4 ms·

AAS is a nonprofit society, though, so while there may be some cross-subsidy of other activities those page charges must reflect to some degree the actual costs

AAS is a nonprofit society, though, so while there may be some cross-subsidy of other activities those page charges must reflect to some degree the actual costs to maintain the journal. My own guess is that the CRUD apps used to host the articles are bespoke enough to be priced more like consulting-ware than commodity software, and the market is too small to attract cheaper entrants. Journals without page charges simply pass those costs on to readers (or their libraries), which slows scientific progress.

b215826 5y ago
> AAS is a nonprofit society, though, so while there may be some cross-subsidy of other activities those page charges must reflect to some degree the actual costs to maintain the journal. I've published with ApJ. In late 2016, ApJ charged us around $1500 for a 16-page article, which apart from some minor copyediting, was published as it is. Now, the $1500 fee may not be much for a well-funded research group in a first-world country. However, it is a considerable amount of money for other research groups. If arXiv, which receives over 10,000 submissions and 35 million downloads a month [1] can operate on a yearly budget of $2.5 million [2], I don't see why these journals can operate at a comparable budget. > Journals without page charges simply pass those costs on to readers (or their libraries), which slows scientific progress. There is good evidence that scientific progress has slowed down already [3,4] and it has almost nothing to do with lack of open access journals. Science progressed at a much faster rate in early and mid 20th century, where such concepts didn't even make sense. 21st-century science will fair better if funding institutions started caring about the quality of research done. [1]: https://arxiv.org/stats/main https://arxiv.org/stats/main [2]: https://arxiv.org/about/reports-financials https://arxiv.org/about/reports-financials [3]: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminishing-returns-science/575665/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish... [4]: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/34/9384 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/34/9384
derbOac 5y ago
I would be more sympathetic to cost arguments if they were transparent about it. In the end I think this starts to raise important questions about sources of costs and benefits of a journal article and who should pay (not about AAS in particular necessarily but in general).

b215826 5y ago

> AAS is a nonprofit society, though, so while there may be some cross-subsidy of other activities those page charges must reflect to some degree the actual costs to maintain the journal. I've published with ApJ. In late 2016, ApJ charged us around $1500 for a 16-page article, which apart from some minor copyediting, was published as it is. Now, the $1500 fee may not be much for a well-funded research group in a first-world country. However, it is a considerable amount of money for other research groups. If arXiv, which receives over 10,000 submissions and 35 million downloads a month [1] can operate on a yearly budget of $2.5 million [2], I don't see why these journals can operate at a comparable budget. > Journals without page charges simply pass those costs on to readers (or their libraries), which slows scientific progress. There is good evidence that scientific progress has slowed down already [3,4] and it has almost nothing to do with lack of open access journals. Science progressed at a much faster rate in early and mid 20th century, where such concepts didn't even make sense. 21st-century science will fair better if funding institutions started caring about the quality of research done. [1]: https://arxiv.org/stats/main https://arxiv.org/stats/main [2]: https://arxiv.org/about/reports-financials https://arxiv.org/about/reports-financials [3]: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminishing-returns-science/575665/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish... [4]: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/34/9384 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/34/9384

derbOac 5y ago

I would be more sympathetic to cost arguments if they were transparent about it. In the end I think this starts to raise important questions about sources of costs and benefits of a journal article and who should pay (not about AAS in particular necessarily but in general).