4 ms·

FTA: >But that financial model requires authors to pay a processing charge that can run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per article so the publisher can recoup

by ikeboy 11y ago

FTA: >But that financial model requires authors to pay a processing charge that can run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per article so the publisher can recoup its costs. Edit: also, I don't expect margins of 30% from companies producing very low value. Do you really think that if they'd lower their margin to 0, with prices of around 30% less, everyone would stop complaining?

mc808 11y ago
Some portion of the other 70% is going toward legal fees to protect "their" intellectual property, developing new ways to monetize the windfall, lobbying to obstruct copyright reform, running lower-margin businesses unrelated to academic publishing, and so on.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  40% profit margins now, not 30%, but I completely agree: it's critical to keep an eye on what the company is actually doing rather than sweeping it under the skirt of the economic term "value," which never ceases to amaze in its ability to diverge from the more common definition of the word.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Yes, I suspect creative accounting.
jkyle 11y ago
> so the publisher can recoup its costs. Given that peers review a paper for free and it costs fractions of a penny to host a pdf, why should we care about the publishers? What value do they ultimately bring to the table? We should be rethinking how this is done entirely. This is off the cuff, but... Perhaps researchers applying for public funding should be required to register as peers. Each researcher submits their publication to a public service like data.gov (maybe research.gov?). Peers are automatically assigned according to area of expertise. The peering process proceeds much like it does today. On completion of review and approval, the paper and any materials needed to reproduce the research is made public and available to anyone. The cost for all of that would be relatively trivial. Also, many of those journal fees are paid for with tax dollars to begin with. An expense that would no longer be necessary.
matwood 11y ago
Please tell me what someone like Elsevier does then? Basically they have a monopoly on various prestigious journal names and extract rent from both sides. Finally, researchers are taking a stand and slowly moving towards open journals. See here: http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2015/05/20/elsevier-ever-more-evil/ http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2015/05/20/elsevier-ev...
- ikeboy 11y ago
  If they're merely extracting rent, you should expect two things to be true: 1. Their margins are extremely high, 90% range. 2. Open access journals can charge orders of magnitude less Neither is broadly correct. Regarding the claim that ~30% margins are excessive: do you think that if their prices went down by 30%, everybody would be happy?
  - matwood 11y ago
    Margins for Elsevier are closer to 40%, but I don't care about margins. What I care about is that we the tax payer have already paid for the research. Research often happens with government grants, done by researchers working at public universities. Editing and peer review is done for free by other researchers (who are also usually paid by grants and public universities). Elsevier does nothing but extract rent and pay for lawyers to help them keep extracting. It is insane that they go after people who wrote the paper when they try to give it away on their own website. A little reading goes a long way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier
    - ikeboy 11y ago
      You've paid for the research, but not for the publishing cost. If you don't care about the cost, then the decisions you support will obviously be skewed. Claiming that they're just extracting rent ignores the cost, which even at a 40% margin is still 60% of what they charge. Do you have any information on their legal costs that would reduce the cost above? Do you think everyone complaining about prices would be happy if they would reduce prices by 35% across the board, thus making no profit? Or would you still want it to be free? If the latter, your complaint is not solely based in Elsevier's "rent extraction", but in something else.

by ikeboy 11y ago

mc808 11y ago

Some portion of the other 70% is going toward legal fees to protect "their" intellectual property, developing new ways to monetize the windfall, lobbying to obstruct copyright reform, running lower-margin businesses unrelated to academic publishing, and so on.

jjoonathan 11y ago
40% profit margins now, not 30%, but I completely agree: it's critical to keep an eye on what the company is actually doing rather than sweeping it under the skirt of the economic term "value," which never ceases to amaze in its ability to diverge from the more common definition of the word.
mirimir 11y ago
Yes, I suspect creative accounting.

jkyle 11y ago

> so the publisher can recoup its costs. Given that peers review a paper for free and it costs fractions of a penny to host a pdf, why should we care about the publishers? What value do they ultimately bring to the table? We should be rethinking how this is done entirely. This is off the cuff, but... Perhaps researchers applying for public funding should be required to register as peers. Each researcher submits their publication to a public service like data.gov (maybe research.gov?). Peers are automatically assigned according to area of expertise. The peering process proceeds much like it does today. On completion of review and approval, the paper and any materials needed to reproduce the research is made public and available to anyone. The cost for all of that would be relatively trivial. Also, many of those journal fees are paid for with tax dollars to begin with. An expense that would no longer be necessary.

matwood 11y ago

Please tell me what someone like Elsevier does then? Basically they have a monopoly on various prestigious journal names and extract rent from both sides. Finally, researchers are taking a stand and slowly moving towards open journals. See here: http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2015/05/20/elsevier-ever-more-evil/ http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2015/05/20/elsevier-ev...

ikeboy 11y ago
If they're merely extracting rent, you should expect two things to be true: 1. Their margins are extremely high, 90% range. 2. Open access journals can charge orders of magnitude less Neither is broadly correct. Regarding the claim that ~30% margins are excessive: do you think that if their prices went down by 30%, everybody would be happy?
- matwood 11y ago
  Margins for Elsevier are closer to 40%, but I don't care about margins. What I care about is that we the tax payer have already paid for the research. Research often happens with government grants, done by researchers working at public universities. Editing and peer review is done for free by other researchers (who are also usually paid by grants and public universities). Elsevier does nothing but extract rent and pay for lawyers to help them keep extracting. It is insane that they go after people who wrote the paper when they try to give it away on their own website. A little reading goes a long way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    You've paid for the research, but not for the publishing cost. If you don't care about the cost, then the decisions you support will obviously be skewed. Claiming that they're just extracting rent ignores the cost, which even at a 40% margin is still 60% of what they charge. Do you have any information on their legal costs that would reduce the cost above? Do you think everyone complaining about prices would be happy if they would reduce prices by 35% across the board, thus making no profit? Or would you still want it to be free? If the latter, your complaint is not solely based in Elsevier's "rent extraction", but in something else.