From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2015 21:36:44 +0000

In the spirit of open research, some preliminary analysis from our
2015 OA APC study that may be of interest:

The mythical OA article processing charge:

http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/12/03/the-mythical-oa-article-processing-charge/

This is a brief explanation / opinion piece of why it is a myth to
think that there is a single flat per-article processing charge, and
why it may be more helpful to embrace the existing diversity than to
pin down "the number" - a single cost for producing an article. Even
fully OA journals that rely on OA APCs offer many variations in
pricing, based not only on presumed ability to pay, but also on the
work involved and in apparent effort to support community (for
societies and associations) and/or customer loyalty. These are healthy
experiments and much would be lost in a search for the simplicity of
the single number.

Guinsly Mondésir presents the variations found in the 2015 study in
both english:

http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/12/03/variations-in-pricing-of-the-article-processing-charges/

and french:

http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/12/03/variation-dans-les-frais-de-publications-de-larticle/

Jihane Salhab & I present preliminary quantitative findings of the
range and central tendencies of the mythical variable that is the OA
APC (and APPC - some OA journals charge per-page not per-article)
here:

http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/12/03/oa-apc-preliminary-data-2015-range-central-tendencies-and-preliminary-longitudinal-analysis/

In brief, the range was from $0 to $4,500. The overall average APC
found in 2015 of $998 is a modest increase from $964 in 2014 and $906
found in 2010 (by Solomon & Björk). There are many ways of calculating
an average, and our calculations result in average cost-to-publish
ranging from an estimated $250 USD (based on average per-page and
average max. pages) to $2,154 (mode without Hindawi journals).

The average may mask contradictory tendencies. For example, many newer
OA journals have charges of $0 or low prices, so that growth in new
journals may obscure higher price increases for established journals.
We also note that patterns may vary by publisher. Hindawi, as the
largest OA publisher, has such an impact on the average that we are
now referring to this as the "Hindawi factor". For example, the 2015
mode of $800 contrasts with a mode of $2,154 when the Hindawi journals
are excluded.

From 2014 to 2015 on a per-title basis there is a fairly even 3-way
split between journals that have retained the same price, increased or
decreased their APC.

Some good news on longevity of these journals: the attrition rate is
very low, only 2% overall, with almost all of the titles not found
coming from the 2010 sample (not surprisingly).

http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/11/26/current-status-of-oa-apc-journals-sampled-2010-2014/

Full data and documentation is available in the OA APC dataverse:
http://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dvn/dv/oaapc

All of the posts are open for commenting.

-- 
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons: Open Access Scholarship
http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
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