Wither Academic Publishers
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is defending its franchise against the challenge of Open Access in some creative ways.
Perhaps the most interesting idea is that ACS will provide the corresponding author of every article a credit of $1500 that can be used for any of their open access options. Think of it as a frequent author program, but, alas, like frequent flyer points, the credit ages out after three years. What is more the credits can be transferred.
What are the open access options? Well the immediate or 12 month embargoed options, but also a Creative Commons license so that authors can post the published article on their web site, or that of their institution, or in other open access repositories. Costs are $4000/article for immediate open access and $2000/article for the 12 month version. For members (a couple of hundred a year, but you gotta be a chemist), the costs are half that. The Creative Commons licenses are $1000/$500 for non-members/members
If the university or laboratory subscribes to all the ACS journals, ACS will provide special pricing for open access publication. That drops the immediate price down to $3000/article and the 12 month opening to $1500, with again 50% discounts for members.. ACS will also manage the interface between funder, institution and governments to meet the requirements of the authors and their funders, institutions and guess what governments.
Details and more
For giggles Eli took a survey today about academic publishers in which he trashed Elsevier, and, glory be, it turned out to be sponsored by Elsevier.
As Elsevier says to the libraries: Good Day! Are you prejudiced against former felons or would you rather subscribe to a magazine though me?
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10 comments:
In Australia the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council have both mandated (as of July 2012) that papers arising from their funding of projects be published in open access sources. A lot of work from NH&MRC and ARC projects have traditionally been published in non-OA journals (Elsevier is the stand-out in the crowd...) and a WoS/Scopus trawl of post-July 2012 papers shows that there are many papers funded by one or the other of these bodies that are still being sent to the non-OA journals.
I suspect that there are going to be a few meetings amongst various institutions' heads of faculties/schools/department and their researchers regarding the failure to meet the contracted requirements of their funders. Down the line there will inevitably be a leaking away from the stand-over journals, and given that NH&MRC/ARC projects in Australia are some of the heftier-funded (and therefore high quality) work, one wonders if the message will eventually seep into their thick publisher skulls...
Bernard J.
I presume the pun in the title is deliberate. The sooner the bunch of rent-seeking leeches wither, the better.
Perhaps they need to look at the example of the music industry and start adapting rather than trying to wring the last drops of blood from the cash cow. Don't know what's going to happen, but the entire edifice of academic publishing will change, that's for sure.
Eli's solution is iPapers, maybe a buck a download including from university libraries.
Now some, not Eli to be sure, might think that there is a pun free zone at Rabett Run.
well, it sure ain't bun free
More punditry?!
Eli, sometimes even publishers can do nice things: http://www.iied.org/offer-extended-free-access-papers-cities-climate-change
I've linked to this on my blog and elsehwere because I think it's valuable and interesting; here, because it looks like something the bunny could use to line the warren.
Speaking of Elsevier...
The American Physical Society had a long lawsuit feud with Elsevier, when the APS published an article assessing the cost-effectiveness of various physics journals, and found some Elsevier journals were inferior by that metric. Elsevier sued APS but APS continued the legal battle, even after the death of the author of the original offending article. APS eventually prevailed in court, but had heavy legal bills. For the APS it was a matter of principle.
http://theconversation.com/riled-up-by-elseviers-take-downs-time-to-embrace-open-access-21405
:-)
Bernard J.
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