From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:33:18 -0500

I agree with much that Jan says here, but we really are on different
sides when it comes to the matter of editorial quality.  I use the
word "commoditization" the same way Jan does (others on this thread
use it differently), that is, to mean undifferentiated goods or
services.  But commoditization through the author-pays model will lead
to pressure to lower quality.  Some may find this acceptable; many
will not.

On the other hand, competition for the toll-access model leads to
higher editorial quality.  This is because librarians buy what they
believe is the best material available for their constituencies.  The
economic process thus leads author-pays and toll-access in different
directions.

I particularly agree with Jan's point that these various models will
coexist in the future, though we can quibble about the proportions.

As for Heather Morrison calling me on this thread an "industry
insider," I must ask what industry she is referring to and what it
means to be inside or out.

Joe Esposito

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Joe,
>
> It is of course very difficult to see ahead even five years. Personally I think that author-side payment OA publishing will be much wider spread, but then again, ten years ago I thought that the majority of primary journal articles would be open access by now.
>
> There is no doubt that author-side payment OA publishing will face economic challenges. We all do. It's the nature of the economic system in which we live. There will be competition, but I doubt that there will be more commoditisation than there already is in the traditional subscription-based publishing model. (I read 'commodities' as services or goods without qualitative differentiation). Competition doesn't necessarily lead to lower quality. The level and quality of the services that OA journals offer won't always be the same, and accordingly, fees won't always be the same. Brands, i.e. publishers' and editors' reputations, will still matter in the 'ego-system' that is science. It's even likely that a small number of high-end journals will survive in the subscription model. There will always be people who need the (perception of) public approbation that having their articles accepted by such journals entails. It will be the new 'vanity publishing'.
>
> It may well be that OA publishing services move to areas with less expensive labour. A lot of publishing already has. Much of the marking-up (xml-coding) and back office operations of the largest publishers takes place in India nowadays. And they do a sterling job in India, on the whole. Their brain power is no less than in the US or Europe and their education levels have been increasing fast. Besides, global academic communication is not tasked with keeping jobs in the US or Europe.
>
> As for the rigour of peer review (much of it a myth anyway), that may well be reduced in the process. Rigour made sense in an era when the sums invested in the whole publishing system – typesetting, paper, printing, warehousing, distribution, library storage, lending, redundancy (many copies), etc. – were high, per article. Generation (beyond what the author delivers), distribution and storage have become relatively cheap, and there is no need for much redundancy any longer, either. Add to that the 'overwhelm' of the amount of articles published, and the quality of individual articles in the ocean of material becomes less important. Computer-aided analysis of the literature will become the norm (is already in some areas). We all know how to deal with outliers in graphs, and outliers in the literature will be dealt with in a similar way. They are either of extreme interest (rare), or noise (common). Besides, the emphasis will shift to data, away from narrative, making the outlier analogy even more pertinent.
>
> As far as I'm concerned, the case for low cost and less qualitative hangup is not a negative one. The positive side of the ledger is global and open access, easy re-use of findings, and with all that, increased speed of scientific discovery.
>
> Jan Velterop
>
>
> On 18 Nov 2011, at 04:22, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Jan,
>
> The author-pays model is indeed a splendid one and has succeeded
> beyond the expectations of all but a few visionaries.  What do you
> think it will look like in 5 years?  The number of services for
> author-pays continues to grow.   Perhaps they will all survive;
> perhaps there will be even more.  But they have certain economic
> challenges ahead, namely, that they are in a commodity business where
> it will be very hard to make money when this market gets more crowded.
>  Will the $1,200 author fee drop to $1,000 under market pressure?  Why
> not to $800?  Why not $600?  Some people working in this field believe
> that $600 is breakeven.  I don't know about that, but suppose it's
> true.  Doesn't this mean that all these competitors move out of the
> First World to get less expensive labor? And if prices still have
> downward pressure, what kind of temptation will there be for reducing
> some of the services?  Will there be even less rigorous peer review?
>
> Because of the monopoly nature of copyright (subject to exceptions
> under fair use), publishing is inherently not a commodity business.
> But author-pays moves in the direction of a commodity business.  We
> really don't know what it will look like when it matures, but there is
> a case to be made that it will be low cost and low quality.
>
> Joe Esposito