Some thoughts on Open Access publishing
The JISC ‘Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models’ and the RIN ‘Activities, costs and funding flows in the scholarly communications system in the UK’ both set out to identify opportunities arising from the shifts towards online publishing and various open access business models.
Both reports could have made a better job at introducing the reader to their respective models . Both reports present a lot of data, but fail to deliver adequate executive summaries. As such it is impossible to reconcile the two descriptions completely without detailed study of the spreadsheet models.
Recommendation: JISC/RIN should together review the different modelling approaches taken and identify and agree basic common assumptions made.
As part of this accord it would be extremely helpful if the ‘dimensions’ for further investigations could be identified, e.g.
Recommendation: As a next step compare and contrast two disciplinary areas using a broader definition of information needs which includes other database resources.
Impact of open access on publishing costs. The JISC report concentrates mostly on distribution and production cost savings - hence it shows a big reduction in costs for shifts to online, open access and self-archiving. However, the sales and marketing focus will need to shift away from institutions to authors (see for example, PLoS One) and this will probably cause a net increase in these costs. Some of the production savings on the publisher side may shift to the authors as they are expected to take more responsibility for the formatting of articles prior to publication.
Recommendation: The opportunity offered by OA may not be cost savings per se, but the opportunity for the payers to redefine the role of the commercial STM publisher, at least in certain disciplines such as biomedicine.
Impact of open access on libraries. JISC report seems to predict a much smaller impact on library costs and expenses. This is probably because the RIN model has a more sensitive approach of fixed and variable costs, and JISC covers a much broader academic constituency and includes books. While the self-archiving option appears to create the largest savings, where are the costs associated with the indexing this material and making it findable?
Recommendation: One of the objectives of the disciplinary studies suggested above would be to define the future roles and skill profiles of libraries and librarians.
Both reports could have made a better job at introducing the reader to their respective models . Both reports present a lot of data, but fail to deliver adequate executive summaries. As such it is impossible to reconcile the two descriptions completely without detailed study of the spreadsheet models.
Recommendation: JISC/RIN should together review the different modelling approaches taken and identify and agree basic common assumptions made.
As part of this accord it would be extremely helpful if the ‘dimensions’ for further investigations could be identified, e.g.
- Overheads. RIN study appears in include ‘research costs’. The JISC study includes library ICT overheads. Which overhead costs should be in and which out ?
- Overall scope. Are the JISC/RIN reports addressing identical library constituencies. Also RIN focuses mainly on journals, JISC on journals and books.
- There seems to be a net shift of costs from the developing to the developed nations under both models. It would be worth making these benefits more explicit.
- Disciplinary differences. The impact of these changes will be very different across the disciplines, due, for example, to the large differences in reading habits and the need for access to other linked sources of digital information. Compare for example economics, mathematics, biochemistry and oncology. It may be that the reports’ recommendations would differ significantly for different disciplines once this level of detail has been introduced.
- Both studies identify the high costs associated with searching for information, reading and writing. This extends the definition of a scholarly publisher from one who processes article content to one who is tasked with the development of digital tools that enable a variety of different data resources to be used effectively. The JISC report includes an assessment of ‘research performance savings’. For example, in biomedicine, some of these will result from investments such as PMCUK and its links with the many molecular databases at NCBI and EBI. How will this be modeled ? What, in the future, is the JISC/RIN vision for the respective roles of commercial and governmental publishing resources in this area ?
Recommendation: As a next step compare and contrast two disciplinary areas using a broader definition of information needs which includes other database resources.
Impact of open access on publishing costs. The JISC report concentrates mostly on distribution and production cost savings - hence it shows a big reduction in costs for shifts to online, open access and self-archiving. However, the sales and marketing focus will need to shift away from institutions to authors (see for example, PLoS One) and this will probably cause a net increase in these costs. Some of the production savings on the publisher side may shift to the authors as they are expected to take more responsibility for the formatting of articles prior to publication.
Recommendation: The opportunity offered by OA may not be cost savings per se, but the opportunity for the payers to redefine the role of the commercial STM publisher, at least in certain disciplines such as biomedicine.
Impact of open access on libraries. JISC report seems to predict a much smaller impact on library costs and expenses. This is probably because the RIN model has a more sensitive approach of fixed and variable costs, and JISC covers a much broader academic constituency and includes books. While the self-archiving option appears to create the largest savings, where are the costs associated with the indexing this material and making it findable?
Recommendation: One of the objectives of the disciplinary studies suggested above would be to define the future roles and skill profiles of libraries and librarians.
posted by David Bousfield at
02:23
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