Re: Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current Subscription Model

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

Greetings,

Very interesting and very helpful data.  I would like to point out that
the cost per article published (Figure A) - appears to be about $2,500 to
$5,000 - does not represent the full range of estimates, but rather what I
would consider to be overestimates of cost.  The Wellcome Trust report,
for example, quotes about $1,500 US for an OA journal of high quality, and
less for a medium-quality journal (not unlike the $1,500 charge for PLoS
and about $525 for BioMedCentral.  Tenopir and King, as I recall, also
estimate around $1,500 per article.  Changing these figures radically
changes the conclusions.

To illustrate the difference this factor makes, consider that if the
publication cost per article can be lowered to about $500 US average, then
ALL the ARL libraries would pay less under open access. If we assume an
average cost of $1000 US (averaging BMC and PLoS publication charges is
about this amount), then 6 ARL libraries pay more under OA, not 67 as per
the present spreadsheet.

Other indications that the figures are an overestimate of what is
necessary:  recently, SPARC Publishing Partner Optics Express, an OA
publisher, recently announced that they are set to generate a modest net
revenue this year, basing total revenue on publication charges of $450 for
articles six pages and under,and $800 for articles over six pages.  See
the announcement in the SPARC Open Access Forum at
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1360.html

I have been working on figuring out how much money is really needed to
publish even a very high-end STM article, working from the ground up (the
work involved, salaries, overhead, etc.).  My current estimate is about
$500 U.S. per article.  Sally Morris figures that this does not factor in
rejected articles, which she thinks take twice as much work as accepted
articles.  Even taking this at face value, we still get an estimate of
about $1,500 U.S. per article.  On the other hand, other expert sin the
publishing industry has told me that my estimates are based on higher
salaries than what they actually pay, and I believe there is room for even
more efficiencies.  If you're interested in the details of my
calculations, go to the SPARC Open Access Forum archives
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/List.html and search for
"Imaginary Journal".

The lowest rates will be achieved through totally open access journals,
electronic only, published by nonprofit organizations (no taxes).  This is
not to say that current publishers would charge such reasonable amounts -
Springer does charge $3,000 per article, obviously.  My point is that this
much revenue is not truly necessary for an open access scholarly
publishing model.

One issue that Phil's analysis highlights, which I think is very
important, is that production-based models do not factor in potential
contributions by other players, such as non-research libraries and
corporations.  I believe there must be ways to involve these groups as
well.  For example, it makes sense to me that governments would provide
some subsidy for an OA scholarly publishing scheme for the benefits that
accrue to the education system, and for government employees.  It would
probably be best if this was only a small portion of the total, to avoid
the potential of government control (some might prefer no contributions
and no potential for control whatsoever, of course).  There could be other
opportunities for contributions by other sectors, such as using the tax
regime to manage corporate contributions (i.e. corporations which apply
for tax relief due to R & D could have the option of making their results
openly accessible, or contributing to a fund to be distributed to the
research-producing universities).  One reason to hesitate before adopting
such a scheme is that it may not be necessary - and having the research
universities control the funding entirely leaves the control of the system
entirely in their hands.

Many thanks for this spreadsheet and analysis, Phil - very helpful!

cheers,

Heather Morrison


On Sun,  2 Jan 2005 20:16:33 EST liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu wrote:
> Of potential interest to the readers of Liblicense. --Phil Davis
> 
> Title:  Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current Subscription Model
> 
> Authors:  Davis, Philip; Cornell University Library Task Force on Open
> Access Publishing
> 
> Issue Date:  22-Dec-2004
> Available: http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/236
> 
> Abstract:  This spreadsheet calculates the cost per article published in
> the current subscription model for 113 institutions designated under the
> Association of Research Libraries. It graphs these institutions by FTE
> (full time equivalent enrollment) and compares the results to a range of
> costs postulated in the producer-pays open access model. This spreadsheet
> uses publicly-available information and the author regrets any errors
> within. It was designed to promote dialog and additional analysis -- not
> to advocate a particular position. Modifying the starting assumptions will
> recalculate the values in the spreadsheet and update the graph. Readers
> are encouraged to change the assumptions based on more accurate
> information or alternative scenarios.
> 
> This spreadsheet is an addendum to the Report of the CUL Task Force on
> Open Access Publishing presented to the Cornell University Library
> Management Team August 9, 2004.
> 
> Questions and clarification can be sent to the author, Philip Davis at:
> pmd8@cornell.edu