RE: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

Of course Matt is right that there is a failure rate among non-OA 
journals as well.

I analysed some data from the Ulrich's periodicals directory at 
the beginning of this year.  At that time, 5.54% of the peer 
reviewed scholarly journals listed were marked as 'ceased' (the 
percentage was lower among nonprofit than commercial publishers) 
- I don't know how long the listing for a ceased journal would 
remain in the directory, but strongly suspect that far fewer than 
5.54% cease each year.  I didn't actually do the split between OA 
and non-OA journals (there were 1506 refereed, active OA journals 
in the list).  If anyone has current access to Ulrich's, it might 
be interesting to see whether there is in fact any difference; 
the figure I obtained from Ulrich's may or may not be comparable 
with the 9.74% of DOAJ journals that appeared to be defunct in 
the study I mentioned.  One key difference, though, is that when 
a journal is sold to subscribers, it behoves the publisher to 
announce that it has ceased publication;  there is no reason for 
this to happen with an OA journal, so effectively defunct 
journals may artificially add to the number on the DOAJ or 
elsewhere.

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
South House, The Street
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of
matt@biomedcentral.com
Sent: 03 July 2007 06:04
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

Sally,

Something which seems to be missing from the article cited is a 
comparison with subscription journals. Clearly, there is turnover 
of subscription journals just as there is turnover of open access 
journals. Every year, some number of new subscription journals 
are launched, while a significant number cease publication.

I don't know whether the ratio of the number of launches to the 
number of closures is any different between subscription journals 
vs OA titles, but in principle, that could be measured.

On the other hand, it still wouldn't prove a great deal.

E.g. The fact that a large fraction of internet ecommerce 
startups failed is not an indication that ecommerce is 
unimportant or uneconomic. What's more important is the scale and 
significance of those that succeed. Ditto with OA journals.

Matt

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sally
> Morris (Morris Associates)
> Sent: 29 June 2007 03:24
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: RE: potential positive spiral in transition to open access
>
> One has only to look at the DOAJ journals to see how many of them
> publish very spasmodically and may even have ceased entirely - I
> and a group of volunteers did an analysis of this last year
> (http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/095315106775122565)
>
> Sally Morris
> Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk