RE: Looking an open access gift horse in the mouth

[Jan Velterop <jan@biomedcentral.com>]

In explaining the level of article processing charges in PLoS Biology, and
comparing them to lower charges in other Open Access journals, Rebecca
Kennison writes:

"Other journals may choose to have less stringent quality control or
functionality, decisions that may mean less cost to them."

As some BioMed Central journals do charge substantially less than PLoS
Biology, it is important to respond to this statement from the point of
view of BioMed Central.

The difference here is not the "stringency" of peer review, but rather the
level of selection. There is a clear and sensible argument that journals
setting themselves a very high level of selectivity may have to charge
more, as there is clearly a cost involved in refereeing a large number of
papers that will not be published. However, there is also a need to have
Open Access journals available for all scientifically sound papers
irrespective of "impact", "prestige", or "importance".

As BioMed Central publishes many journals with different selection
criteria, we have to charge more for publishing papers in some journals
and less in others. The article processing charges for our Journals of
Biology (when they come into effect this summer) will in fact be at the
same level as those for PLoS Biology now. This, however, does not suggest
that the refereeing in some of our other journals is less "stringent", but
rather reflects the fact that some journals, such as the Journal of
Biology, have to referee many more articles for each one they publish, and
some need to referee proportionally fewer articles.

Maintaining a stringent quality of peer review is essential to all
journals (currently well over 100) we publish at BioMed Central (as it is
for PLoS Biology and the future journals from PLoS). The higher charges
for our Journal of Biology (and PLoS Biology) are the result of very high
selection criteria.

Finally, it is not clear what "functionality" decisions Rebecca has in
mind, and how they relate to the charges. Currently there are no
significant differences in functionality between BioMed Central and PLoS.

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central

Middlesex House
34-42 Cleveland Street
London W1T 4LB
UK

T. +44 (0)20 7323 0323
www.biomedcentral.com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rebecca Kennison [mailto:rkennison@plos.org]
> Sent: 16 January 2004 21:53
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: RE: Looking an open access gift horse in the mouth
> 
> [snip]
> 
> How does PLoS determine its publication charges?
> 
> We set our publication charge of $1500 based on the best estimate we 
> could make from existing publishing data. Most studies show that 
> first-copy costs run between $1500-$3000, including the costs of peer 
> review, editing, production, ongoing online hosting, robust online 
> interactivity (such as a variety of download formats, multimedia and 
> supporting information files, reference linking), etc. Other journals 
> may choose to have less stringent quality control or functionality, 
> decisions that may mean less cost to them.