Univ. of California Faculty May Boycott Nature Publisher

Marian the Librarian writes "Nature Publishing Group (NPG), which publishes the prestigious journal Nature along with 67 affiliated journals, has proposed a 400% increase in the price of its license to the University of California. UC is poised to just say no to exorbitant price gouging. If UC walks, the faculty are willing to stage a boycott; they could, potentially, decline to submit papers to NPG journals, decline to review for them and resign from their editorial boards."

Comments

Not a 400% Increase

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would stop quoting large percent increases. They get the math wrong more often than not, so it is hard to tell what is intended.

The current average cost for the Nature group's journals is $4,465; under the 2011 pricing scheme, that would rise to more than $17,000 per journal, according to the California Digital Library.

The new price is about four times higher than the old price, a 300% increase, not a 400% increase.

Re:Not a 400% Increase

[GreatAntibob]

Well, that makes a HUGE difference. I'd run like hell from a 400% price increase, but a 300% price increase seems fair and equitable to me.

Re:Not a 400% Increase

[mea37]

Sure. And as long as the conclusion is the same there's no reason to get the facts right, eh?

Re:Not a 400% Increase

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would stop quoting large percent increases. They get the math wrong more often than not, so it is hard to tell what is intended.

The current average cost for the Nature group's journals is $4,465; under the 2011 pricing scheme, that would rise to more than $17,000 per journal, according to the California Digital Library.

The new price is about four times higher than the old price, a 300% increase, not a 400% increase.

*COUGH* three times higher... or four times the price.... kettle, Meet pot!

Re:Not a 400% Increase

[QRDeNameland]

And when an error is repeated enough, it's no longer an error and becomes correct.

Which, for all intensive purposes, begs the question of weather we can take this for granite. Or maybe that's a mute point.

***ducks***

seems reasonable

[Trepidity]

It's becoming increasingly anachronistic that a for-profit company should: 1) get their main product (the papers, in this case) produced for free by third parties who are not given any cut of the revenues; 2) have much of the intellectual work of reviewing and editing the papers also done for free by third parties; and then 3) lock up the result behind a paywall to maximize revenues, which go to people who had comparatively minor roles in actually producing the product being sold.

Perhaps if more academics did this sort of thing things would change.

Re:seems reasonable

[masterwit]

I do not think that many of their papers are provided on a "free basis" (well yes mostly they are):

Obviously, there's a tradeoff for faculty, in that many of the NPG journals are recognized for their high quality, and provide a level of prestige that may be essential for advancing a researcher's career. The libraries recommend alternatives, such as the Public Library of Science journals, but those have yet to reach an equivalent level of recognition. The letter also recommends other open access policies, such as following the NIH open access guidelines, but NPG has already taken actions to support these policies.

source

They submitters also get compensated (not highly enough as some would argue). In addition I found this very interesting (from arstechnica):

Nature's take

In response to our query, Nature Publishing group provided us with a public statement in which it voices distress that what it had assumed were ongoing, confidential negotiations have been disclosed to the public. As for the assertions made along with the disclosure, NPG thinks they're misleading. "The implication that NPG is increasing its list prices by massive amounts is entirely untrue," the statement reads. According to Nature, its library subscriptions are currently capped at seven percent annually.

Where did the massive increase mentioned by the UC libraries come from? The statement argues that the price increase seems dramatic simply because UC was operating under a discount that NPG terms "unsustainable." NPG claims that it's providing the UC libraries with a discount from list of close to 90 percent, and that "other subscribers, both in the US and around the world, are subsidizing them." Even with the new pricing in place, NPG estimates that the average download of a paper would only cost UC a bit more than 50.

NPG seems convinced that cooler heads and a detailed analysis of the numbers will see the UC libraries return to the negotiating table. "We are confident that the appointment of Professor Keith Yamamoto and other scientific faculty to lead the proposed boycott," it states, "will mean they will be in a position to assess value with a rigorous and transparent methodology."

same source linked againsource

If those facts are all true, they really should be fair to the other universities...but to be honest I bet both sides are exaggerated as that is how media works.

Re:seems reasonable

[AK Marc]

Capitalism requires informed consumers. Most companies work very hard to prevent their consumers from being informed. "Private" negotiations for random discounts off inflated MSRP is very anti-capitalistic. A law requiring full disclosure of every customer's price would be fought by almost everyone that claims to be for the Free Market, but in fact would be helping enforce the Free Market. But then, there is a desire by those people to have the Free Market regulated by those who directly benefit by violating it (they want to have the corporations police themselves and if you don't like it, shop elsewhere, even when there is no where else to shop). But having government regulation enforcing the Free Market, while required for a Free Market, is somehow a violation of the Free Market.

But imagine the row when every price for every seat on an airplane is known. Or when you go to the doctor and he tells you that the average price for that test is $142.5 and your price is $750 (as 90% get it for $75 and 10% get it for $750). Or car dealerships, which are staunchly anti-Free Market have to actually tell other customers what they actually charged for cars. But, an informed consumer is *required* for the Free Market. And as long as people get the idea in their heads that negotiation is good because they are smarter than the average guy, the USA will stay as far away from a capitalistic free market as possible.

Fuck the publishers.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Step 1. Scientists do research(paid for largely by a mixture of tax money, and skimming from undergrads)

Step 2. Scientists write paper, submit to journal.

Step 3. Journal has other scientists(paid for by their respective universities) peer review paper for free.

Step 4. If journal decides to publish, they frequently demand copyright on paper.

Step 5. University library shells out nontrivial dead presidents so that scientists can read the papers they and their colleagues wrote.

They poison parasites, right?

Re:Pot, meet kettle

[tucara]

Not that I agree with the massive tuition hikes, but the difference here is that the journal is getting most of it's content and editing for free. It would be like the UC tuition rising despite all the professors and janitors working for free. Also some journals actually charge your for publishing articles. It cost me a $1000 to publish in an IOP journal...and by me I mean the taxpayer since I work on a DOE experiment.

Donald Knuth on the topic

[toxygen01]

Few months ago I read Donald Knuth's open letter to publisher on the exact same topic - increase in price.
The letter is dated 2003, but I believe is it as actual today as it was back then.

the link to this comprehensive letter is:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/joalet.pdf

if you find it tl;dr, I can only suggest to read at least first 2 pages to get the insight on what he wanted to share with other people...

car show analogy

[bzipitidoo]

Scientific publishing is worse than car shows. Most car shows, participants pay, and the spectators get in for free. Which always seemed backwards to me. Sports games are the other way around. The audience pays the players. Except for vanity publishing, authors of fiction generally get paid for their efforts. But car shows are weird that way. Participants enter car shows to show off their rides. They want to show off so badly they'll pay to do it.

So it is with scientific publishing. Researchers don't just want to show off, they have to, to keep their jobs. These scumbag publishers take advantage of that situation to take work for nothing, and act like the researchers should be grateful not to be charged a fee. You might think they add some value with editing and reviewing, but no, they farm all that work out to other researchers-- and pay them nothing for that either. And then the publishers turn around and gouge the spectators too.

There's some serious dislocation in values here. Let's kick Nature where it hurts. They very badly need reminding who is really providing the material. Actually, forget that. Just kill Nature. I had already decided long ago to never again publish in a closed journal. PLoS is where I'll be sending my work.