From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:47:04 -0500

On 2012-11-29, at 3:47 PM, LIBLICENSE Mark Doyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>It seems to me that the (Gold) OA model scales better with the
>increase in total global research output than a subscription model.
>Typically one would expect to a region's research output (and funding)
>to scale with that region's GDP. This in turn would mean that an
>institution's or funding agency's available money for OA APCs (say),
>scales with their research output.
>
>However, in the subscription model, library budgets (if they even kept
>up with the size of their region's research output/funding, which they
>don't!), are very unlikely to scale with the global research output.
>For instance, would you expect a U.S. library budget to scale at the
>same (high) rate as the research output increase in China?
>
>Publisher's costs naturally scale with the amount of the research they
>must peer review and publish. In a Gold OA model, revenue naturally
>scales with the number of papers published (assuming acceptance rates
>stay more or less constant given the unpopularity of submission fees).
>So a 50% increase in research output, would mean a 50% rise in APC
>fees collected, with institutions and funding agencies having their
>contributions scale with their local increase in output rather than
>the overall output of the world.
>
>In the subscription world, a 50% increase would mean shrinking
>subscription bases and prices rising much higher than 50% as libraries
>fail to keep up with the increasing cost to acquire the world's
>research output (this is really just the historic serials crisis in a
>nutshell in my view).

(1) Gold OA costs are vastly inflated today.

(2) Universally mandated Green OA and the resulting cancelation pressure
will force costs down to the true (post-Green) essentials: just managing peer
review.

(3) That cost will be less than $200 per paper submitted (as long
as the costs of rejected and revised/re-refereed papers are
not gratuitously added to the costs of accepted papers), hence
per round of peer review.

(4) Under those conditions, with Green OA universally mandated and
and provided, subscriptions can be cancelled, generating huge windfall
savings for institutions -- enough to pay the Gold OA costs of peer review,
per round of review, many times over.

(5) And under those conditions, the "unpopularity" of submission fees
(understandable today, at today's inflated prices, and with not
subscription cancelation windfall out of which to pay them) will
vanish, quite naturally.

(I have been pointing this out for years and years, but no one pays any
attention. It won't be till  Green OA is universally mandated, making it
possible for subscriptions to be  cancelled, that it will be understood,
hence believed…)

Stevan Harnad


On Nov 28, 2012, at 5:57 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:45:13 -0500

I am sure that I am not the only person who has observed that the
total cost of scholarly material has increased since the advent of
open access publications.  And it will continue to grow.  Even if it's
true that OA could cut costs by 15%, what does that mean if research
increases by 50%?

Joe Esposito


On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 5:06 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:02:23 +0000

“We estimate that a full transition to OA could lead to savings in the
region of 10-12% of the cost base of a subscription publisher.”

BernsteinResearch investment analyst Claudio Aspesi

The key question: If Aspesi's estimate of the potential cost savings
provided by a full transition to OA is accurate, would those savings
be passed on to the research community if they were achieved?

https://plus.google.com/109680188903316748168/posts/ao2BBmwpzHg

http://bit.ly/TquCZz

Richard Poynder