The differing fees ($500 versus $1500) have to do with rejection rates, since only accepted papers pay the fee. Rejected papers incur costs. The figure of about $500 per paper being adequate to cover costs depends on a rejection rate of about 50%. A rejection rate of about 80% would require a fee of about $1500.
An alternative approach would be to charge the fee to all submissions. It need only be about $250 then, but those whose papers are rejected get nothing for their $250. This method would encourage authors to be very realistic in their choice of journal to submit to, though. As far as I know no journal has tried this approach yet. Fytton Rowland, Loughboroughb University, UK. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Krichel" <kric...@openlib.org> To: <american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 8:45 PM Subject: Re: New channel of support for open-access publishing > Stevan Harnad writes > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Thomas Krichel wrote: > > > > > $1500 per paper should be amply sufficient to fund the > > > publishing operation. I suggest that libraries support other > > > ventures with more moderate charges. > > > > Thomas, did you mean $500 ? Otherwise your posting does not quite > > make sense. (PLoS is proposing $1500.) > > Yes, that is what I meant: $1500 should be amply sufficient. > Institutions should not be handing more money to PLoS. > > > If you meant $500 I remind you that PLoS is aiming explicitly for the > > high (quality, impact, prestige) end of science publishing (the level > > of Nature and Science) on the assumption that if the high end can be > > won over to OA journals, the rest will follow suit. > > By the same token, do you sincerely want to suggest that the competitors of > PLoS who charge more reasonable fees are intending to attract > low-quality papers? Surely not! They just not as greedy as PLoS. > > It costs as much to publish quality intellectual contents as it cost > to publish rubbish intellectual contents. Sure, if you have complicate > multi-media contents, then your costs are likely to be higher. But most > of the documents we are talking here about are, presumably, the > traditional stuff of text, mathematical formulas and pictures that > academic authors are trained to produce. To produce good multi-media > is a different story, it is likely to be the preserve of trade authors. > > > $1500 may well cover extra enhancements that make the transition at the > > high end more appealing to authors at this time. > > PLoS can use the 9 Million subsidy that they already have received > for that transition. Institutional monies will better spent on > institutional archiving, or participation in discipline based > initiatives such as arXiv.org, RePEc, or rclis.org. > > > Cheers, > > Thomas Krichel mailto:kric...@openlib.org > http://openlib.org/home/krichel > RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel >
