[Air-L] Elsevier and academia.edu

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Thu Dec 12 17:23:55 PST 2013 

Yes, that could work although I see some difficulties with universities
interposing themselves between the e-publisher and the funding bodies
(bureaucracy, changes in editors and very diverse editorial board
composition, different resource availability as between universities both
within countries and particularly internationally, unies charging exorbitant
overhead costs, that sort of thing).

The option that I've been thinking about but haven't had a chance to even
pilot is to have OA journals treated as with any "subscription" journal i.e.
where a library would "subscribe" and pay a fee for the subscription -- the
subscription list would, as now be drawn up by the existing processes but
presumably by faculty members.  Libraries could divert some of the funds
that they would  save through un-subbing from some of the existing
outrageously priced journals and transfer that to the OA journal
subscription fund. 

Of course, I can see a lot of practical difficulties with this approach but
any journal, OA or otherwise, has to/should have an extended user base/fan
club of faculty and student supporters (if not they are essentially vanity
presses I would think) and these then become the lobby group to ensure that
some of the library's subscription funds go to the various OA journals to
ensure their continuity/survival.

Comments? (BTW, I've run this by the JoCI Editorial Board and they like it
and in some cases have approached their uni libraries with the proposal,
only to be rebuffed on the basis that there are no available funds for this
kind of thing.  A concerted effort through, for example to/through one or
another national research funding body could establish some useful
precedents, (perhaps there are already some examples) and then who knows...

M  

-----Original Message-----
From: Mathieu ONeil [mailto:mathieu.oneil at anu.edu.au] 
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 8:03 AM
To: michael gurstein; air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: RE: [Air-L] Elsevier and academia.edu

Hi Michael

I suppose the advantage of commercial publishers for funding bodies is that
they constitute a legal and stable partner for entering into contractual
exchange, as opposed to researcher-run peer reviewed journals like the ones
you and I are involved in. This is why I think universities could perhaps
act as an honest broker between funding bodies and "green" open access
journals (to use the approved term) in order to channel support either
in-kind (by employing proofreaders etc) or in cash...?

cheers
Mathieu
________________________________________
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on
behalf of michael gurstein [gurstein at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 11:52
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Elsevier and academia.edu

Just to say that funding for Open Access journals is a real issue.



I'm the EiC of the double blind peer reviewed Journal of Community
Informatics <http://ci-journal.net/> .  We are now in our tenth year and
have had roughly 1.1 million discrete article downloads
<http://ci-journal.net/reports/>  since 2006 (when the counter was
restarted).



We have looked at various business/funding models over the years but haven't
come up with anything workable. The actual out-of-pocket expenses are fairly
modest but when you start putting price tags on various of the elements of
the publishing process (outside of those normally provided for free by
academic contributors) such as editing, proof reading and layout the price
tag rises quite steeply to the $40-50K per year range.



A lot of journals that were started in the first flush of open access (and
particularly open access supporting software such as OJS
<http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/>  on which we operate) are now approaching their
founder/editor burnout period and on-going survival will very much depend on
finding at least some degree of funding/some workable business model.



M



Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
Editor in Chief: Journal of Community Informatics
web:  <http://ci-journal.net> http://ci-journal.net
email: gurstein at gmail.com





-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Mathieu ONeil
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 7:15 AM
To: Deborah Lupton
Cc: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Elsevier and academia.edu



Hi Deborah, all



That's a really good point but it begs the question: how exactly do these
funding bodies define "[providing] funds for the open access publishing of
materials produced from research they fund"? Does this mean setting aside
extra money to pay for so-called "open access" from the likes of Elsevier
(at the tune of $2-3,000 per article...). Or does this mean supporting the
open sourcing of research by new means? If the former (which is much easier:
just set aside this amount) then it is not really addressing the
exploitative nature of the research community / commercial publisher
relationship.



cheers,

Mathieu

________________________________________

From:  <mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org>
air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on behalf
of Deborah Lupton [deborah.lupton at gmail.com]

Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 7:18

To: nickjan

Cc: < <mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org> air-l at listserv.aoir.org>

Subject: Re: [Air-L] Elsevier and academia.edu



As I'm sure discussants in Australia know, research funding bodies in
Australia have also begun to mandate and provide funds for the open access
publishing of materials produced from research they fund, including the two
major funding bodies. This has begun to change the culture in universities
here concerning open access. My university held at least two forums on open
access publishing this year in the attempt to inform academics about the
ins-and-outs of OA.



Deborah





On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 9:20 PM, nickjan < <mailto:nickjan at xs4all.nl>
nickjan at xs4all.nl> wrote:



> All:

>

> The Scholarly Kitchen (collective blog for the Society for Scholarly

> Publishing) has just posted an insightful analysis of the Elsevier -

> Academia.edu saga, entitled "The End of an Era for Academia.edu and

> Other Academic Networks?" Available at:

>

>  <http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/12/11/has->
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/12/11/has-

> elsevier-signaled-a-new-era-for-academia-edu-and-other-

> professional-networks/

>

> As pointed out in the post, many of the comments to a recent article

> in The Chronicle of Higher Education ( <http://chronicle.com/blogs/>
http://chronicle.com/blogs/

> wiredcampus/posting-your-latest-article-you-might-have-

> to-take-it-down/48865) are particularly astute....

>

> Nick Jankowski

> _______________________________________________

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--

Deborah Lupton

Currently Senior Principal Research Fellow (Professor) Department of
Sociology and Social Policy University of Sydney



*From 10 February 2014: Centenary Research Professor* *Faculty of Arts and
Design, University of Canberra*



*New books*: *Medicine as Culture* (3rd revised edition, Sage, 2012);
*Fat*(Routledge, 2012);

*Risk* (2nd revised edition, Routledge, 2013); *The Social Worlds of the

Unborn* (2013, Palgrave Macmillan); *The Unborn Human* (edited) (2013, Open
Humanities Press). Currently working on *Digital Sociology* (forthcoming,
Routledge). I blog at 'This Sociological Life'<
<http://simplysociology.wordpress.com> http://simplysociology.wordpress.com>
and Tweet @DALupton.

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