Re: Joe's OA Clearinghouse

[Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>]

As an end user (biochemistry professor) I would add to the question about
competition for authors that most of my earlier publications
(biochemistry) always had page charges and they came out to about $ 500.  
Journals in my current interests, in nutrition and education, do not, but
the problem is not uniform.  I think most authors pick the journal in
terms of prestige, relevance to subject matter.  Preparation of papers is
generally so difficult that paying for them is a minor pain and, however
difficult, for most people, is not the determining factor.

As editor of a new OA journal (Nutrition and Metabolism, BioMed Central),
I feel that open access per se is currently a plus for our journal, and I
strongly feel the need to compete.  I intend to do that on the basis of

1. The quality of papers which means personally tracking down authors who
I want on board.

2. Offering constructive, collegial reviews and true peer (rather than
authoritarian) review.  As end user I have the experience of editors who
see the reviewers and authors in an adversial relation.  Although we
maintain high standards ? we have already had to reject 2 out of 4
research papers ? we try to write reviews as if they were directed to our
friends.

The general principle: the new format of OA is a good opportunity to
correct many of the other problems in publishing.  The most important:

3. We intend to assemble reviewers who can do the job quickly.  Anecdotal
evidence suggests that the time to get a review = P + R, where R is the
time it takes to read, think about and write the review and P is the
procrastination time.  Our intention is to have reviewers who can maximize
R/P.  Any idea on how I could possibly do this?

And, Joe: even if you fly first class, getting out of Chicago has delays
that are comparable to waiting for your paper to get published after
acceptance by an old style publisher.

I have very much enjoyed following this listserv.  As a latecomer, I
perceived that everything had been said but I thought I would add the
above, anyway.  My own opinion is that a good deal of money is spent on
technical publishing, by government, educational institutions, sponsors,
etc.  As new systems evolve, this money will still be there and at least
as efficiently used.  Although I have found the discussions interesting,
OA is already evolving in a productive way.  I hope the group will not
disband as we have success. I would suggest the future goal be how to get
open standard for word processing texts.  The problem is simple: can you
name two people who really like Microsoft Word?

Richard Feinman