RE: Does BMC's business model conflict with Editorial Independence?

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

Dear Phil, I do not generally cite personal experience, but I 
will supplement yours:

At a previous university, it was made very clear that what was 
expected of me was to keep the total charge for 
You-Know-Which-Publisher as low as possible.

And I really do not generally cite hypothetical personal 
experiences, because in dreams anything can be real, but suppose 
if I had been offered a bonus of 20% of the savings? I could have 
justified cancelling enough to buy a new car every few years. 
(My preference would be Honda, but I don't live where you really 
need 4WD in winter.)

--------

I think that only one of Phil's dangers is real: paying 
personally for manuscripts that are accepted from those who 
cannot pay. When BMC's request for candidate journals/editors was 
announced, I thought of trying. I might have done so, except for 
this consideration.

I think Richard F is right: If you run a journal, you want it to 
ultimately be one with a substantial number of high-quality 
papers.  If you start with low-quality to maker it look 
substantial, it will be very hard to overcome the stigma. If you 
accept only the very few good ones, they will attract other good 
authors.

(There was a problem back with paper: it was very noticeable when 
issues were very thin, but electronic is more forgiving. )

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Phil Davis
Sent: Mon 5/15/2006 8:23 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Does BMC's business model conflict with Editorial Independence?

Before this conversation completely goes astray, let me reframe
my argument:

1) It is not about the integrity of BMC editors.
2) It is not about the merits of Open Access to society.
3) It is not about whether ethical breaches have been perpetrated by
     other publishers.
4) This argument is about whether BMC's business model puts editorial
     independence at risk.

Now, let us review the facts, and if I get any wrong, please
correct me:

1) BMC rewards their editors with 20% of the author processing charge.
2) BMC requires editors to fund manuscripts that are accepted from
     those who cannot pay.
3) Biomedical ethics organizations (COPE, WAME, ICMJE) have
     guidelines that explicitly require the editorial decision-making to
     be separated by the commercial interests of the journal, and,
     BMC is a member of the first two organizations.

Discussion:

Again, this is not to accuse BMC editors of being unscrupulous.
I am not privy to their decision-making, and what they do with
the commission they receive from BMC for every paying author they
can attract.  Whether they simply pocket this money or use it to
sponsor poor authors is up to them.  In addition, most BMC
journals publish very few articles per month.  Richard's journal
(Nutrition and Metabolism) averages about 3 published
articles/month, so I can't imagine that his editorial expenses
are high.  I also cannot imagine that BMC journals, many of which
publish ten or fewer articles per year, have the same kind of
rejection rates of other prestigious journals they like to
compare themselves with.

For most of my professional life, I have been a selector of
science journals.  If I told you that, in lieu of a salary, I
received 20% of the subscription price for each journal I keep in
my collection, you would be aghast.  If I told you that I had to
pay for publications from developing countries out of my own
commission, you would be outraged.  If I told you that Elsevier
sent me a gift (a new Subaru Legacy Outback wagon, 2.5L, Atlantic
blue pearl, with heated leather seats), for giving them more
business last year, you would accuse me of abdicating my
profession duties for personal financial advancement.  I would
recoil in shock that anyone would ever question my loyalty and
integrity!

Yet unfortunately, I paid a meager salary and derive no bonuses
from my decision-making.  I dream of replacing our old 1996
Subaru hatchback, but this has no bearing on how I decide where
my library spends its money.  I am insulated from the possible
influences of a tip-economy, and hope that my faculty believe
that I am a fair and honest manager of our institution's funds.

Editors are the Gatekeepers of Science.  If we want these
individuals to be unbiased arbitrators of the scientific record,
we need to stop rewarding them as commission salesmen.

--Phil Davis