Comments on: Something is not open at PLoS, maybe …

By: Paulo Nuin

Paulo Nuin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:32:32 +0000

Agreed, I really like PLoS (never read One though), but they need to share with the others.

Regarding the profitability, we’re in the era of now, nobody will wait 40 years to make a profit again. More like 40 days.

By: bill

bill — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:27:51 +0000

It’s a bit early to judge — I read somewhere (wish I could find a source) that Nature took 40 years to turn a profit!

But you’re right — I love PLoS, but their extreme visibility does tend to overshadow other OA publishers. BioMedCentral was profitable even before Springer bought them, and Hindawi and Medknow are both in the black and have been for some time.

Maybe the poster child needs to share the limelight a bit with its smaller (but more profitable) siblings?

By: Paulo Nuin

Paulo Nuin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:16:41 +0000

Bill, I see what you mean. But if the poster child of the OA movement is not sustainable, how can other OA publishers follow?

By: bill

bill — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:51:16 +0000

PLoS is not a great model for OA sustainability because it was never meant to be one. The original PLoS journals (Biol, Med) were explicitly designed as flagships, to show that OA could compete with Nature et al for the “highest quality” papers. They started with deep pockets full of donated money and have deliberately worked with that.

What is interesting is that PLoS ONE, at $1300 per article, IS making money and is the driving force behind the fact that PLoS is, as I understand it, getting close to breaking even overall. This is the same model that Nature uses — a prominent journal to establish the brand and a stable of “second tier” journals to pay the bills. (Scare quotes there because I don’t believe in any such thing — journal prestige is a failed model, etc etc — but that’s a different discussion.)

I also think the numbers given in that article are a bit off — I have made my own estimates and it seems that subscription journals make around $2100-$2900 per article, not including things like advertising, reprints and so on. That’s close to the maximum being charged by most OA journals — e.g. PLoS charges are as described above, BMC ranges from $800 to $2500, Hindawi is under $1000 for all journals. Nearly all hybrid models, like Springer’s “Open Choice”, charge $3000 per article. The only publisher trumpeting ridiculous things like GBP40,000 per article and charging USD5000 per article for its latest OA offering is Nature Pub Group.

By: Paulo Nuin

Paulo Nuin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:06:48 +0000

Yes, I agree on the fee waivers, but the numbers I presented might be up or down the real figures. Just an estimation. And I agree that it costs money to keep the infrastructure, you don’t pay employees based on the number of papers accepted, reviewed, etc, as mentioned by Dave. You might hire people in order to publish more, but then if you are hiring is because you had a profit, what might mean that your income from fees is compatible with the growth. This is if you want to attract more publications, by keeping the price down (or at a reasonable level).

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:07:42 +0000

PLoS is also really good about waving fees for authors who can’t afford them, so the total revenue earned from published articles is less than (#articles)*(article fee). No, reviewers don’t get paid, but it does cost money to maintain the infrastructure for peer review and the staff required to publish articles.

By: Paulo Nuin

Paulo Nuin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:00:31 +0000

Do all reviewers get paid?

By: Dave Munger

Dave Munger — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:57:09 +0000

For every article published in a top-flight journal, 10 or more may be rejected. Someone has to review all those articles, and someone has to round up the reviewers. Someone has to edit the ones that get published, prepare them for publication, and make sure they’re following proper bibliometric standards.

PLoS is a leader in article-level metrics, and this requires a dedicated programming staff to compile metrics from many different sources. Could they cut costs a bit? Sure, but then they wouldn’t be a top-flight journal. Just because it costs $8K per article published in a top journal doesn’t mean that’s what it needs to cost for every journal. Many online journals do it for much less. But to be one of the best requires serious money.