Re: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

["Greg Tananbaum" <gtananbaum@gmail.com>]

Is it possible that the key to determining the likelihood of 
success or failure for a given publication is not so much its 
business model (OA vs. non-OA), but rather the extent to which 
the publication has some form of institutional support?  By 
institutional support, I refer to the imprimatur of a commercial 
publisher, a university press, a learned society, or even a less 
formal publishing body such as a department?  Journals that are 
sponsored by an entity that has some reputation to protect seem 
much more likely to avoid the cruel fate Sally and others have 
described.  These entities also presumably have some 
infrastructure to sustain the loss of a single editor or IT whiz 
that might cripple an autonomous publication.  If my (perhaps 
seemingly obvious) hypothesis is correct, a more productive 
research project would involve an investigation of dead and 
dormant journals to determine their level of institutional 
support.


Best, Greg
_______________________
Greg Tananbaum
gtananbaum@gmail.com
(510) 295-7504

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