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Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

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Owen Densmore

Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Administrator

Timothy Gowers the Fields medalist mathematician has a recent post on Elsevier and a growing movement to boycott their use

http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/

This includes not submitting to the VERY MANY math journals owned by Elsevier:

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/P11.cws_home/mathjournals

.. or reviewing submissions

One previous successful act against Elsevier was extraction of the Journal of Topology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(journal)

On 10 August 2006, after months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier about the price policy of library subscriptions, the entire editorial board of the journal handed in their resignation, with effect from 31 December 2006. Subsequently, two more issues appeared in 2007 with papers that had been accepted before the resignation of the editors. In early January the former editors instructed Elsevier to remove their names from the website of the journal, but Elsevier refused to comply, justifying their decision by saying that the editorial board should remain on the journal until all of the papers accepted during its tenure had been published.

In 2007 the former editors announced the launch of the Journal of Topology, run under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society at a significantly lower price.

Its interesting that Timothy also refers to SOPA/PIPA and took part in the wikipedia led protest. (I just found out that wordpress made a plugin that folks all could use for that and future protests. Impressive!)

I'd really like more of us to be careful about our papers and demand they be open. Its not exactly black/white, but certainly the papers have to be publicly available, whatever else the publisher's rights may be.

I'd like your opinions, which are quite likely more informed than mine.

-- Owen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach
adopted by some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with
readers having free access. NSF considers author publication fees a
reasonable part of doing business, and physicists are including these
costs in grant proposals. In some cases there are "scholarships" for
truly needy submitters.

Bruce

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Timothy Gowers the Fields medalist mathematician has a recent post on
> Elsevier and a growing movement to boycott their use
>
> http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/
>
>
> This includes not submitting to the VERY MANY math journals owned by
> Elsevier:
>
> http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/P11.cws_home/mathjournals
>
> .. or reviewing submissions
>
> One previous successful act against Elsevier was extraction of the Journal
> of Topology
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(journal)
>
> On 10 August 2006, after months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier
> about the price policy of library subscriptions, the entire editorial
> board of the journal handed in their resignation, with effect from 31
> December 2006. Subsequently, two more issues appeared in 2007 with papers
> that had been accepted before the resignation of the editors. In early
> January the former editors instructed Elsevier to remove their names from
> the website of the journal, but Elsevier refused to comply, justifying their
> decision by saying that the editorial board should remain on the journal
> until all of the papers accepted during its tenure had been published.
>
> In 2007 the former editors announced the launch of the Journal of
> Topology, run under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society at a
> significantly lower price.
>
>
> Its interesting that Timothy also refers to SOPA/PIPA and took part in the
> wikipedia led protest. (I just found out that wordpress made a plugin that
> folks all could use for that and future protests. Impressive!)
>
> I'd really like more of us to be careful about our papers and demand they be
> open. Its not exactly black/white, but certainly the papers have to
> be publicly available, whatever else the publisher's rights may be.
>
> I'd like your opinions, which are quite likely more informed than mine.
>
> -- Owen
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Owen Densmore

Re: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Administrator

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Bruce Sherwood <[hidden email]> wrote:

There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach
adopted by some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with
readers having free access. NSF considers author publication fees a
reasonable part of doing business, and physicists are including these
costs in grant proposals. In some cases there are "scholarships" for
truly needy submitters.

Bruce

Just like Hollywood, I do agree. There are costs and I don't mind reasonable payment methods. Intelligent media folks worked with Apple for DRM-free music, and are doing just fine. Amazon's cloud music is quickly catching up. Google has just started a music business. The payments are reasonable and the cloud access even a step forward, adding true value. In the book world, Kindle/Amazon is working on lending ebooks to friends and libraries as well as ubiquitous cloud access.

But for me the academic publishers are dinosaurs. The most egregious is ACM the computing publishers where even the Turing lectures are for sale! And no academic can possibly subscribe to all the journals touching on their career. They rely on their university having JSTOR access.

And just how much value does Elsevier (and others) add? Certainly if you want the paper version, or a digital subscription, of a journal that is key to your work, fine. But if you're only looking for a single computer algorithm or mathematical proof, isn't $35 a bit over the top?

Basically I think academic publishers are failing to join the present day while other publishers are finding ways to add value and have reasonable prices. I just hope they don't try to copy write all of Euler!

-- Owen

Arlo Barnes

Re: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

I was elated to find JoVE (the Journal of Visual Experiments, a video database of footage of experiments and techniques) but deeply disappointed to find it was not open access.

-Arlo James Barnes

Carl Tollander

Re: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Some further developments:

http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-faculty-of-1000/
http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/ban-elsevier/

On 1/27/12 5:28 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

I was elated to find JoVE (the Journal of Visual Experiments, a video database of footage of experiments and techniques) but deeply disappointed to find it was not open access.
-Arlo James Barnes
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Owen Densmore

Re: Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Administrator

I'm impressed! Had no idea how far this had spread.

-- Owen

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:

Some further developments:

http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-faculty-of-1000/
http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/ban-elsevier/

Nick Thompson

Re: Elsevier - my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

In reply to this post by Bruce Sherwood

Bruce,

Would you be willing to get into the weeds a bit about what those costs are?
My imagination is failing me, here.

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Bruce Sherwood
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:48 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elsevier my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach adopted by
some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with readers having free
access. NSF considers author publication fees a reasonable part of doing
business, and physicists are including these costs in grant proposals. In
some cases there are "scholarships" for truly needy submitters.

Bruce

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

accepted during its tenure had been published.

>
> In 2007 the former editors announced the launch of the Journal of
> Topology, run under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society at
> a significantly lower price.
>
>
> Its interesting that Timothy also refers to SOPA/PIPA and took part in
> the wikipedia led protest. (I just found out that wordpress made a
> plugin that folks all could use for that and future protests.
> Impressive!)
>
> I'd really like more of us to be careful about our papers and demand
> they be open. Its not exactly black/white, but certainly the papers
> have to be publicly available, whatever else the publisher's rights may

be.
>
> I'd like your opinions, which are quite likely more informed than mine.
>
> -- Owen
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
> at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Elsevier - my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Ruth has been on the board of two physics journals, one conventional
and the other like what I described. She tells me that the main costs
are associated with servers (which surprised me), with formatting, and
with salaries.

In the case of the on-line physics journal for which readers pay
nothing and authors pay $2000 per paper, server and related costs are
quite significant because of the requirement to ensure that papers be
available essentially in perpetuity, with some budget even for future
required format changes as the technology changes. Moreover, this
journal sits in an environment of physics journals that must share a
portal for easy access by libraries. It's a fairly complex ecosystem.

For a professional journal, it is considered highly important that all
papers have the same format -- the same look and feel. The formatting
is done outside, by contract with a company that does this sort of
thing.

Salaries include a full-time secretary who receives submissions and
sends out invitations to reviewers, overseen by an editor who is a
physicist and gets part of his/her salary paid (because it takes a lot
of time).

The operation apparently about breaks even.

Of course if the issue is simply that you want to put on your personal
web site some pdfs that friends have sent you, with no commitment that
the web site will exist next year, the costs are close to zero.

Bruce

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Bruce,
>
> Would you be willing to get into the weeds a bit about what those costs are?
> My imagination is failing me, here.
>
> Nick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
> Of Bruce Sherwood
> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:48 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog
>
> There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach adopted by
> some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with readers having free
> access. NSF considers author publication fees a reasonable part of doing
> business, and physicists are including these costs in grant proposals. In
> some cases there are "scholarships" for truly needy submitters.
>
> Bruce

Russell Standish

Re: Elsevier - my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:05:52PM -0700, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
> Ruth has been on the board of two physics journals, one conventional
> and the other like what I described. She tells me that the main costs
> are associated with servers (which surprised me), with formatting, and
> with salaries.

Outsourcing webservers is of the order of $100 per year. I don't
understand that comment either.

With formatting, well authors do send stuff in in Microsoft Word or
other such rubbish. My model was that authors could submit in LaTeX
already done in the journal style (with supplied .sty and .bst files
provided), which would require fairly minimal processing by the
editor, or they could pay to have it typeset in LaTeX - something in
the region of a couple of hundred bucks for the privelege to submit in
Microsoft Word.

Also, if the English was not up to snuff, the authors would be
directed towards a service like Online English
(http://www.oleng.com.au).

OK - I could imagine a busier journal might cost of the order of
$100-200K pa to run, but something the size of Artificial Life (or for
the matter Complexity International) should be doable for around the
$20K pa mark.

Actually, given that Artificial Life publishes around 20 articles per
year, then the cost per paper would be around the $1000 mark, if
you're doing full cost recovery. I could imagine that formatting and
editing would add to that if you're offering those services.

Cheers

>
> In the case of the on-line physics journal for which readers pay
> nothing and authors pay $2000 per paper, server and related costs are
> quite significant because of the requirement to ensure that papers be
> available essentially in perpetuity, with some budget even for future
> required format changes as the technology changes. Moreover, this
> journal sits in an environment of physics journals that must share a
> portal for easy access by libraries. It's a fairly complex ecosystem.
>
> For a professional journal, it is considered highly important that all
> papers have the same format -- the same look and feel. The formatting
> is done outside, by contract with a company that does this sort of
> thing.
>
> Salaries include a full-time secretary who receives submissions and
> sends out invitations to reviewers, overseen by an editor who is a
> physicist and gets part of his/her salary paid (because it takes a lot
> of time).
>
> The operation apparently about breaks even.
>
> Of course if the issue is simply that you want to put on your personal
> web site some pdfs that friends have sent you, with no commitment that
> the web site will exist next year, the costs are close to zero.
>
> Bruce
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Nicholas Thompson
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Bruce,
> >
> > Would you be willing to get into the weeds a bit about what those costs are?
> > My imagination is failing me, here.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
> > Of Bruce Sherwood
> > Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:48 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog
> >
> > There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach adopted by
> > some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with readers having free
> > access. NSF considers author publication fees a reasonable part of doing
> > business, and physicists are including these costs in grant proposals. In
> > some cases there are "scholarships" for truly needy submitters.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Tom Johnson

Re: Elsevier - my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog

Ah, but remember that many (most?) articles -- especially in the sciences -- contain tables and illustrations. Getting those formatted -- or even getting authors to read, understand and apply instructions is not a trivial task. I suspect there was always be editing and formatting to do. And then, in today's world, comes the issue of checking all the URLs in the article and/or bibliography -- and making sure the target remains valid as time passes also is a major haystack of details.

--tj

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:30 PM, Russell Standish <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:05:52PM -0700, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
> Ruth has been on the board of two physics journals, one conventional
> and the other like what I described. She tells me that the main costs
> are associated with servers (which surprised me), with formatting, and
> with salaries.

Outsourcing webservers is of the order of $100 per year. I don't
understand that comment either.

With formatting, well authors do send stuff in in Microsoft Word or
other such rubbish. My model was that authors could submit in LaTeX
already done in the journal style (with supplied .sty and .bst files
provided), which would require fairly minimal processing by the
editor, or they could pay to have it typeset in LaTeX - something in
the region of a couple of hundred bucks for the privelege to submit in
Microsoft Word.

Also, if the English was not up to snuff, the authors would be
directed towards a service like Online English
(http://www.oleng.com.au).

OK - I could imagine a busier journal might cost of the order of
$100-200K pa to run, but something the size of Artificial Life (or for
the matter Complexity International) should be doable for around the
$20K pa mark.

Actually, given that Artificial Life publishes around 20 articles per
year, then the cost per paper would be around the $1000 mark, if
you're doing full cost recovery. I could imagine that formatting and
editing would add to that if you're offering those services.

Cheers

>
> In the case of the on-line physics journal for which readers pay
> nothing and authors pay $2000 per paper, server and related costs are
> quite significant because of the requirement to ensure that papers be
> available essentially in perpetuity, with some budget even for future
> required format changes as the technology changes. Moreover, this
> journal sits in an environment of physics journals that must share a
> portal for easy access by libraries. It's a fairly complex ecosystem.
>
> For a professional journal, it is considered highly important that all
> papers have the same format -- the same look and feel. The formatting
> is done outside, by contract with a company that does this sort of
> thing.
>
> Salaries include a full-time secretary who receives submissions and
> sends out invitations to reviewers, overseen by an editor who is a
> physicist and gets part of his/her salary paid (because it takes a lot
> of time).
>
> The operation apparently about breaks even.
>
> Of course if the issue is simply that you want to put on your personal
> web site some pdfs that friends have sent you, with no commitment that
> the web site will exist next year, the costs are close to zero.
>
> Bruce
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Nicholas Thompson
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Bruce,
> >
> > Would you be willing to get into the weeds a bit about what those costs are?
> > My imagination is failing me, here.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
> > Of Bruce Sherwood
> > Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 12:48 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elsevier — my part in its downfall « Gowers's Weblog
> >
> > There are real costs that someone must pay. A promising approach adopted by
> > some physics journals is to have the authors pay, with readers having free
> > access. NSF considers author publication fees a reasonable part of doing
> > business, and physicists are including these costs in grant proposals. In
> > some cases there are "scholarships" for truly needy submitters.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
==========================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org