[LINK] Open publishing strike - editorial board resigns

[Roger Clarke]

At 9:37 +1100 1/4/13, Tom Worthington wrote:
>Yes, the issue of academic publication costs issue has been brewing for
>years.
>Publishing costs money, but how much is in dispute.   ...

"An unincorporated mutual can produce a limited-quantity hard-copy 
journal for $20,000 p.a., and an eJournal for $8,000 p.a. For costs 
of this scale, it is not unduly challenging to find sponsors, and to 
run a gratis eJournal 'on the smell of an oil-rag'. Sustaining the 
commitment of senior academics would appear to be the most critical 
survival factor.

"Because of the low cost of an eJournal, it can be easily supported 
by an association with a membership of as little as a few hundred. A 
hard-copy journal, on the other hand, needs an Association with a few 
thousand members if it is to 'carry' the journal using only a small 
proportion of its members' fees.

"It is not clear that the net effect of economies [and] diseconomies 
of scale and scope is of any great significance, and hence the 
cost-profiles of publishers of multiple journals may not show much 
advantage over those of organisations that publish a single journal. 
Such advantages as do exist may be even less important in the case of 
eJournals."


Clarke R. (2007)  'The Cost-Profiles of Alternative Approaches to 
Journal-Publishing'  First Monday 12, 12 (December 2007), at 
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2048/1906

The above quote is at:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/JP-CP.html#Conc-CP


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University