Re: Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current Subscription Model

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <chief-exec@alpsp.org>]

It is, of course, perfectly simple to run Phil's calculations with
different 'author-pays' cost assumptions.  Since all the costs would have
to be covered by the authorship (and a much smaller percentage of authors
than of subscribers come from industry) it is fairly obvious that,
whatever the figures, in aggregate the costs would fall more heavily on
academia than they do now.

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 12:13 AM
Subject: Re: Calculating the Cost per Article in the Current Subscription 
Model


> On Tue,  4 Jan 2005 20:20:12 EST Phil Davis wrote:
>
> > Firstly, this very conservative model predicts that most ARL
> > institutions would pay more in a producer-pays model than in a
> > subscription model.
> Phil, with all due respect, I think the prediction is not supported by
> available data.
>
> I would agree that this is a fiscally conservative model - to me, a
> "worst-case" scenario. The cost per article is exaggerated.  Even taking
> the Wellcome Trust figures and multiplying by 1.6 as Sally suggests -
> thanks Sally! - gives a range of $1,640 - $2,400 for author-charges
> journals. This accounts for 35% overhead and 15% profit.  Whether 35%
> overhead and 15% profit are reasonable expectations is another question,
> of course.
>
> Both figures are lower than the low end on your chart. The actual author
> payments being charged by publishers are even lower than these estimates,
> however.  (BMC $525, PLoS $1,500, Optics Express $450 under 6 pages, $800
> over 8 pages). Estimates by some STM publishers of what they would need to
> charge are also significantly less - e.g. Peter Banks of Diabetes /
> Diabetes Care estimates about $1,700 for publication costs without print;
> another STM publisher privately quoted to me about $750 as necessary.
>
> The focus to date has been on STM publishing.  It seems quite possible
> that social sciences and humanities would have lower costs still, because
> these areas have never enjoyed the high revenues that journals in the STM
> area have.
>
> This model also does not account for other very likely funding sources,
> such as funding agencies covering publication charges, and departmental
> funds (used by some libraries to supplement budgets to purchase
> subscriptions at present).
>
> As for the ISI data, if they do not cover all the journals, is it possible
> that they cover the more prolific STM journals - the ones with hundreds of
> articles per yet?  In this case, a relatively small proportion of the
> journals could account for a disproportionate percentage of the total
> articles.
>
> In sum, you have reached a conclusion (that ARL libraries would pay more
> under a production-costs-based OA system), which, in my opinion, is not
> supported by the available data.
>
> This is not to say that anyone has proved that such a system is
> necessarily less expensive, only that more information and analysis - and
> possibly further developments - are needed before any conclusions can be
> reached.
>
> Unless, of course, we can agree that your data show that publication
> charges of less than $500 would result in cost savings as well as
> access/impact advantages for ALL the ARL libraries, and prioritize any
> publishers that can produce quality journal articles at this rate for
> experiments with shifting from funding subscriptions to funding OA?
>
> best, Heather Morrison