When assessing the economic potential for transition to open
access, it is essential to factor in the efficiencies made
possible through automation and online dissemination through the
world wide web.
To illustrate just how possible open access is, using much less
than the revenue stream currently going into subscriptions,
consider this:
Reed Elsevier's 2005 revenue (about $9.2 billion US) was
sufficient to pay for over 6 million BioMedCentral articles.
Just 10% of Elsevier's 2005 revenue would pay for 460,000
articles in Public Library of Science. Divided by 2,000 titles,
a very rough approximation of Elsevier's output, the result is a
far above average 230 articles per journal (picture a quarterly
journal with 58 articles per issue).
Anthony Watkinson was enquiring as to how I know there are over
800 journals using Open Journal Systems.
This is what is reported on the OJS website, along with a partial
list of journals which have chosen to be listed, at:
http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs-journals
There are more than 100 listings on the OJS website.
If anyone would like more information, my suggestion is to contact OJS.
From my perspective, it is enough to note that:
1) free, open source publishing software is available, OJS being
one example
2) low cost hosting and support services are available, for
example the service provided by Scholarly Exchange
3) this software streamlines much of the work of coordinating
peer review and editing, creating efficiencies which should lower
costs
4) the software has been proven in practice by a significant
number of journals
This is evidence to support my claim that tremendous efficiencies
are possible today in scholarly publishing. This is important
because it illustrates the essential possibility of open access.
A fully open access scholarly publishing system, with the same
(or better) quality controls than at present, not only is
possible, but could quite possibly cost much less than what is
being now, for subscriptions.
Any opinion expressed in this message is that of the author
alone, and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC
Electronic Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.