RE: universities experiment with paying OA fees

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

I grant you that there is something to be gained from having the 
actual authors confronted with the true costs of the system of 
scholarly communication. Of course, since the information about 
real costs is proprietary, who will really know if these are the 
"true" costs? Moreover, often enough the authors won't be paying 
these fees out of their own pockets but rather from departmental, 
library, or other administrative funds, so will they really learn 
the lesson you want them to learn? And, finally, the latitude for 
"shopping around" is fairly limited. Authors want to publish in 
the journals considered the most prestigious in their fields, and 
that consideration is likely to trump cost every time, especially 
since the benefits to the authors of publishing in the most 
prestigious journals are greater economic rewards for them in the 
future through tenure and promotion. The calculus of cost/benefit 
is a little more complicated here than you portray here, David.


>Sandy
>
>As you know, in the subscription business model users of journals
>(both authors and readers) are insulated from the cost of the
>journals they use. This has led to the disconnect between price
>and quality or service.
>
>A shift to publication charges makes it possible that the users
>(while acting as authors) will see the costs and be able to make
>decisions on whether they are getting value for money.  This
>could have an effect on prices as users will have an incentive
>'shop around' based on the level of service they want from the
>journal.  I hedge with 'possible' and 'could' because it is clear
>that if there is no transparency in the way the funds are set-up
>we could have the situation you describe.  If the university pays
>the publisher without the author knowing the costs involved then
>we have the potential for a continuation of the current
>dysfunctional market (albeit with wider access).
>
>One of the alleged disadvantages of such funds is that they will
>led to discussions on campus about what can be published, where,
>and at what cost. If we want the market to function then this is
>actually a good thing!
>
>Best wishes
>
>David
>
>