Re: Author-pays model: more common among subscription than open access journals

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

On 18-Jun-09, at 11:14 PM, Heather Morrison wrote:

> Excerpt from a 2005 ALPSP-sponsored study by Kaufman-Wills, 
> "The Facts about Open Access:
>
> "On the financial side, we were very surprised to find just how 
> few of the Open Access journals raise any author-side charges 
> at all; in fact, author charges are considerably more common 
> (in the form of page charges, colour charges, reprint charges, 
> etc) among subscription journals".  (From the Overview).  The 
> report is available for free download from:
>
> http://www.alpsp.org/ngen_public/article.asp?id=200&did=47&aid=270&st=&oaid=-1

TWELVE OA STATISTICS AND THREE CONCLUSIONS

(full text: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/591-guid.html)

#1:  The vast majority of current (peer-reviewed) journal 
articles are not OA (Open Access) (neither Green OA nor Gold OA).

#2:  The vast majority of journals are not Gold OA.

#3:  The vast majority of journals are Green OA.

#4:  The vast majority of citations are to the top minority of 
articles (the Pareto/Seglen 90/10 rule).

#5:  The vast majority of journals (or journal articles) are not 
among the top minority of journals (or journal articles).

#6:  The vast majority of the top journals are not Gold OA.

#7:  The vast majority of the top journals are Green OA.

#8:  The vast majority of article authors would comply willingly 
with a Green OA mandate from their institutions and/or funders.

#9:  The vast majority of institutions and funders do not yet 
mandate Green OA.

#10:  The vast majority of Gold OA journals are not 
paid-publication journals.

#11:  The vast majority of the top Gold OA journals are paid- 
publication journals.

#12:  The vast majority of institutions do not have the funds to 
subscribe to all the journals their users need.

CONCLUSION I: The fact that the vast majority of Gold OA journals 
are not paid-publication journals is not relevant if we are 
concerned about providing OA to the articles in the top journals.

CONCLUSION II: Green OA, mandated by institutions and funders, is 
the vastly underutilized means of providing OA.

CONCLUSION III: It is vastly more productive (of OA) for 
universities and funders to mandate Green OA than to fund Gold 
OA.

Stevan Harnad
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/