To follow up on yesterday's discussion -- Patent Baristas discusses The High Cost of Research Journals and the Open Source Revolt:

For publishers, the process of selecting and editing journals is expensive but is a necessary filter to help sort out the wheat from the vast amounts of research chafe. The nonprofit publisher of the prestigious Science magazine makes content available free after 12 months. Other publishers note that with a combination of free abstracts, free distribution to the developing world and public-library subscriptions, much of the globe already has access to what they produce.

But, let's be honest here -- Elsevier's scholarly journals bring in about $1.6 billion in annual revenue with an operating-profit margin of about 30%. OK, raise your hand if you would like to see your business maintain an operating-profit margin of 30%. Now put them down.

While one could argue that all articles should be published and the public (scientists) can figure out the genius from the quack, it is the vetting of articles through the peer-review system that provides real value. At some journals, less than 10% of submitted articles make it into a publication. This lends real authority to the work and, often, is the only way to gain tenure. But this vetting costs real money. The WSJ notes that Science gets 12,000 submissions and publishes 800 articles a year on a $10 million editorial budget. That averages more than $10,000 per published article, although typical per-article costs are between $3,000 and $4,000. So, what's the solution? Competition.

Only through innovative business models and Internet-based alternatives can pressure be applied to drive down the costs of publications. For example, Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former NIH director, has co-founded Public Library of Science, offering open-access journals. PLoS charges authors a fee of $1,500 for its first peer-reviewed journal, PLoS Biology, and also distributes its contents free on the Internet. But this battle is not over as publishers are lowering their fees in an attempt to keep universities from revolting - the UC System negotiated a 25% price reduction.

posted by James DeLong @ 1:19 PM | Free Culture Movement

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