SCOAP3 Latest news - A new era of scientific research

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

For those of you interested in how the SCOAP3 budget "envelope" 
was calculated, please see the explanation below from Ralf 
Schimmer.  Cheers, Ann

_______________________________________

Dear Ann,

yes, I was involved in the discussions of the so-called SCOAP3 
working party and in drafting the April 2007 report.

The calculation of the SCOAP3 budget envelope of 10 million 
Euros/year was NOT based whatsoever on subscription prices 
(neither 2007 nor any other year).

The key quote in this respect from the working party report is: 
"The price of an electronic journal is mainly driven by the costs 
of running the peer review system and editorial processing. Most 
publishers quote a price in the range of 1,000 - 2,000 Euros per 
published article. On this basis we estimate that the annual 
budget for the transition of HEP publishing to OA would amount to 
a maximum of 10 Million Euros per year." (p. 4)

The key component for the calculation was the expected costs for 
the peer review and editorial process as it can be achieved via 
the tender process with the publishers; from available evidence 
and our collective experience ("educated guess") we calculated 
and were sure that there is already more money in the system 
through the world-wide subscription to the HEP journals. Hence 
the conclusion that redirecting the current subscription money 
would easily pay for the SCOAP3 conversion.

Hope this answers your question.

Best regards,

Dr. Ralf Schimmer
Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL)
Amalienstr. 33
80799 Muenchen, Germany
Email: schimmer@mpdl.mpg.de
http://www.mpdl.mpg.de


Okerson, Ann schrieb:

> Hello All:  Does anyone on this list know re. the % pledges 
> being recorded: is the 70% a proportion of the calculated 
> subscription prices from 2 years ago (when we began to commit 
> to exploring this initiative); or are teh $$ updated to 2011 
> subscription prices; or neither (some other calculation and if 
> so what)?  Very exciting that the collider is now operational!
>
> Many thanks, Ann
>
> ________________________________________
> From: info@scoap3.org [info@scoap3.org]
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 10:51 AM
> To: info@scoap3.org
> Subject: SCOAP3 Latest news -  A new era of scientific research
>
> 02/04/2010, A new era of scientific research
> *********************************************
>
> Earlier this week the Large Hadron Collider at CERN started 
> high-energy operation, heralding a new era of scientific 
> research, which will yield a rich harvest of scientific 
> results.
>
> Meanwhile, results from a earlier, lower-energy test of the 
> accelerator in December 2009 have been already been published: 
> by the ATLAS collaboration in Elsevier's Physics Letters B, the 
> CMS collaboration in Sissa Journal of High Energy Physics and 
> the ALICE collaboration in Springer's European Physical Journal 
> C. These three articles are a remarkable advance in scholarly 
> communication in the field: they are published Open Access with 
> no fees for authors; CERN has retained the copyright for the 
> benefit of the scientific collaborations; they are made 
> available under a Creative Common Licence. This collaboration 
> with major publishers in the field signifies the engagement of 
> the publishing industry to Open Access in High-Energy Physics, 
> the ultimate goal of SCOAP3.
>
> While these articles appeared Open Access thanks to special 
> agreements between publishers and CERN, the host laboratory of 
> the LHC, the SCOAP3 effort aims to convert all the literature 
> of the field to Open Access, at no costs for authors. A budget 
> envelope of 10 Million Euros/year is estimated for the 
> operation, and about 70% of these funds have been so far 
> pledged by partners in 23 countries.
>
> SCOAP3 is now discussion new partnerships in Asia, South 
> America and with U.S. libraries of all sizes in order to 
> proceed to the next phase of the initiative: a call for tender 
> to publishers to provide Open Access and peer-review to the 
> first high-energy results of the LHC expected later this year 
> and all other theoretical and experimental articles in the 
> field.

[SNIP]

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