently started but 
> rapidly becoming both active and recognized.  The software on 
> which they run, the Public Knowledge Project's Open Journal 
> Systems, has received a sufficient workout, with by PKP's 
> estimate over 800 journals using it, and is capable of handling 
> the editorial loads that journals of all but the top few 
> percent have to manage.
>
> Our efforts, directed (but not exclusively) to smaller journals 
> and smaller societies, with their limited resources, have 
> focused on assistance with startup (a free year's hosting and 
> management), guidance in the startup process, and development 
> of resources to continue publishing thereafter (at minimal 
> cost). Beyond that, we vigorously encourage our journals to 
> arrange long-term archiving arrangements with university or 
> governmental bodies, a task made easier by the OAI-compliant 
> and LOCKSS-compliant nature of OJS.
>
> It is no longer an embarrassment to work with systems that cost 
> a hundredth of what older systems cost.  Many consider it a 
> definite advantage, especially if free and open access is the 
> goal.
>
> Julian H. Fisher, MD
>
> Managing Director
> Scholarly Exchange, Inc., a 501 (c) 3 public charity