Re: Decision making by Libraries on serials and monographs and useage (re puzzled by self-archiving thread)

[John Houghton <John.Houghton@vu.edu.au>]

Dear Sally, et al.

1)  As outlined in our report (pp42-46) we introduce access and 
efficiency as negative variables, to reflect the fact that in the 
real world there is less than 100% access and efficiency. The 
basic result is that, if accessibility and efficiency are 
constant over the estimation period but then show a one-off 
increase (e.g. because of a move to open access) then, to a close 
approximation, the returns to R&D will increase by the same 
percentage increase as that in the accessibility and efficiency 
parameters.

There are two reasons for our using the average rate of return to 
R&D, rather than the marginal rate (as I think you suggest). 
First, conceptually, the return relates to the expenditure, and 
we have not altered the level of expenditure in the model (its a 
given). So, one could argue that we should use the average rather 
than marginal rate of return. Second, more practically, no one 
really knows the marginal rate of return to R&D.

You assume that most potential users already have access. I am 
less confident that they do. For example:

    * Some smaller universities in Australia have quite limited access.
      If you look at recent CAUL statistics and take Victorian
      universities as an example, you can see that Monash (one of our
      larger research universities) reports 75,725 current serial titles
      in 2004, whereas the University of Ballarat reports 20,762.
      Obviously not all serials are journals, and not all the things
      needed at a large university will be needed at a smaller one, but
      such numbers are indicative of quite different levels of access -
      even amongst researchers.

    * Having an interest in the issue I often ask people in industry if
      and how they access journals and whether they think they would
      benefit from more access. It is anecdotal, but most executives of
      small firms in electronics, biotechnology, consulting engineering,
      management and economic consulting, etc. that I have spoken to say
      they have very limited access (mainly to print copies of titles
      from the one or two societies they belong to, or through
      association with one of the universities), and most say they need
      more and easier access.

    * Evidence of hits and downloads from institutional repositories and
      things like the Medline Index suggests that use is much wider than
      the limited audience reached by the subscription literature, both
      geographically and sectorally.

    * There is evidence that developing world participation in research
      is limited by their lack of timely and ready access.
    * etc.

Many of these issues are discussed, and references given in our 
report.

2)  Efficiency is being used in two senses... the usefulness/use 
of the knowledge created by R&D and the efficiency of the conduct 
of R&D. In the report (pp31-34 and Appendix II) we outline some 
of the potential impacts of enhanced access, including a range of 
ways in which the efficiency of research might be increased (e.g. 
increased speed of discovery, reduction of duplicative research, 
etc.) and its use might be extended (e.g. enhanced access to 
industry, government and society, the emergence of new industries 
such as weather derivatives, etc.). These are discussed in the 
context of developing an "impacts framework" that focuses on the 
issues of access, use and efficiency.

Lastly, the 5% figure is in the mid-range of the 1% to 10% 
variation in the access and efficiency variables that we 
'experimented' with in our estimations. It is hypothetical in the 
sense that there is no metric that led us to 5% directly. 
However, if one takes citation differences between subscription 
and OA as a possible metric, it is worth noting reported examples 
of OA papers getting 2-5 times the citations (e.g. Open Citation 
Project references). Stevan's OA Advantage work suggests that 
some of it will be ongoing and some not.... but twice as many 
citations perhaps suggests something like a 100% increase in 
access and use, and 5 times as many a 400% increase. So, our 
hypothetical 5% is probably pretty conservative when set against 
such metrics. On the other hand, of course, R&D produces 
knowledge "outputs" other than publications. Tenopir and King 
suggested that something up to 20% of researchers' time is spent 
reading and writing, so if everything that researchers do 
contributes to the R&D "stock of knowledge" then, simplistically, 
publications account for 20% of the stock of knowledge. On that 
basis, a 25% increase in access to publications alone would 
produce a 5% increase in access to the stock of knowledge (other 
things remaining the same).  On that "logic", our 5% is perhaps 
at the conservative end of the kind of access impact implied by 
the sustainable and continuing OA Advantage. Remember, our 
analysis relates to any/all types of R&D outputs, not just 
publications and not just journal articles.

Again, let me stress that this is preliminary work, the intention 
of which is to begin to explore possible ways to make ballpark 
estimates of the potential economic impacts of enhanced access. 
It is one possible staring point...

Refs:
DEST report - http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/44485
CAUL Statistics - http://www.caul.edu.au/stats/

Regards
John Houghton

Centre for Strategic Economic Studies (CSES), Victoria University
21 Munro Street, Curtin, ACT 2605  AUSTRALIA
Ph/Fax: +61 2 6282 1981  Mobile: 0409 239 109
VoIP: (FireFly) 88207699  (Skype) John.Houghton
E-mail: john.houghton@pobox.com
Web: www.pobox.com/~houghton



Sally Morris (Morris Associates) wrote:
> I appreciate that your 5% figure for increased 'access and
> efficiency' is entirely hypothetical.
>
> However, could you explain to us all:
>
> 1)  How you arrive at the assumption that x% more access leads to
> x% more benefit (I would have thought it logical to assume that
> the benefit tapered off, given that core users will already have
> access to the material which is most important to them)?
>
> 2)  How you propose to achieve x% increase in efficiency (which I
> think means relevance)?
>
> Thanks
>
> Sally Morris
> Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
> Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
>
>    _____
>
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of John Houghton
> Sent: 18 January 2007 11:33
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Decision making by Libraries on serials and monographs and
> useage (re puzzled by self-archiving thread)
>
>
> Dear Sally, et al. In our recent report to the Australian Department of
> Education, Science and Training we attempted to explore the costs of
> scholarly communication in Higher Education in Australia at the system level
> (in the manner of the pioneering work of Don King and Carol Tenopir), and
> then explore the possible impacts of enhanced access to research findings -
> of any sort (e.g. publications, data, etc.) and by any mechanism (e.g. lower
> prices, open access, etc.). For the former we developed a cost model from an
> extensive review of the literature and some local consultation, and for the
> latter we tried to develop the standard neoclassical growth model, by
> introducing 'access' and 'efficiency' as negative variables, as a way to
> explore the impacts of increasing access and efficiency on returns to
> expenditure on R&D. It's preliminary work, but one has to start somewhere.
> The assumptions are discussed at length in the report:
>
> [SNIP]