From: Nawin Gupta <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 22:42:24 -0600

I agree these ARE commodity services adding little value except for
providing a distribution platform.  If the prices come down to what they
ought to be for such publishing models - around $100 or less - I wonder how
many of the current OA journal publishers will continue their mission.

Nawin Gupta

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:11:44 -0500

How long will author-pays OA on the PLOS One model be highly profitable?
There are so many similar services coming on stream now, including eLife,
which claims it will not charge authors for an initial period of time.
Since this model does not claim to do more than to assess methodological
rigor, the brands have little sustainable competitive advantage.  These are
commodity services; as businesses, they are like selling bags of rice.  Will
the marketplace soon recognize this and drive prices down?

Joe Esposito

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:56 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Nawin Gupta <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:02:58 -0600
>
> It would appear that OA may well be one of the most profitable
> publishing models.  If average article submission fees are around
> $1,500 (as has been reported in the past) and the publishing costs are
> less than $200 per article, that is a gross margin of 86.7%!
>
> Nawin Gupta
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:19:05 -0600
>
> This is a disturbing revelation. If 75% of these OA journals are not
> having copyediting done by professionals, then that is a clear
> indicator that their level of quality is not at the same level as most
> TA journals. There seems to be a too easy assumption made here that
> copyediting is something that anyone can do and requires no special
> skills.  (Perhaps the same too easy assumption is made throughout
> higher education that teaching is something anyone can do, so no
> special training is required for people in graduate school to learn
> how to become a good teacher.)  Even if some scholars have the
> capability of doing this job well, the fact remains that this is not a
> good use of their time. As Colin Day argued long ago, universities are
> paying a premium if professors are devoting a lot of time to this sort of
> work instead of doing research and teaching in the classroom.
> Skilled copyeditors do not command salaries anywhere close to those of
> senior professors who edit journals. Having the latter do work that
> can be done better by lower paid employees is one of those hidden
> costs that seem not to be included in determining what the real costs
> of publishing OA journals are.
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
>
> > From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 18:10:45 -0800
> >
> > Sandy Thatcher wrote....
> >
> >> At $188 per article, clearly these articles are not being copyedited.
> >
> >
> > To see what Edgar & Willinsky said about copy editing in their
> > article, see the html of the final version here:
> > http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/24/41
> >
> > A search for "copy edit" finds:
> >
> > "In terms of the distribution of publishing tasks, this group of
> > journals represents very active editorial teams, with 76% of the
> > editors engaged in copy editing, 70% involved in proofreading, and
> > 58% taking a hand in laying out the articles (see Table 8). This
> > does not mean that the editors had sole responsibility for these
> > tasks, although this does appear to be the case in at least some
>>  instances.
> > There are also journals with paid employees doing copy editing,
> > layout, and proofreading. Students, whether paid or volunteer, play
> > a relatively minor role in the production of these journals, with no
> > more than 10% of the journals deploying students in this way. It is
> > also worth noting that, although OJS is designed to enable the
> > author to participate in both the copy editing (to review copy edits
> > and respond to author queries) and proofreading, in the majority of
> > cases the journals are not involving the authors in these tasks."
> >
> > A chart indicates that 25% of journals have paid employees doing
> > copy editing.
> >
> > It may of interest given recent discussion of article versioning
> > that I have used and built on this work extensively, based primarily
> > on the preprint. This is the first time that I've glanced at the
> > final version, in html only. I've never looked at the publishers'
> > final PDF, and am not sure that there is any compelling reason for me to
> > do so.
> > The html confirms the element that is most pertinent to my work, the
> > calculation of the average first copy cost at $188.37, was not
> > changed with peer review.
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Heather Morrison
> > The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> > http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com