RE: Methodology for estimating cost per article at an institution

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

This approach to a cost/benefit analysis implies that institutions
currently that publish less are subsidizing larger institutions in the
journals system.

Using Phil's metrics (and by extension Ann's) on the basis of articles
purchased (through subscriptions) versus articles if paid for
institutionally per faculty publication, any institution spending a
million dollars a year on serials but publishing less than 600 peer
reviewed articles per year, is subsidizing the journals system for Yale
and Cornell and the UK!

Smaller institutions need much the same material as Princeton and Stanford
for current access to scholarly journal articles, but pay
disproportionately for researcher access (per use basis) for that same
literature.

UNC Charlotte's cost per download is MUCH higher than Elsevier's
presentations suggest for the Select Committe, for example.

UNC Charlotte figures for cost of Science Direct articles per download are
5 to 6 times (for total cost, i.e. paper plus electronic--total
subscription cost) higher than the SD estimates to the Select Committee,
and I suspect this is true for many UK institutions as well.

Averages cost per SD download are undoubtedly skewed. They do not reveal
how inequitable the journals system and the cost distribution can be for
smaller institutions worldwide.

Likewise the overall journal system. Cornell spends more on journals than
UNC Charlotte, but UNC Charlotte's use cost per scholarly article based on
the amount spent for acquisitions will be much higher for many individual
scholarly e-resources than Cornell's.

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
phone 704 687-2825

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Davis [mailto:pmd8@cornell.edu] 
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 9:24 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Methodology for estimating cost per article at an institution

Scott Plutchak, Ann Okerson and others have started some constructive
dialog by comparing subscription vs. producer (author) payments at their
own institutions.  So librarians can begin to calculate these figures for
their own institution, I have provided a methodology for estimating these
figures below.  The two most challenging tasks are 1) estimating the total
article output of an institution in the absence of a single comprehensive
index, and 2) correcting for articles that have authors from multiple
institutions.  Below is an example methodology.  While I can imagine
before even posting this, receiving a number of responses trying to pick
holes in the weakness of the methodology, I ask those individuals in
response to propose a correction or simpler model (Occam's Razor).

ESTIMATING THE ARTICLE COVERAGE OF ISI

Number of titles indexed by ISI (SCI, SSCI, AHCI) = 8,769
Estimate of the number of scholarly journals = 20,000

This means that ISI is only indexing 44% of journals; however, not all
journals publish the same number of articles per year and ISI attempts to
index the most prolific core journals.  If we assume a logarithmic
(skewed)  distribution, these 44% of indexed journals represent nearly 92%
of the number of articles published (i.e. log 8,769 / log 20,000).

CORRECTING FOR MULTIPLE-AUTHOR ARTICLES

Number of Cornell author "hits" in ISI for 2003 = 5,465

However, many of these articles have multiple authors from multiple
institutions.  If we assume that the first author would pay all publishing
charges (this is the BMC model, and it seems more reasonable than
splitting $525 among 100 authors of a high-energy physics article), then
how many of the above "hits" represents first author-articles?

ISI displays only the first 500 records and makes it difficult to get an
absolute count.  We need to resort to sampling.  I took a distributed
sample of 100 articles (the first and last article on each page of
results), and found that 61 (of the 100) included a Cornellian as a first
author.  Therefore the % first author hits = 61% (do this calculation for
your own institution).

The estimate of article output by first authors at Cornell = 5,465 x 0.61
= 3,636

ESTIMATING THE COST PER ARTICLE IF AN INSTITUTION MOVED TO AN OPEN ACCESS
MODEL

Scenario 1.  The entire industry swaps from a subscription model to an
open-access model overnight, and all authors publish in open-access
journals.  The breakeven cost/article = total article output of an
institution / total amount spent on purchasing journals.  For Cornell,
this number is about $1,100/article

Scenario 2.  The entire industry except Elsevier moves from a subscription
to OA model.  The library still purchases Elsevier journals and authors
still publish in them.  Calculate the number of articles published in
Elsevier journals in 2003 by searching for your institution in Science
Direct advanced journal search for affiliation.  Correct for multiple
authors.  Remove money spent on Elsevier journals and number of articles
published in Elsevier journals and recalculate the cost/article.  For
Cornell, this number is under $800/article.  In other words, OA has to
cost less than $800/article for the model to start saving money.

Scenario 3.  Same is 2 but assume all large publishers will not
participate (Kluwer, Wiley, Springer).  For Cornell, the cost/article is
less than $400/article.  The reason that the cost per article would need
to be much lower in Scenario 1 and 2 is because the large commercial
publishers take up a disproportionate amount of a libraries funds compared
to the number of articles published in these journals.  For example, the
Elsevier ratio is 43% / 16%.

Philip Davis, Life Sciences Bibliographer
Mann Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-7192 ;  (607) 255-0318 fax
pmd8@cornell.edu
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/pmd8/