But, in their words, when "...the prices for the next year's
subscriptions are calculated. At that time, Springer will calculate
the number of articles published under the traditional model in the
previous 12 months. If that number is less than the twelve month
period before that, then subscription prices will decrease
accordingly." This apparently means that if half their authors pay
the author/sponsor fee, the subscription price of the journal next
year will be half. (There are many further complexities, which can be
found on their pages.)
In other words, as their authors/sponsors switch to a "gold" model,
so will the journal.
The Springer announcement isn't clear about the formula that will be
used to change the price. In particular, it isn't clear that if all
authors in year n purchase Open Access then the journal will be free in
year n+1. (What does "decrease accordingly" mean?) Is there any
evidence, beyond that in the announcment, of the formula they will apply?
--
Martin J. Osborne
Department of Economics
150 St. George Street
University of Toronto
Toronto
M5S 3G7
Canada
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca
[email protected]
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne
