Re: Open Access Publishing Funding Models

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Excellent points, Lisa.  Thanks very much for this - it is good to hear
from the publishing perspective.

Since universities, governments, and no doubt others are already
contributing to the cost of scholarly communications at least twice
(paying for staff, paying for published results of research - not even
factoring in the research funding per se), then surely there is enough
money to publish information in a different fashion, such as open access.

One way to do this, of course, is for these bodies to either become
publishers, or, for those that already are publishers (i.e. many
universities already have university presses, governments actually do
quite a bit of publishing), to increase their publishing activity.

Another option is for entrepreneurial publishing types to offer publishing
services to be hosted by these bodies.  That is, instead of all of these
organizations paying via subscriptions, each would pay for publishing
their own research, perhaps using a variety of different methods.

This kind of systemic change is not easy, of course, nor is it likely to
take place quickly.

In the long run, I am convinced that not only is open access the best
possible model for philosophical reasons, it will be the only sustainable
economic model at some point in the future for scholarly communication.  
As the production of information continues to explode (and will continue
for some time - we are not through with the transition from print to
electronic format, by a long shot), it will become less and less feasible
to keep track of everything that is produced, never mind purchase it.  On
the other hand, the real costs of publishing are decreasing, and will
continue to decrease, particularly in the future when it is no longer
necessary to produce print as well.  An argument can be made that anyone
who has the ability to produce scholarly articles, can afford to fund
them.

IMHO, the leaders of the publishing industry in the future will be those
who figure out how to add the value they bring, in a cost-effective way,
so as to maximize the advancement of scholarly knowledge.  There is
nothing new in this argument - the researchers are the customers, all that
I am saying is that business success for the future depends on meeting the
needs of the customers.  Publishers also need to take into account the
changes in scholarly communications per se that are made possible by the
electronic medium.

A good overview of these changes can be found in the following article -
for liblicense folks, please note this is copied from Bernie Sloan's
message that came on Sept. 15:

Van de Sompel, Herbert, et al. Rethinking Scholarly Communication:
Building the System that Scholars Deserve. D-Lib Magazine, 10(9).
September 2004.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september04/vandesompel/09vandesompel.html

In my opinion, it would be useful and interesting to consider these
broader aspects of change in scholarly communications.

Here are some thoughts to start this discussion - Van de Sompel et al
mention the following as essential to scholarly communications:

* Registration, which allows claims of precedence for a scholarly 
finding.

* Certification, which establishes the validity of a registered 
scholarly claim.

* Awareness, which allows actors in the scholarly system to remain 
aware of new claims and findings.

* Archiving, which preserves the scholarly record over time.

* Rewarding, which rewards actors for their performance in the 
communication system based on metrics derived from that system.

In a field like librarianship, how many of these functions can be
performed by a listserv?  For example, liblicense and SOAF certainly have
helped me to become aware of issues of importance to me, and share my
ideas as well.  Both lists have archives.  As for rewards based on
metrics, perhaps this is a bit more problematic, as the correlation
between frequency of postings is unknown.  My experience has been that if
people like your ideas, they encourage you to continue writing, to write
for formal publications, to speak at conferences, etc.  There is no formal
peer review, but if there are opposing ideas, one does get exposure to
these by writing to lists, sometimes from identified experts in the field
- could this be even more valuable to the author than blind peer review?

I don't mean to imply that this form of communication can replace the
formal publication process - but I do believe that a good listserv does
add much to the scholarly communications process.

best,

Heather Morrison

On 21-Sep-04, at 6:42 AM, Lisa Dittrich wrote:

> At the risk of repeating oft-said arguments, the assumption that seems
> to be made here is that the only warm bodies needed to run publications
> are the authors--that government funding agencies and freeware will do
> the rest.  But to do a first-rate peer-reviewed journal, you need
> first-rate people to assign reviewers intelligently, copyedit
> manuscripts, proofread copy (believe me, authors DON'T catch all errors,
> particularly production errors) and do all the other tasks related to
> running an efficient editorial office, however streamlined.  These
> people need space to work (which costs money), equipment to do their
> work, health care and other benefits.
>
> I know--it's the publisher's ongoing drone, but it's also the reality.
> Publishing doesn't happen in a vacuum nor can computers do it all (nor,
> at least in the U.S. will government fund it all, once the real costs
> are assessed).  The librarians on this list seemed appalled at the
> notion that they might be replaced by databases.  I am similarly
> appalled at the notion that my very intelligent and I think incredibly
> useful staff might be replaced by freeware or by authors who think that
> their mss. are donated to journals in such perfect shape that our "added
> value" amounts to so little we should give it away and feel honored to
> do so.
>
> Lisa (whose opinions are her own and do not reflect those of her
> association, journal, or publisher)
>
> Lisa Dittrich
> Managing Editor
> Academic Medicine
> 2450 N Street NW
> Washington,D.C. 20037
> lrdittrich@aamc.org (e-mail)
> 202-828-0590 (phone)
> 202-828-4798 (fax)
> Academic Medicine's Web site: www.academicmedicine.org