On Sun, 24 Dec 2006, Sandy Thatcher wrote:
> And what about copyediting? You nowhere mention this as
a cost,
> and it can be significant. In my experience, very few
academic
> editors are able to do line editing very well (nor
should they
> spend their valuable time doing so anyway), and very
little of
> academic writing is not in need of editing. (I
understand that
> the British have a different attitude about
copyediting, but in
> the U.S. it is generally valued a lot, and expected, by
most
> authors.) I speak from experience here, as I did
copyediting
> full-time for the first three years of my publishing
career and
> continued it part-time for another twenty years. If you
abandon
> copyediting, you will have a significantly degraded
product.
> Good copyediting comes at a cost, though, at about $25
an hour.
It is an empirical question whether copy-editing will be
part of
the downsized OA publishing essentials. (The one substantive
finding of the PRC study was was that librarians don't seem
to
set much store by copy-editing in their
acquisition/cancellation
criteria.) To the extent that copy-editing continues to be
part
of the downsized OA publishing essentials, it will be paid
for,
on the OA publishing cost-recovery model, out of the
institutional subscription savings, per outgoing article
published. (How many hours of copy-editing do you estimate
an
article needs, at $25 per hour, in the online age?)
> Yes, author fees can cover this cost, too, but your
model for
> transferring costs from libraries to on-campus
editorial
> offices or BMC-type publishers assumes a smooth
transfer. Have
> you had any experience in university administration?
Nothing
> works that smoothly in universities, I assure you. A
one-to-one
> transfer of library serials expenditures to faculty
publishing
> fees is no simple matter, nor is there any guarantee
that the
> funds freed up by cancelled subscriptions would migrate
> directly to author fees anyway. There are plenty of
other uses
> to which such funds might be put. Libraries have
multiple
> needs, and supporting faculty publication may not
immediately
> be at the top of their lists. Even today, when costs
might be
> seemingly passed on easily to faculty who avail
themselves of
> library e-reserve operations, it doesn't happen because
the
> administrative costs of such transfers are perceived by
some
> libraries as steeper than the costs of paying for all
e-reserve
> permission fees themselves.
On your own hypothesis of sudden change (H3), two things
will
happen, suddenly, and at exactly the same time: sudden
collapse
of institutional subscriptions and sudden institutional
windfall
savings on subscriptions. Necessity is the mother of
invention;
with journals suddenly unable to make ends meet, and obliged
to
charge for publication on the OA model, and institutional
authors
suddenly obliged to pay to publish, it will not be lost on
anyone
that authors' own institutions have the sudden windfall
resources
from which to pay for their sudden rainfall of costs.
(I think you are perhaps getting carried away with free
speculation if you feel that it is part of the "worst
case
scenario" that universities are simply too thick to see
that they
must transfer some of their windfall subscription savings to
their authors' sudden rainfall of OA publishing needs under
these
acute conditions. Such oversights are among the pitfalls of
unconstrained speculation!)
> Your model also assumes that subscription savings will
balance
> out author fees at any given university. That is a very
big
> assumption to make. Yes, the most active authors are
probably
> at the most research-intensive universities, but I
doubt there
> is any one-to-one correspondence. Some universities may
find
> that they have to spend much more in author fees than
they save
> in subscriptions, whereas others may find the reverse.
Also, I
> suspect that, to the extent this correspondence exists
in
> science, it exists much less so in the humanities and
social
> sciences. Over time we have found in university press
> publishing that there has been a very significant
dispersion of
> talent to non-ARL campuses, such that we are publishing
many
> more authors from second- and third-tier universities
and
> colleges than we did, say, twenty or thirty years ago.
The
> savings from subscription cancellations on those
campuses may
> well not come close to covering author fees for their
faculty,
> who will thereby be disadvantaged in getting their
writing
> published unless their universities can tap some other
source
> of revenue for that purpose.
(On this question of net provider vs. net consumer
institutions,
both for subscriber journal input and for published article
output, please do the google search:
site:www.ecs.soton.ac.uk amsci net providers consumers
discussion already began in 1999!)
There is every reason to expect that savings and costs will
balance out comfortably. The two main reasons are these:
(1) There is undoubtedly a high correlation between the size
of
an institution's research output and the size of an
institution's
research journal intake.
(2) Downsizing means that substantially less money will be
changing hands (costs will probably be less than a third of
today's expenditure). This means there is a 2:1 buffer
against
any net-journal-consumer net-article-provider imbalances).
> Now, you might say, OA journals will take these
inequities into
> account and charge lower fees to such authors, or waive
them
> altogether. But then you introduce a whole new level of
> administrative cost into the system because there has
to be
> some way to verify "hardship" cases,
especially if you are
> dealing with authors in this country and not from some
very
> poor developing countries. If all this is done on the
"honor"
> system, you open the system to a significant level of
> corruption and free-riding. Moreover, the costs still
have to
> be paid, and this scenario would mean that the
wealthier
> universities would again be supporting the cost of the
whole
> system that benefits everyone, as they do now for
university
> presses.
The research-active institutions will pay the lion's share
of the
research publication costs because they do the lion's share
of
the research. They also pay the lion's share of the
subscriptions
today, and hence will have the lion's share of the savings
out of
which to pay for OA publishing. The problem of authors from
poor
institutions and the problem of unaffiliated authors is a
small
minority problem in the OA world, and it will be solved, in
very
obvious ways. In any case, it is not part of the
sudden-change
scenario (H3) that we are contemplating here, which was
supposed
to be about the hypothetical hardships of *publishers*
struggling
to make ends meet after the hypothetical sudden collapse of
subscriptions, not about the hypothetical hardships of
*authors*
from poor institutions, struggling to pay OA publishing
costs.
(No publisher is worrying about the hardships of all those
researchers worldwide who cannot afford access today; OA is
the
remedy for those researchers. Let publishers not now -- as a
pretext for continuing to deny researchers that remedy --
plead
that it is in order to protect those same researchers as
authors
that the access is to continue to be denied! That would be
the
tail wagging -- or rather restraining -- the dog, and the
tune
would not ring true!)
> You're also assuming that library fees would be readily
> transferred outside the university to publishers like
BMC or
> society OA publishers through author fees. That would
introduce
> yet another level of complexity into the system, as I
do not
> share your assumption that universities would as
readily allow
> transfer of funds to such an entity as they would to
another
> university-based publisher.
Sandy, I think you already said this once above -- that
universities will not redirect incoming subscription savings
to
outgoing publication costs: The answer is that of course it
is
not "complex" and of course they will. (And they
will pay the
author's chosen journal; it is irrelevant who the publisher
is --
commercial, learned-society, university, independent
non-profit,
or mom-pop: Relevant only is the author's choice of
journal.)
End Part II. Part III follows.
Stevan Harnad
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