RE: universities experiment with paying OA fees

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

There may be "quite small" differences in levels of prestige in 
some of the fields with which David is familiar, but in fields I 
know best--and handle as an acquiring editor--the differences 
between those levels is quite large indeed.

Take political philosophy, for example. There are two outstanding 
journals in this field, one for analytic philosophers (Philosophy 
& Public Affairs) and one for political scientists (Political 
Theory). Everything else pales by comparison (though, for 
political scientists, publishing in the APSA's flagship journal, 
the APSR, can bring comparable prestige). P&PA, which I helped 
found at Princeton UP, is now published by Blackwell (and 
experienced a very sharp increase in subscription price when it 
was taken over); PT has always been published by Sage.

If these journals go Gold OA and charge stiff fees, authors will 
lose a lot by going to the second-tier journals (like The Review 
of Politics, for political scientists). I would agree with David 
that at the secondary and tertiary levels, differences in 
prestige may not be so pronounced and there differences in OA 
fees may enter more importantly into authors' decisions. And it 
might help weed out the overchargers if their fees are indeed way 
out of line with those of their main competitors, resulting in a 
more competitive market.

Still, at the highest prestige level I expect that journals will 
still be able to charge monopolistic prices and not see much 
dropoff in their rates of submission. Indeed, those journals 
probably could even earn more in the marketplace than they can 
today because authors will be making the decisions directly, not 
via the proxy of librarians.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>I'm afraid that discrimination is a fact of life where there is 
>not an unlimited budget.  Universities (and departments and 
>research groups) make decisions on what research to pursue, what 
>departments to fund, which groups to allocate space to, which 
>journals and books to buy, what equipment to buy, how many 
>researchers and students to send to conferences, etc., etc. In 
>each case there is discrimination.  It is not unreasonable to 
>suppose that there may be the same type of discrimination when 
>it comes to where researchers publish.
>
>And let's not forget this is already happening.  Page, figure, 
>and reprint charges are already factors that researchers take 
>into account when they decide where to publish.  Over the years 
>Anthony will have heard the complaints of many UK researchers 
>that they could not publish in US society journals because they 
>did not have the funds to pay the charges.  There is a utopian 
>myth that all under the subscription model authors are free to 
>publish where they want - they're not!
>
>I disagree with Sandy regarding the degree to which authors will 
>be able to shop around.  It is certainly true that prestige is a 
>hugely important factor in shaping an author's decision on where 
>to submit their paper, but it's not the only one.  As I say, in 
>the past the presence of page charges have been sufficient 
>deterrent to those without funds to pay.  But in many fields the 
>differences between prestige (or at least its proxy, impact) can 
>be quite small.  So if you know that your work is not quite good 
>enough for the top-ranked journal in your field, you may have 
>three or four 'B' rank journals that you would be happy to 
>publish in.  In that case the publication charges may play a 
>part in making shaping your decision.
>
>This is even before looking at whether there will be a 
>relationship between 'prestige' and cost to authors.  I have a 
>suspicion that some society publishers are going to be able to 
>provide greater prestige at lower cost than some of their 
>commercial rivals and so the prestigious 'A' journal in a field 
>may be cheaper than the less prestigious 'B' journals!
>
>David Prosser