RE: May issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter

["Ken Masters" <kmasters@ithealthed.com>]

Hi All

Pippa makes the all-important point that decisions to accept or reject
papers are made by editors, not publishers.  It is this point that is
conveniently forgotten when critics of author-pay OA journals accuse
those journals of accepting anything, just to increase their revenue.
Even in the author-pay model, the decision to accept is made by the
editor; the money goes to the journal, not to the editor.

Regards

Ken

----

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education
____/\/********\/\____

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: May issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter
> From: Pippa Smart <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>
> Date: Wed, May 12, 2010 3:27 am
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>
>
> One point that should be clarified - it is not publishers who
> decide whether papers are accepted or refused, but editors. Most
> publishers (at least those who operate ethically) do not
> interfere with editorial decisions. Therefore at the moment they
> are not in a position to legislate against accepting articles
> from the "FRPAA agencies."
>
> I believe at the moment there is a "watching brief" but if
> publishers start to believe that such mandates will cost them
> sufficient money as to endanger their business, they may try to
> ban papers from such authors - but if this happens there will be
> a battle with the editors on the issue of editorial independence.
>
> Peter - you mention some *profitable* OA publishers who do not
> charge author fees. Can you provide some names (or point me to a
> resource), so I can clarify where they obtain their income from.
> thanks
>
> Pippa
>
> Pippa Smart
> Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
> PSP Consulting
> email: pippa.smart@gmail.com
> Web: www.pspconsulting.org
>