From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2019 07:05:24 +0000

Dear Leo

I know nothing about what is going on inside Elsevier but my objection
was to the assertion that editors do not get paid. Any journalist who
shows ignorance at this level cannot be trusted. We have journalists
like this in the UK. Their views and what they "hear" are independent
on any sort of knowledge.

For what it is worth in this context our research on early career
researchers shows that in the US and the UK ECRs are very positive
about open access in principle but in practice they submit to journals
on the basis of impact factor, rather than whether or not they are OA.
I simplify a lot but see www.ciber-research.eu/harbingers.html.

Yes I would not be surprised if editors and editorial boards -
researchers who actually know something about how publishers work and
what they do - are likely to have a somewhat different view from those
who are not in such a position whether they (the editorial group) are
paid or not. My own experience is that the editor-in-chief is often
the only person paid.

I do not know if there is any evidence or not. I expect Peter Suber
will know. Questions about editorial attitudes must have come up in
the work he commissioned at Harvard.

I do know that when Nucleic Acid Research flipped a long time ago, the
editors were an important factor - in fact my understanding is that it
was their pressure on the publisher which led eventually to the
flipping. OUP agreed if the majority of recent authors were keen
(whether they thought they could get the funding for APCs). This was a
long time ago and funding in most fields was less common.

Anthony


----Original message----
From: leo waaijers <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2019 22:09:28 +0100

Dear Anthony,

No, I have no special evidence. I simply referred to an article I
thought might be interesting to the list. And yes, I know the
journalist well enough (1) to believe him when he says that he has his
information ‘on good authority’, and (2) to know that he will not
share his source with me.

In the meantime, your information about editors receiving substantial
payments triggered a question. Where would the loyalty of these
editors go in the sometimes heated debate between research funders and
publishers about OA or Plan S?

Leo



From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2019 09:36:35 +0000

I have no idea where the information about Elsevier policies have come
from but there is one assertion in this curious report that is so
incorrect that I want to counter it. I have run journals for parts or
all of the lists of four major companies over forty years. I have
never published a journal the editor of which received no payment.
Sometimes in the medical world the amounts were substantial.

I know what I am talking about. I wrote the contracts. Sometimes but
rarely the payment (at the editor’s request) was described as expenses
- drawn upon for air fares - but usually they were clearly
differentiated from expenses incurred in editing the journal and quite
often the costs of a journal office (the editor’s assistant etc) were
also likewise subject to a separate clause.

Now I have never worked for Elsevier. Maybe Leo has special evidence.
Please disclose this.

Anthony

________________________________

From: leo waaijers <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2019 19:11:00 +0100

For those who think that Elsevier, positioning itself as an
information analytics company, might be less interested in individual
journals the following article might be revealing.

https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/12/elsevier-willing-to-compensate-editors-to-prevent-them-from-flipping/

Leo Waaijers