The problem is, I haven't seen any hard data that documents the cost of peer review, redaction, and publishing. Everyone throws numbers around as if they were confetti. We are all, supposedly (publishers and librarians) in the scientific/technical community, yet so very few people take a scientific approach to this issue.
The first step on the road to open access, should be a review of the processes and costs associated with scientific publication. Sounds like a good paper for the library association journal. Any librarians out there that want to tackle this paper?
And as for the publishers, if they really do wish a dialogue, then why don't they reveal their redaction costs? Any takers out there in the publishing world?
Online publication dramatically lowers costs relative to printed journals, but it is not free. Copyediting is still required, peer review must be co-ordinated even though the actual reviewing is done by authors for no charge, and the digital objects (articles, data, etc) must be created, archived and maintained in an accessible format. There are surely other important costs, too, that do not occur to me right now. All of this costs money, but the Big Question of OA is: how much money?... [PS: Omitting a good collection of stated costs and estimates.]
Comments. The problem is complicated. Here are a few reasons why.
Different publishers give different estimates (as Bill well-summarizes). Some test our credulity, such as Richard Charkin's testimony before the UK House of Commons that the cost per published article at Nature is 30 thousand pounds (scroll to p. Ev 2, Q16). But even if we could eliminate absurd, miscalculated, and bad-faith estimates, we'd face the problem that different estimates may count different aspects of the publishing process in the cost per article. And even if we could standardize the measurement, we'd have to face the fact that different publishers really do have different costs. One reason is that they differ in their overheads and efficiency. A lean and mean start-up, optimized for OA publication, will have lower costs than a traditional print publisher retooling for electronic publication. It will have no legacy equipment or employees and therefore lower overheads.
Apart from leanness and meanness, OA publishing has fewer expenses than non-OA publishing. It dispenses with print (or prices the optional print edition at cost), eliminates subscription management, eliminates DRM, eliminates lawyer fees for licenses and enforcement, reduces or eliminates marketing, and reduces or eliminates profit margins. In their place it adds back little more than the cost of collecting author-side fees or institutional subsidies.
Some other variables are the submission rate, the acceptance rate, and average article length, the average use of charts and illustrations, and the local cost of labor. Of course profit margins also vary.
In 2002, Fytton Rowland found that the average cost of peer review per published article was about $400. Note that this depends on the average acceptance rate, since the cost per accepted paper must also cover the cost of reviewing rejected papers. Also note that the cost of peer review is almost entirely the cost of facilitation, since most referees are not paid, and the clerical tasks in facilitation are steadily being automated. Hence the cost of peer review is coming down every year as journal management software improves, especially open-source software like DPubS, GAPworks, Hyperjournal, ePublishing Toolkit, OpenACS, Open Journal Systems (the current leader), SOPS, and TOPAZ.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/17/2006 11:13:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
