6 ms·

The practice of charging for subscriptions to information that benefits the public good seems silly. Publishing fees make sense, researchers would work the cost

The practice of charging for subscriptions to information that benefits the public good seems silly. Publishing fees make sense, researchers would work the costs into their grant proposals and taxpayers would ultimately bear the cost there instead of in university departmental budgets. But I also know nothing about running a journal. Can someone explain the cost structure of an academic journal, and why a model like publishing fees wouldn't work?

rpedela 9y ago
Publishing fees could introduce a perverse incentive for publishers to accept any paper regardless of quality. Although maybe making it a "review fee" may be better. Publishers get more money the more submissions, but quality would still be maintained. Otherwise, I agree with you.
nordsieck 9y ago
All things being equal, a journal that charges a subscription will out-compete a journal that charges publishing fees because it shifts fees from the researcher to a bunch of schools. The schools are relatively cost insensitive as long as the journal is high impact. Researchers will always be highly cost sensitive.
- kkylin 9y ago
  Not to say whether they are a good idea or bad idea in general, but on thing worth considering is that publishing fees also act as a barrier to entry for less well-funded groups. Some journals even charge fees to submit (even if you are rejected in the end). This can be especially problematic for interdiscinplinary work -- in my field (applied math) grants are generally smaller, and if I submitting a paper to a biology journal that charges a submission fee up front is not always a triial decision.
greglindahl 9y ago
That fee is called a "page charge", and many journals have them. Some are mostly supported by page charges, some open-access journals are entirely supported by them.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  As far as I understand it, page charges are actually often charged for subscription journals as well upon publishing. The publication fees sometimes (but not always!) charged by Open Access journals are called Article Processing Charges.
lorenzhs 9y ago
Most of the work is done by academics who receive no compensation from the publisher. Most importantly, it is expected that one participate in peer review. Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with a reciprocal model of review, but why should publishers get to enjoy enormous profit margins on said work when they're not the ones doing it? Authors don't receive any money from subscriptions or access fees, either. Editors sometimes receive some compensation, but very little. There's just not a lot that the publishers do. It seems unfair that they should be the only ones to profit monetarily from academics' work.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  It's not that publishers do little (there's a lot that you don't usually see, but it's not the peer review), just that not all of it is that necessary, and that it still pales in comparison to the prices they charge.
  - monob 9y ago
    In physics at least you need to write and typeset your own papers for the most part. Look at arxiv.org, that papers there are made purely by academics from start to finish and are already publication grade (if not better).
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      Yes, physics (and most disciplines on arXiv) is relatively special. Although for some reason physicists still mostly submit there work to the journals in addition to placing them on arXiv... (That said, typesetting and writing are more and more often offloaded to academics, but there's also things like e.g. making HTML versions and system-readable versions [1] available, which is a cumbersome manual process.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesti...
      - noobermin 9y ago
        It depends on the field, but you're forgetting that arXiv does not do peer-review. Just because publishing is broken and yes peer-review has issues doesn't mean peer-review isn't needed.
frozenport 9y ago
Worked at a journal. Basically, its a few dollars per page if you outsource all the production steps. It can be good money if you have the connections, although for most connected people - power over their peers on academia is more important. As a former industry insider, the discussion about public/private is really a debate between new and old research groups and communities. The underlying problem, that most research is bullshit is a much more interesting discussion. Indeed, academic publishing fees are the "tip of the iceberg", and rarely represent a substantial challenge to any PI I've met. Most people would eagerly pay 2x more if the system actually worked.
Vinnl 9y ago
That's actually how the UK and the Netherlands have been pushing for Open Access: by paying the publishers for publishing an article. The problem is that this keeps the barrier to participate high - instead of paying to read research, you're paying to publish it. Now, this isn't necessarily a problem: research costs money, and publishing that research is just part of that. However, the prices are widely considered disproportionate: ranging from $3000 to $5000 per article in the traditional journals (that researchers feel obliged to publish in because that helps their careers), with profit margins of 30% to 40% (comparable to Apple's, which sells luxury products). Considering how technology has drastically lowered the prices of most other types of media publishing, it's suspicious that prices of academic articles have only risen. There's a huge movement to improve this situation, but it's a pretty difficult market with many different actors with different incentives. I've written some about why it is difficult to change this at [1]. [1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarly-publishing-eef794937c9c https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...

rpedela 9y ago

Publishing fees could introduce a perverse incentive for publishers to accept any paper regardless of quality. Although maybe making it a "review fee" may be better. Publishers get more money the more submissions, but quality would still be maintained. Otherwise, I agree with you.

nordsieck 9y ago

All things being equal, a journal that charges a subscription will out-compete a journal that charges publishing fees because it shifts fees from the researcher to a bunch of schools. The schools are relatively cost insensitive as long as the journal is high impact. Researchers will always be highly cost sensitive.

kkylin 9y ago
Not to say whether they are a good idea or bad idea in general, but on thing worth considering is that publishing fees also act as a barrier to entry for less well-funded groups. Some journals even charge fees to submit (even if you are rejected in the end). This can be especially problematic for interdiscinplinary work -- in my field (applied math) grants are generally smaller, and if I submitting a paper to a biology journal that charges a submission fee up front is not always a triial decision.

greglindahl 9y ago

That fee is called a "page charge", and many journals have them. Some are mostly supported by page charges, some open-access journals are entirely supported by them.

Vinnl 9y ago
As far as I understand it, page charges are actually often charged for subscription journals as well upon publishing. The publication fees sometimes (but not always!) charged by Open Access journals are called Article Processing Charges.

lorenzhs 9y ago

Most of the work is done by academics who receive no compensation from the publisher. Most importantly, it is expected that one participate in peer review. Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with a reciprocal model of review, but why should publishers get to enjoy enormous profit margins on said work when they're not the ones doing it? Authors don't receive any money from subscriptions or access fees, either. Editors sometimes receive some compensation, but very little. There's just not a lot that the publishers do. It seems unfair that they should be the only ones to profit monetarily from academics' work.

Vinnl 9y ago
It's not that publishers do little (there's a lot that you don't usually see, but it's not the peer review), just that not all of it is that necessary, and that it still pales in comparison to the prices they charge.
- monob 9y ago
  In physics at least you need to write and typeset your own papers for the most part. Look at arxiv.org, that papers there are made purely by academics from start to finish and are already publication grade (if not better).
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    Yes, physics (and most disciplines on arXiv) is relatively special. Although for some reason physicists still mostly submit there work to the journals in addition to placing them on arXiv... (That said, typesetting and writing are more and more often offloaded to academics, but there's also things like e.g. making HTML versions and system-readable versions [1] available, which is a cumbersome manual process.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesti...
    - noobermin 9y ago
      It depends on the field, but you're forgetting that arXiv does not do peer-review. Just because publishing is broken and yes peer-review has issues doesn't mean peer-review isn't needed.

frozenport 9y ago

Worked at a journal. Basically, its a few dollars per page if you outsource all the production steps. It can be good money if you have the connections, although for most connected people - power over their peers on academia is more important. As a former industry insider, the discussion about public/private is really a debate between new and old research groups and communities. The underlying problem, that most research is bullshit is a much more interesting discussion. Indeed, academic publishing fees are the "tip of the iceberg", and rarely represent a substantial challenge to any PI I've met. Most people would eagerly pay 2x more if the system actually worked.

Vinnl 9y ago

That's actually how the UK and the Netherlands have been pushing for Open Access: by paying the publishers for publishing an article. The problem is that this keeps the barrier to participate high - instead of paying to read research, you're paying to publish it. Now, this isn't necessarily a problem: research costs money, and publishing that research is just part of that. However, the prices are widely considered disproportionate: ranging from $3000 to $5000 per article in the traditional journals (that researchers feel obliged to publish in because that helps their careers), with profit margins of 30% to 40% (comparable to Apple's, which sells luxury products). Considering how technology has drastically lowered the prices of most other types of media publishing, it's suspicious that prices of academic articles have only risen. There's a huge movement to improve this situation, but it's a pretty difficult market with many different actors with different incentives. I've written some about why it is difficult to change this at [1]. [1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarly-publishing-eef794937c9c https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...