On 5 October 2013 19:51, Heather Morrison <heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>wrote:
> The only place where OA article processing fees fit into this picture is > with hybrid journals / publishers. If the market were working, overall > subscription prices should be decreasing, not increasing, to reflect the > new revenue stream. > > In other words, this is further evidence of ongoing market dysfunction. > The short answer is that subscription prices in hybrid journals are only going to go down if the number of articles published "closed" decreases. That is not necessarily a given, when the number of "open" articles increases. The long answer is that the economics are far more complicated than that. Nominally, you may expect an inflationary rise if publication rates remain constant. But there is so much more that can happen behind the scenes. For example: 1) Higher submission rates may result in more labour intensive processes, even if the number published remains constant (or even decreases). 2) Investment in systems development (this could result in a reduction of ongoing costs though). 3) Providing production for, and distribution via, new means - e.g. mobile devices. I can't, and I'm not going to, justify any individual subscription rise. But there are lots of factors - lots of genuine costs - that can influence the pricing, some of which are not immediately apparent. However, in terms of the impact of OA APCs in hybrid journals, then I could direct you to the Wellcome Trust's presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/Wellcome/mandating-open-access-wellcome-trust-presentation See slide 11, they claim - certainly in the Oxford University Press case - that the take up of OA options in hybrid journals is having a material effect on the amount of "closed" publications, and from there, the cost of subscriptions. Given the high level of mistrust, and "anti-" campaigning with regards to hybrid OA options, availability of funds, and possibly even routing through the publication workflow, it's not entirely surprising if the take up of OA options is not high enough to cause a headline price reduction for the subscription prices. G
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