Re: Suber's refutation of universities paying more for OA

[Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com>]

Phil is on target.

Almost exclusively on the basis of the Kaufman-Wills finding that
the majority of OA journals do not charge any author-side fees,
Peter argues that a) the conclusion that research universities
will pay more under open access is faulty, and b) OA is
consistent with many business models.

The Kaufman-Wills finding cannot support either conclusion.
Simply because, in the aggregate, more than half of OA do not
levy author's fees, does not mean that particular journals
currently purchased by major research libraries could ever be
supported without author's fees. For the argument Peter is
attempting to make moral reasoning is insufficient; a
title-by-title spreadsheet is required.

The often-stated conclusion that OA is consistent with many
business models is also very suspect. As far as I can tell, OA is
so far consistent with NO business model, if we define business
model to mean the investment of capital to achieve defined
revenues and costs to serve customers and other stakeholders
long-term. The many OA journals that don't charge fees are not,
properly speaking, businesses at all. They are volunteer-driven
projects--a fact that makes them no less worthy, but does not
qualify them as businesses. The large OA publishers have so far
not shown that, now or in the future, they are capable of serving
readers long term, absent the support of government or funding
agencies. Something that depends on its survival for government
support is more a social welfare program than a business.

But I may be wrong. All it would take to prove that I am are the
essential financial documents of any true business--a business
plan, a profit-and-loss statement, a balance sheet, etc. Bring on
the numbers. The devil is most certainly in the financial
details.

Peter

Peter Banks
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On 6/4/06 5:41 PM, "Phil Davis" <pmd8@cornell.edu> wrote:

> Peter Suber's refutation of the three studies (Davis, Walters,
> and Dominguez) in his last newsletter is based on the
> Kaufman-Wills survey of the DOAJ journals, which show that the
> majority of OA journals do not charge any author-side fees.  I'm
> particularly encouraged by these conclusions, since it means that
> I can encourage our faculty to publish in cheaper journals!
>
> Instead of the Journal of the American Chemical society, I can
> tell our chemists to publish in Acta Chimica Slovenica. Instead
> of Cell, I can tell our biochemists to send their manuscripts to
> Acta biochimica polonica, and Instead of New England Journal of
> Medicine, I can tell our medical researchers to publish in Acta
> Medica Iranica.
>
> Unfortunately I can no longer recommend BioMed Central journals.
> Since they raised the author processing fees in 2006, their
> journals are now more expensive than our calculations for
> subscription-based journals.  I also cannot comment on any of Mr.
> Suber's calculations, since he didn't use any to be able to come
> to his conclusions.
>
> --Phil Davis
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