Re: Open Access Publishing Funding Models

[Morna Conway <mconway@infionline.net>]

In response to Heather Morrison's analysis, CMAJ is certainly a good
journal -- but it's not in the top 5 medical journals, it's in the top 5
general medical journals, a big difference.

There are many contributing factors to a journal's IF increasing,
including deliberate editorial policies of publishing more review
articles, increasing selectivity, decreasing the denominator, and taking
supplements out of the equation -- so it's not really proven that open
access caused the increase in CMAJ's Impact Factor.

Finally, a journal with a large physician circulation presumably receives
more funding from industry (advertising, supplements, commercial reprints)
than do smaller, biomedical and research-oriented journals.

In response to Sally's question, it would indeed be instructive to
discover the source of funding of the online-only OA journals listed on
DOAJ (of 1258 journals publishing some 60,090 articles, 146 are in
"Medicine", and of these, not very many will be found in lists of highly
cited journals). Interestingly, the Canadian Medical Journal is not
currently listed in DOAJ.

Morna H. Conway, Ph.D.
President
The Conway Group, Journal Consultants
Taneytown, Maryland
(410)756-4400
Email: mconway@infionline.net
Website: www.mornaconway.com

9/22/04 6:59 PM, "Sally Morris (ALPSP)" <chief-exec@alpsp.org> wrote:

> We hope, as a result of our ongoing research, to get a clear idea of
> exactly how many of the 1200-odd journals in the DOAJ are 'author' funded.
> I suspect that it's a considerable minority but await the facts.
> 
> The question then arises - how are the rest supported?  Some, of course,
> have explicit grants from third parties and/or from their own
> institutions. Many more, however, I would guess, are 'invisibly' supported
> by their institutions through not being explicitly charged for the labour,
> accommodation and computer capacity for which the institution is paying.
> These things may feel free, but of course they are not
> 
> Sally Morris, Chief Executive
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
> 
> Phone:  +44 (0)1903 871686 Fax:  +44 (0)1903 871457
> E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org
> ALPSP Website  http://www.alpsp.org> 
> ----- Original Message -----

> From: <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <SPARC-OAForum@arl.org>;
> <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 5:32 AM
> Subject: Open Access Publishing Funding Models
> 
>> **   with apologies for cross-posting **
>> 
>> It is a common misconception, IMHO, that open access publishing is the
>> same as the "author-pays"  model of funding open access publications.
>> 
>> If you carefully examine many of the journals listed in the Directory of
>> Open Access Journals, it is clear that a great many journals do not use
>> this method of funding at all.
>> 
>> One example:  the Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ ,
>> http://www.cmaj.ca/, is open access and does not charge authors.  Since
>> 1997, CMAJ has tripled its impact factor, and is now among the top 5
>> medical journals in the world in terms of impact factor. I'm not sure how
>> CMAJ is funded, but the advantages to CMA are clear:  making this
>> publication openly accessible enhances the impact of CMAJ, and its
>> authors, many of whom are no doubt CMA members.
>> 
>> If you're sceptical about the economics, consider just how much of the
>> work that goes into the production of scholarly research articles is
>> either paid for by government or other funding agencies, universities, or
>> through voluntary work on the part of authors.  Factor in the availability
>> of free, open source software to manage the publication process, and that
>> any organization with a web site likely has ready access to all the server
>> space needed for a journal at no additional cost...
>> 
>> Perhaps other membership-based organizations would be well advised to
>> follow suit.
>> 
>> Heather Morrison