From: Saskia de Vries <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2019 12:53:00 +0000
In order to get a scope of the shape, size and form of compensation to
editors, ScienceGuide recently spread a short questionnaire
<https://www.scienceguide.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Brief-input-Academic-Editor.pdf>
through
the Dutch Young Academy of Sciences (De Jonge Akademie) and through Twitter
asking editors to speak up. The results show that they differ a lot, see
https://www.scienceguide.nl/2019/04/so-what-about-editor-compensation/.
The newly published Revised Plan S Implementation Guide still mentions cost
transparancy as a condition for compliancy – I would assume that the cost
of paying (out of publishing house) academic editors would be one of those
cost posts.
Saskia
From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]
Date: Thu, 30 May 2019 09:25:24 +0100
I do not buy services or offer services to funders, but I have never heard
of a service provider which breaks down their costs in the sort of detail
which I understand is being asked for. I am assuming that the argument is
that publishers are just another service provider as far as funders are
concerned. As a private person do we ask for a breakdown of how utilities
justify their prices by breakdown of costs? Perhaps some do. Yes of course
if you look for a grant as researcher you do have to give breakdowns of
costs in a way which researchers find (reference can be provided, but it is
an old one and so this is an impression/experience) irksome and getting in
the way of actually doing the research.
Incidentally as others have pointed out all commercial publishers and many
if not most not-for-profit organisations pay their editors and editorial
back-up. Why use the word “some”?
Anthony
From: Saskia de Vries <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2019 06:25:25 +0000
Hi Toby,
True of course, situations differ. And you haven’t even mentioned the fact
that there are also differences between what publishers (have to) do in
various disciplines, like type-editing in humanities or pay their academic
editors/editorial boards in some of the hard sciences. But all Plan S asks
for is for publishers to make their costs transparant. Including the profit
they make, of course, after taxes 😊. But a lot of the work publishers do
ís comparable: we should see them as service providers.
For academics, the perseived value of journals is very much linked to
impact factors in most disciplines. But that value should be attibuted to
the work of the editors and peer reviewers of a journal, so not to the
publishers but to academia itself.
Now that funders of research realise that the *dessimination* of the
research they fund is their responsability and they want transparancy of
the costs of it, this will open up the market as funders are in a much
stronger negotiation position: top down. And I hope that once academics
realise that they are adding the most important value to journals, quality
control, they will also start pushing (some of the) publishers to lower
their prices: bottom up.
But yes, I am an optimist!
Saskia
From: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2019 08:29:36 +0000
Saskia,
I’m afraid I’m not as confident. Every business (for profit or not) has
unique cost structures (especially true of that catch-all, overheads) that
makes comparisons difficult or even unfair.
For example, at OECD we are exempt from commercial taxes and our salaries
are decided by a committee of international organizations. So on one hand I
have an unfair advantage over commercial publishers and on the other I have
no control over how fast staff costs increase. A learned society in the US
pays lower taxes than a for-profit US publishers; commercial publishers
based in Ireland benefit from lower taxes and wages than commercial
publishers in Germany. You can see the difficulty.
It would be much better if Plan S encouraged buyers to judge value against
price. This would oblige publishers to justify their prices against the
value they add. But, and here’s the challenge, that means buyers being
prepared to say no to publishing in certain journals or with certain
publishers because they can get better value elsewhere. Now, will academics
tolerate that?
Toby
Toby Green
On 28 May 2019, at 03:46, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Saskia de Vries <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 27 May 2019 10:40:32 +0000
Hi all,
May I add to this discussion the factor ‘transparancy of costs’ that is one
of the key principles of Plan S – and not accidentally also for the Fair
Open Access Alliance. As Plan S compliancy will mean that publishers have
to break down and open up the costs of their APC prices, this will give
academia valuable data to compare services and prices in the next couple of
years. This will eventually lead to restauration of market forces, and
subsequently lowering of prices, I am sure!
Saskia
*[SNIP]*
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