RE: [tips] "Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research"
I think the cost is ridiculous and it is obvious that the publishers think such costs are going to be covered by grants or in some other way expensed. They take no account of the possibility that a student may need an article for their (unfunded) research or a professor may want to use one for a class. There is no way someone is going to pay that kind of money for a few pages of text if someone else (the grant funder) isn't paying for it. If there is time, they will get it from interlibrary loan. If there isn't time, they will usually just try to find something else. I have to wonder if they wouldn't make more money in volume if they actually lowered the price to where people might actually consider purchasing individual articles. Maybe they are afraid of what happened to the music industry when iTunes allowed the purchase of singles. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3055 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 rfro...@jbu.edu (479)524-7295 http://bit.ly/DrFroman "The LORD detests both Type I and Type II errors." Proverbs 17:15 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12352 or send a blank email to leave-12352-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
RE: [tips] "Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research"
I hate to say this, but in my experience many (not all) of these publishers just don't seem to have much of an educational ethos, at least nowadays. The whole idea that one of their primary roles should be to disseminate valuable knowledge about psychology (or other fields) to the general public and/or to students is somehow foreign to them. But then again, I guess I'm a hopeless idealist in this regard. A few years ago, I was editing a book of readings for undergraduate audiences. Some of the costs of reproducing the articles (including some I had written myself - see Ken Steele's message below) were so prohibitive that we couldn't use them. I told a few publishers whose costs were especially egregious (e.g., a thousand dollars or more per article) that we'd be making minimal, if any, money off of the book and that our goal was to educate undergraduates about scientific thinking in psychology. When I asked them if they was any way to lower (not eliminate) the prices so that we could use the articles for educational purposes, most of them responded to me as if I was from Mars. I would have hoped that it isn't all about the bottom line, but increasingly that seems to be the case. ..Scott From: Ken Steele [steel...@appstate.edu] Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 7:47 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] "Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research" I have had cynical thoughts often about the academic publishing world. One has a system in which I do the work, write up the work, fellow workers do the vetting, and all control/profit of my work goes to a for-profit company. At one point, when electronic pdf reprints were just appearing on the scene, an academic publisher wanted to charge me, the author, a lot of $$ for a pdf of an article I had written. In addition, the contract to obtain this pdf, which was written by the type of lawyers who write user agreements for commercial software, forbade me from making the pdf available to someone, like you, who could pay for the article. There is a wide-range of publishing houses and a number of low-cost publications from small academic groups. The problem is that those groups are turning over their publications to the big publishers because of time and effort issues. Ken --- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- On 8/31/2011 6:40 AM, Allen Esterson wrote: > On the high cost of academic articles for non-subscribers: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+theguardian/commentisfree/rss+%28Comment+is+free%29 > > or: > http://tinyurl.com/3jb7sc3 > > As someone who has (reluctantly) coughed up on occasion, I'd be > interested to hear views of TIPSters on this issue. Is there economic > justification for the high cost of obtaining articles from academic > journals? > > Allen Esterson > Former lecturer, Science Department > Southwark College, London > allenester...@compuserve.com > http://www.esterson.org > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: slil...@emory.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9b2f&n=T&l=tips&o=12347 or send a blank email to leave-12347-13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments). --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12348 or send a blank email to leave-12348-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] "Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research"
I have had cynical thoughts often about the academic publishing world. One has a system in which I do the work, write up the work, fellow workers do the vetting, and all control/profit of my work goes to a for-profit company. At one point, when electronic pdf reprints were just appearing on the scene, an academic publisher wanted to charge me, the author, a lot of $$ for a pdf of an article I had written. In addition, the contract to obtain this pdf, which was written by the type of lawyers who write user agreements for commercial software, forbade me from making the pdf available to someone, like you, who could pay for the article. There is a wide-range of publishing houses and a number of low-cost publications from small academic groups. The problem is that those groups are turning over their publications to the big publishers because of time and effort issues. Ken --- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- On 8/31/2011 6:40 AM, Allen Esterson wrote: On the high cost of academic articles for non-subscribers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+theguardian/commentisfree/rss+%28Comment+is+free%29 or: http://tinyurl.com/3jb7sc3 As someone who has (reluctantly) coughed up on occasion, I'd be interested to hear views of TIPSters on this issue. Is there economic justification for the high cost of obtaining articles from academic journals? Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12347 or send a blank email to leave-12347-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] "Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research"
Total agreement with this article. In fact, I alluded to this a while back in TIPS. Here's an excerpt from the article: - Everyone claims to agree that people should be encouraged to understand science and other academic research. Without current knowledge, we cannot make coherent democratic decisions. But the publishers have slapped a padlock and a "keep out" sign on the gates. You might resent Murdoch's paywall policy, in which he charges £1 for 24 hours of access to the Times and Sunday Times. But at least in that period you can read and download as many articles as you like. Reading a single article published by one of Elsevier's journals will cost you $31.50. Springer charges €34.95, Wiley-Blackwell, $42. The lowest price I've seen recently for one article from a psych journal is $11.50. Still too much. Michael Michael A. Britt, Ph.D. mich...@thepsychfiles.com http://www.ThePsychFiles.com Twitter: mbritt On Aug 31, 2011, at 6:40 AM, Allen Esterson wrote: > On the high cost of academic articles for non-subscribers: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+theguardian/commentisfree/rss+%28Comment+is+free%29 > > or: > http://tinyurl.com/3jb7sc3 > > As someone who has (reluctantly) coughed up on occasion, I'd be > interested to hear views of TIPSters on this issue. Is there economic > justification for the high cost of obtaining articles from academic > journals? > > Allen Esterson > Former lecturer, Science Department > Southwark College, London > allenester...@compuserve.com > http://www.esterson.org > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: michael.br...@thepsychfiles.com. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958f69&n=T&l=tips&o=12345 > or send a blank email to > leave-12345-13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12346 or send a blank email to leave-12346-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
