RE: Cost of Open Access

[Jan Velterop <jan@biomedcentral.com>]

Joe,

I am not sure that OA will reduce the quantity of published research (not
the quantity of research, but the abolition of 'salami-slicing'
practices). I just believe that on the scale of likelihood, input-paid OA
is more likely to do that than the traditional model. I may be proven
wrong.

I do believe that input-paid OA has the potential to save money to
academia as a whole. Simply because there will be more of an element of
competition and a functioning market than what the subscription model
offers. Even if scholars do not pay out of their own pocket, but out of
their research grant. There never was *any* appreciable price awareness on
the part of authors in the traditional system.

I also believe that peer-review is useful and remains useful in a
post-Gutenberg era (or post-Koster, depending on who one believes invented
movable print). Peer-review is by no means flawless, but it is a great
help in separating the lentils from the stones. It is fair to say that it
may be more meaningful in some disciplines than in others, but there are
very few that I know of who would like to see it abolished altogether and
abolition of peer-review is not part of the OA agenda. Given the pressure
some publishers are putting on Editors-in-Chief to accept more rather than
fewer papers, I very much doubt the link you suppose with the high
production cost in the hardcopy world.

Best,

Jan Velterop

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph J. Esposito [mailto:espositoj@worldnet.att.net]
> Sent: 09 February 2004 23:00
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Cost of Open Access
> 
> 
> Jan:  I am not sure which end of the stick I have, as I am both an
> advocate of open access publishing and a skeptic when I hear people
> suggest that OA will save scholars or their institutions any money.  I
> simply don't agree with you that any of the current models of OA
> publishing will serve to reduce the quantity of published 
> research.  (No one wants to reduce the amount of research, of course, 
> but many would like to see the pubication of research be more 
> discriminating.)  If scholars paid OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS for 
> publication, that would help; but most OA schemes I have come across 
> call for either the institutions to pay or to have payment built into 
> grant money.  And that's the problem:  No one is taking economic 
> responsibility for the quantity of publications--except
> for publishers, who are viewed as the dogs of the research 
> world.  Woof.

[SNIP]