Re: Author Charges are not the only model for funding open access

["Fytton Rowland" <J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk>]

It isn't just a question of the referees' time (which is indeed provided
free) or the availability of free software.  Once a publishing operation
gets beyond a certain size, it cannot operate without administrative staff
to run the refereeing (and other admin) systems, and these people cannot
be expected to work for nothing.  Serious studies by people like Tenopir &
King, Bernard Donovan, Aldyth Holmes and others have come to a rough
consensus cost of about $250 per submission, which with a 50% rejection
rate comes to $500 per published paper.  It's not a lot, but it has to
come from somewhere.

Fytton Rowland.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <hmorrison@ola.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 3:12 AM
Subject: Re: Author Charges are not the only model for funding open access

> Fytton is absolutely correct that the costs of peer review need to be
> covered.  Universities are already providing the labour required for both
> peer review and editing, on a voluntary basis.  Another factor is tracking
> the peer review process.  For those trying to set up open access, there is
> free open source software to help with this, developed by the University
> of British Columbia's Public Knowledge Project http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/
>
> There are other types of information - such as government documents,
> statistics, etc. - that are high quality and are often the best source of
> data on a particular topic.  Everyone could benefit from these materials
> being open access as well.
>
> cheers,
>
> Heather Morrison