Certainly $500 covers the cost of peer review -- and if that is the only "essential," which we'd all agree is the minimum necessary for quality control, then of course the article can be processed for that. Once we add in the costs for copyediting, XML tagging for compliance with (often painfully) specific DTDs, composition (whether desktop or typesetting), graphics quality control, dynamic cross-linking to references, etc., the price understandably goes up. When questioned about which of these researchers would be willing to give up, they consistently suggest that are all important. And so the cost for producing high-quality articles must cover these. The differences in cost-per-article from journal to journal will of course very much depend on how many of these elements are included in the production process and how much functionality you include in the final online product. As you can tell from the PLoS pricing structure, we've decided that for us to produce the highest quality articles possible, all of these (and other elements not listed above) are, in fact, essential. Others may, of course, come to a different decision and their costs will undoubtedly reflect that.
Best regards, Rebecca Kennison Public Library of Science -----Original Message----- From: Fytton Rowland [mailto:j.f.rowl...@lboro.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 7:45 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review) I think this interesting exchange between Stevan and a member of an unnamed university illustrates the enormous misunderstanding of the BMC model that exists among both academics and academic librarians, which, if BMC (and come to that PLoS) are not careful will lead to their early and unjustified demise. The same could be said of the other exchange a day or two ago between Stevan and an unnamed learned society editor. Stevan's exposition of the situation is accurate and clear, but unfortunately most of the confused won't read it. i am an admirer of Jan Velterop and his teacm at BMC, but with hindsight, I think it was a mistake for them to introduce their "institutional membership" scheme. It has caused confusion. Many universities seem to have charged this fee to the library budget rather than to the budgets of academic departments, and this has muddied the water and led to some librarians believing that they are being charged twice over for the same material (which of course they are not). Some say that BMC is no different from other commercial publishers - they think of the BMC institutional membership fee as just another journal subscription (which it is not). The clear, simple, $500 per article fee payable by each author (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is obviously *not* a library expense. It is also about the right sum, in my view based on my 2002 research into the costs of peer review. There is a head of steam building up against the "author pays" model now, partly due to these confusions, and partly due to the long-term dislike of authors for page charges. Many authors do not distinguish between charges levied by journals that also charge subscriptions, and charges levied by open- access journals. This may lead to the early death of the new model and the continuation of toll-access and the journals crisis for libraries. Stevan may not mind about that, but his preferred model of institutional open-access repositories depends on someone else doing the refereeing. Fytton Rowland. Stevan Harnad wrote: (snip) > In short, the BMC open-access publication model has not been thought > through by the research and library community *at all*, whereas BMC > itself > has only thought it through (understandably) from its own bottom-line > standpoint (and improvising as they went along, helped along by the > rising tide of pro-open-access sentiment in the research community). (snip) > > PARAPHRASE: BMC charges my University -- "University X" -- about > > $500 x 10 = $5000 [actual figures altered so as not to identify any > > institution, but ballpark is the same] for its yearly membership. > > (Our faculty were not in favor of the deal.) About 20 University-X > > researchers are already publishing in BMC journals annually so far > > [actual figures altered, but ballpark is the same]. > > The faculty disinclination toward the BMC deal is quite understandable > (though in itself it is certainly no evidence that it's not a good > idea)! From your own figures, this amounts to a publication subsidy to > about 20 University-X (biomedical) researchers per year right now, > while everything else stays the same: All of University-X's other incoming > journal-tolls still have to be paid. Universal open-access by this > route is nowhere in sight..... (snip) > .....at a time when these membership-fees must all be paid *in addition to* > toll-access costs (with no sense of when and whether those toll-costs > will diminish). (snip) > > PARAPHRASE: With 20 articles instead of 10, that already makes > > it $250 per article instead of $500. Any more and BMC will have to > > raise its rates, causing financial hardships for member universities. > > Don't worry for BMC! If they manage, they manage. If they later raise > rates and institutions balk, cross that bridge when you come to it. Worry > now about the *rest* of University-X's research output, over and above the > 20 articles in question! (snip) > > PARAPHRASE: I hear that each article in the 95 BMC journals averages > > one per month. > I think that's a considerable underestimate. I'm sure that BMC > open-access articles do not get, on average, more or less downloads and > citations than other comparable-quality open-access articles < (whether self-archived or > published in open-access journals) -- which is, on average, a lot more > downloads and citations than comparable-quality toll-access > articles get (4.5 times as many, according to Laurence 2001 > http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html ) > In other words, the impact-enhancing benefits of open access are not > in dispute (whereas the instrinsic quality-level of BMC articles is a > separate matter, on which I have no views, or information).