[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

Tue Jan 19 19:59:02 CST 2016

Well, reviewers do at least get their own publications reviewed for free. That's another issue. Back to the main issue:

If authors can pay publishers for open access out of public funding, then why not pay publishers directly? Cut out the middle guy (i.e. authors). Either way, public money is going to publisher's profits. How do we cap the amount that goes to publishers? Surely, they can't just name their own price? But the direct route does at least have the following advantages over funding>author>publisher: 

(1) it makes open access publication free for all authors, whether or not they are funded. They just need to get their submissions accepted via peer review, etc., which (in theory) should mean that articles are published if they are good enough, regardless how well funded the authors are;

(2) it removes any temptation for authors (taxonomists) to ditch research money on open access. It also removes any temptation to waffle on, boosting the number of pages, so as to ditch as much research money as possible (assuming that anything like this ever actually happens).

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 20/1/16, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
 To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 Cc: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Daniel Mietchen" <daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com>
 Received: Wednesday, 20 January, 2016, 1:57 PM

 And how
 much of the $ should go to reviewers? If its good enough for
 publishers to get money either from the public purse or
 charging authors, then it should be good enough that
 reviewers get paid as well?
 John Grehan
 On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at
 4:01 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 wrote:
 PS: A big
 advantage of my proposal (below) is that then authors
 without funding could not only still afford to publish, but
 their publications would also be open access! Effectively,
 open publication of taxonomy would be publicly funded.
 Sounds perfect to me!

 Stephen

 --------------------------------------------

 On Wed, 20/1/16, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 wrote:

  Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

  To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>,
 "Daniel Mietchen" <daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com>

  Received: Wednesday, 20 January, 2016, 9:26 AM

  So, here's a thought: why not let

  publishers apply for funding directly to publish open

  access? It amounts to the same thing, if everything is
 above

  board and is what it seems to be. Somehow though, I
 can't

  quite see that happening ...

  Stephen

  --------------------------------------------

  On Mon, 18/1/16, Daniel Mietchen <daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com>

  wrote:

   Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

   To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

   Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 3:47 PM

   It may be worth considering here that

   in the current system, billions

   of dollars are going to the publishing industry every
 year

   already

   (globally, and across all disciplines), and have been

  doing

   so for

   many years.

   From http://doi.org/10.1038/495426a
 : "Data

  from the

   consulting firm

   Outsell in Burlingame, California, suggest that the

   science-publishing

   industry generated $9.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and

   published

   around 1.8 million English-language articles — an

  average

   revenue per

   article of roughly $5,000. Analysts estimate profit

  margins

   at 20–30%

   for the industry, so the average cost to the publisher
 of

   producing an

   article is likely to be around $3,500–4,000."

   Most of this is through subscriptions (by libraries,

   corporations or

   individuals), some of it through advertising, some
 from

   other sources

   (e.g. database access, membership schemes). Most of
 this

  is

   invisible

   to most researchers, the exceptions being things like
 page

   charges or

   color figure charges in traditional venues or OA fees
 more

   recently.

   Now consider a thought experiment: If every single one
 of

   the ca. 2

   million articles we publish every year would be
 published

   for an OA

   fee in the PLOS ONE range (ca. USD 1,500), that would
 cost

   USD 3

   billion altogether, which is roughly the amount of

  *profit*

   the

   publishing industry is making now.

   While many traditional publishers (and especially
 their

   hybrid

   journals) hover well above those 1,500 dollars, many
 newer

   ones have

   OA fees well below that, often due to more efficient

   workflows. So if

   OA at the efficiency of PLOS ONE or better were to
 replace

   the

   traditional publishing model, this would mean
 significant

   savings

   (billions per year eventually) for the scientific

  community

   - and thus

   the public - which we could use to build an
 infrastructure

   that would

   make scholarly communication more efficient, to
 include

   things beyond

   PDF and discovery mechanisms beyond citations and
 journal

   TOC alerts.

   Besides, the educational value of a paywall to lay
 readers

   interested

   in taxonomy rarely tops that of a relevant OA paper.

   Daniel

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 The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org

 Celebrating 29 years of Taxacom in 2016.