On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:05:52PM -0700, Bruce Sherwood wrote: > Ruth has been on the board of two physics journals, one conventional > and the other like what I described. She tells me that the main costs > are associated with servers (which surprised me), with formatting, and > with salaries.
Outsourcing webservers is of the order of $100 per year. I don't understand that comment either. With formatting, well authors do send stuff in in Microsoft Word or other such rubbish. My model was that authors could submit in LaTeX already done in the journal style (with supplied .sty and .bst files provided), which would require fairly minimal processing by the editor, or they could pay to have it typeset in LaTeX - something in the region of a couple of hundred bucks for the privelege to submit in Microsoft Word. Also, if the English was not up to snuff, the authors would be directed towards a service like Online English (http://www.oleng.com.au). OK - I could imagine a busier journal might cost of the order of $100-200K pa to run, but something the size of Artificial Life (or for the matter Complexity International) should be doable for around the $20K pa mark. Actually, given that Artificial Life publishes around 20 articles per year, then the cost per paper would be around the $1000 mark, if you're doing full cost recovery. I could imagine that formatting and editing would add to that if you're offering those services. Cheers > > In the case of the on-line physics journal for which readers pay > nothing and authors pay $2000 per paper, server and related costs are > quite significant because of the requirement to ensure that papers be > available essentially in perpetuity, with some budget even for future > required format changes as the technology changes. Moreover, this > journal sits in an environment of physics journals that must share a > portal for easy access by libraries. It's a fairly complex ecosystem. > > For a professional journal, it is considered highly important that all > papers have the same format -- the same look and feel. The formatting > is done outside, by contract with a company that does this sort of > thing. > > Salaries include a full-time secretary who receives submissions and > sends out invitations to reviewers, overseen by an editor who is a > physicist and gets part of his/her salary paid (because it takes a lot > of time). > > The operation apparently about breaks even. > > Of course if the issue is simply that you want to put on your personal > web site some pdfs that friends have sent you, with no commitment that > the web site will exist next year, the costs are close to zero. > > Bruce > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Nicholas Thompson > <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > Bruce, > > > > Would you be willing to get into the weeds a bit about what those costs are? > > My imagination is failing me, here. > > > > Nick > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf > > Of Bruce Sherwood > > Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:48 PM > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog > > > > There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach adopted by > > some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with readers having free > > access. NSF considers author publication fees a reasonable part of doing > > business, and physicists are including these costs in grant proposals. In > > some cases there are "scholarships" for truly needy submitters. > > > > Bruce > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
