RE: Open Access to Research Is Inevitable, Libraries Are Told

["Nat Gustafson-Sundell" <n-gustafson-sundell@northwestern.edu>]

Yes, I previously responded to that point in another email. 
This work is already being offered by faculty and does also 
constitute an opportunity value, as I pointed out.  That's not to 
say it can't be characterized as both a value and a cost, but it 
is unreasonable to look at just one side of the ledger.

-Nat

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 6:26 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Open Access to Research Is Inevitable, Libraries Are Told

At 6:50 PM -0500 2/26/10, Nat Gustafson-Sundell wrote:

>an unpaid editor runs the peer review process (runs the software 
>distributing articles to peer reviewers, scheduling, reminding, 
>receiving responses, responding to author)

Just such use of a faculty member's time involves an "opportunity 
cost" for the university that hired the professor primarily to do 
research and teach. The more time spent doing these clerical 
types of work means less time spent on doing what the professor 
was hired to do. That was Colin Day's principal point about 
economic efficiency.

Sandy Thatcher

>I don't know that the learning curve is quite so steep for the 
>grad students -- at least in my experience.  I think the length 
>and steepness of a learning curve is directly related to whether 
>a person is being paid to learn and inversely related to the 
>amount of other things the learner needs to do.  When we were 
>walked through the application, it took less than an hour and 
>it's not like there was anything mysterious or difficult 
>involved. It was about as difficult as the expense reimbursement 
>system I installed at one of my jobs, and even the sales folks 
>picked that up in one hour of training.
>
>But the complaint is misplaced in any case since the software is 
>generally run by the 'permanent staff.' The model I've seen for 
>OA is that an unpaid editor runs the peer review process (runs 
>the software distributing articles to peer reviewers, 
>scheduling, reminding, receiving responses, responding to 
>author), with compartmentalized tasks assigned to students (if 
>they work on peer review related issues at all -- when they 
>would be better deployed at customizing websites for journals, 
>maybe cleaning HTML if necessary, and things of that sort), so 
>the learning is done while work is being done. Support for the 
>software comes from library support staff or university support 
>staff, if the editor isn't savvy enough to handle most or all 
>issues.  The support itself is a tiny expense because these 
>things actually do run themselves for the most part.
>
>This bit about "hidden costs" seems like insinuation for effect,
>when I've yet to see such insinuation bear out.
>
>-Nat