Re: R: Revoked Open Access?

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

My point was that if these "major institutions" are using some of 
their funds to pay OA fees, they have less to pay for other 
things, like funding research and conferences. I assume these 
institutions are the ones that have traditionally supported 
research by directly giving grants to researchers and organizing 
conferences where they exchange ideas. If they are diverting some 
of their resources to paying publication costs, which have not 
traditionally been their roles (but rather the roles of 
libraries), then there is a reallocation of resources going on 
here that represents what economists call "opportunity costs."

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press

>Dear Sandy,
>
>I'm not sure I understood correctly your question, but will try
>anyway to answer. If you follow the link to our OA policy, you
>can easily see how much is the cost of our Journals. I'm not sure
>it can be compared to the cost of "more research, more
>conferences", but for sure it cannot be compared to the cost of
>subscription of competing journals.
>
>Enrico M. Balli
>Sissa Medialab
>
>-----Messaggio originale-----
>Da: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] Per conto di Sandy Thatcher
>Inviato: marted=EC 14 ottobre 2008 1.33
>A: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>Oggetto: Re: Revoked Open Access?
>
>What are the "opportunity costs" of the funds provided by "the major
>institutions active in particle physics"? I.e., is they were not being used
>to pay OA fees, would they be used to support more research, more
>conferences, or what? One cannot truly evaluate the benefits of OA unless
>one knows what the alternative uses of the funds might be.
>
>Sandy Thatcher
>Penn State Press
>
>>Dear Ian,
>>
>>Thanks for the nice comments on JHEP.
>>
>>The Journal of High Energy Physics was born back in 1997, as a
>>"Community Journal". It was probably a little bit too early to be
>>successful with such a "naive" business model, and the alliance with
>>IOP Publishing was then necessary to the survival of the Journal.
>>
>>Almost two years ago we launched a new hybrid Open Access initiative
>>called the Institutional Membership Fee
>>(http://jhep.sissa.it/jhep/docs/SISSA_IOP_OA_proposal.pdf)
>>together with IOPP. This initiative proved to be successful: some 20%
>>of the papers published in JHEP are now Open Access, thanks to the
>>support of some of the major institutions active in particle physics.
>>This business model offers an Open Access alternative at a very low
>>cost, often comparable to the cost of a subscription.
>>
>>Since the launch of the OA initiative, JHEP increased its share of HEP
>>publishing from 15% to 25% (Robert Aymar, Scholarly communication in
>>high-energy physics: Past, present and future innovations,
>>CERN-OPEN-2008-015, to appear in European Review.
>>http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/other/generic/public/cer-0007003
>>29.pdf), a result that clearly shows the advantage of OA publishing.
>>
>>JINST, a sibling Journal jointly published by Sissa and IOPP, has an
>>even higher percentage of Open Access papers, including the recently
>>published complete scientific documentation of the CERN Large Hadron
> >Collider (LHC) machine and detectors
> >(http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=3D3Dextra.lhc/jinst). JINST has been
> >singled out by CERN for this publication thanks to the many advantages
>>that this model offer to the community: High Quality, Open Access,
>>no-author-fees and low cost.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Enrico