Re: Another Poynder Eye-Opener on Open Access

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

I used to say that the "surplus" we made on publishing journals 
at Penn State Press helped subsidize the publication of 
monographs. How would you analyze that, Joe?

Sandy Thatcher


>Quite a long piece on PLOS (that is, Richard Poynder's, not
>Professor Harnad's comment).  I am surprised with myself for
>having read it, and astounded that anyone wrote it.
>
>No doubt Poynder's piece is going to receive a great number of
>comments, and I won't be surprised if my fellow bloggers at what
>Professor Harnad derisively refers to as the Scholarly Scullery
>decide to write about this, but I think Poynder is making an
>analytical error in working at too granular a level.  Thus he
>poses the question of whether PLOS One subsidizes the PLOS
>flagship journals.
>
>"Subsidy" is the wrong term.  An analogy:  Elite U.'s English
>department offers a Chaucer seminar every year, which draws on
>average 4 students.  Elite U. also offers a course called Sex in
>Literature every semester, which attracts (!) 500 students each
>semester.  The university handles its accounts by giving each
>course credit for every student enrolled.  Those credits are then
>compared to the expense of offering each course. Some courses are
>thus deemed to have surpluses, some deficits.
>
>In this analogy, the Chaucer seminar "loses" money, the Sex in
>Literature course makes a bundle.  But it's the wrong way to look
>at it, as students don't purchase education a la carte; they buy
>the menu (in other contexts, this is known as the Big Deal).  To
>say that Elite U. is "subsidizing" Chaucer misses the point.
>Would you have an elite academic institution that did not offer a
>class on Chaucer?  (I fear someone is going to tell me that
>Chaucer is not taught at their institution.)
>
>PLOS has different kinds of peer-review systems, different fees,
>different expectations from its authors and readers.  But it's
>one entity.  I think it is very cleverly managed.
>
>Joe Esposito