From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 10:14:35 -0400
An interesting detail emerges from this report. Beyond the four traditional
functions of publishing (registration, certification, dissemination and
preservation), a fifth function is sometimes added under the title of
"evaluation". However, in the new report, this disappears in favour of
"navigation".
Interesting twist, I believe.
Jean-Claude Guédon
Le lundi 15 octobre 2018 à 02:32 -0400, LIBLICENSE a écrit :
From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, Oct 14, 2018 at 7:41 PM
This 213 page report, by Rob Johnson Research Consulting,Anthony
WatkinsonCIBER Research and Michael Mabe The International Association
of Scientific,
Technical and Medical Publisher is available at
https://www.stm-assoc.org/2018_10_04_STM_Report_2018.pdf
Some selected bits below. Colin
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The STM market 3. The annual revenues generated from English-language
STM journal publishing are estimated at about $10 billion in 2017,
within a broader STM information publishing market worth some $25.7
billion. About 41% of global STM revenues (including nonjournal STM
products) come from the USA, 27% from Europe/Middle East, 26% from
Asia/Pacific and 6% from the rest of the world (page 22). 4. The
industry employs an estimated 110,000 people globally, of which about
40% are employed in the EU. In addition, an estimated 20–30,000 full
time employees are indirectly supported by the STM industry globally
in addition to employment in the production supply chain (page 46). 5.
Although this report focuses primarily on journals, the STM book
market (worth about $3.3 billion annually) is evolving rapidly in a
transition to digital publishing. Ebooks made up about a third of the
market in 2016, having grown much faster than the STM market as a
whole in recent years (page 22).
There are estimated to be of the order of 10,000 journal publishers
globally, of which around 5,000 are included in the Scopus database.
The main English-language trade and professional associations for
journal publishers collectively include about 650 publishers producing
around 11,550 journals, that is, about 50% of the total journal output
by title. Of these, some 480 publishers (73%) and about 2,300 journals
(20%) are not-for-profit (page 40). 7. There were about 33,100 active
scholarly peer-reviewed English-language journals in mid-2018 (plus a
further 9,400 non-English-language journals), collectively publishing
over 3 million articles a year. The number of articles published each
year and the number of journals have both grown steadily for over two
centuries, by about 3% and 3.5% per year respectively. However, growth
has accelerated to 4% per year for articles and over 5% for journals
in recent years. The reason is the continued realterms growth in
research and development expenditure, and the rising number of
researchers, which now stands at between 7 and 8 million, depending on
definition, although only about 20% of these are repeat authors (page
25)
Research behaviour and motivation 16. Despite a transformation in the
way journals are published, researchers’ core motivations for
publishing appear largely unchanged, focused on securing funding and
furthering the author’s career (page 77). 17. The research community
continues to see peer review as fundamental to scholarly communication
and appears committed to it despite some perceived shortcomings. The
typical reviewer spends 5 hours per review and reviews some 8 articles
a year. Peer review is under some pressure, however, notably from the
growth in research outputs, including the rapid growth from emerging
economies. This has temporarily unbalanced the sources of articles and
reviewers, with a third of all reviews but only a quarter of articles
provided by researchers in the USA (page 47)
Approximately one third of the scholarly literature was available from
legal and sustainable open access sources in 2016. Recent estimates
place the proportion of articles published in open access journals at
15-20% (while OA journals make up about 26-29% of all journals), with
a further 10-15% available via delayed access on the publisher’s
website or self-archived copies (page 134). 25. Gold open access is
sometimes taken as synonymous with the article publication charge
(APC) business model, but strictly speaking simply refers to journals
offering immediate open access on publication. A substantial fraction
of the Gold OA articles indexed by Scopus, however, do not involve
APCs but use other models (e.g. institutional support or sponsorship).
The APC model itself has become more complicated, with variable APCs
(e.g. based on length), discounts, prepayments and institutional
membership schemes, offsetting and bundling arrangements for hybrid
publications, read-and-publish deals, and so on (page 97).
37. The growth in the development of Artificial Intelligence and its
implementation across industry as a whole has impacted generally on
the publishing industry, partly because it can enable cost
efficiencies. AI has subsumed much of semantic technology as a guiding
principle. Blockchain, although much talked about, has yet to prove
its usefulness in practice. While publishers have always provided
services such as peer review and copy-editing, increased competition
for authors, globalisation of research, and new enabling technologies
are driving an expansion of author services and greater focus on
improving the author experience. Online Collaborative Writing remains
a service which has yet to have its day, though a recent emphasis on
Annotations is showing promise (page 163).
38. Perhaps the biggest change in scholarly infrastructure has been
the development of preprint servers and the growing use of preprints
in areas such as biology and chemistry where there had hitherto been
little appetite for their take up. Primary journals in general have
now accepted that a preprint is not prior publication. There is some
concern that preprints (which can be brought up to date) may become a
go-to place for the version of record, undermining publisher business
models (page 179).
"Average publishing costs per article vary substantially depending on
a range of factors including rejection rate (which drives peer review
costs), range and type of content, levels of editorial services, and
others. The average 2010 cost of publishing an article in a
subscription-based journal with print and electronic editions was
estimated by CEPA to be around £3095 (c. $4,000), excluding non-cash
peer review costs. An updated analysis by CEPA in 2018 shows that, in
almost all cases, intangible costs such as editorial activities are
much higher than tangible ones, such as production, sales and
distribution, and are key drivers in per article costs (page 73).
The potential for technology and open access to effect cost savings
has been much discussed, with open access publishers such as Hindawi
and PeerJ having claimed per article costs in the low hundreds of
dollars. A recent rise in PLOS’s per article costs, to $1,500
(inferred from its financial statements), and costs of over £3,000
($4,000) per article at the selective OA journal eLife call into
question the scope for OA to deliver radical cost savings.
Nevertheless, with article volumes rising at 4% per annum, and journal
revenues at only 2%, further downward pressure on per article costs is
inevitable (page 74)....
It is unclear where the market will set OA publication charges: they
are currently lower than the historical average cost of article
publication; and charges for full open access articles remain lower
than hybrid, though the gap is closing. Calls to redirect subscription
expenditures to open access have increased, but the more
research-intensive universities and countries remain concerned about
the net impact on their budgets (page 101; 139). ...
Recent developments indicate a growing willingness on the part of
funders and policymakers to intervene in the STM marketplace, whether
by establishing their own publication platforms, strengthening OA
mandates or acting to change the incentive structures that drive
authors’ publication choices (page 113). ...
Concerns over the impact of Green OA and the role of repositories have
receded somewhat, though not disappeared. The lack of its own
independent sustainable business model means Green OA depends on its
not undermining that of (subscription) journals. The evidence remains
mixed, with indications that Green OA can increase downloads and
citations being balanced against evidence of the long usage half-life
of journal articles and its substantial variation between fields. In
practice, however, attention in many quarters has shifted to the
potentially damaging impact of Social Collaboration Networks (SCNs)
and pirate websites on subscriptions (pages 114; 174). ..."
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Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
The Australian National University
Room 3.31, Beryl Rawson Building #13
Acton, ACT, 2601
Australia
P: + 61 2 6125 8983
E: [log in to unmask]
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