Bob,

The number of articles per issue would stay the same. The number of issues would jump. Say, 4 to 6, or 4 to 8, with the subscription price going up in proportion. This was back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sure, you might lose a few subscribers who couldn’t afford the new price, but the jump in revenues more than covered the increased costs. I don’t recall any problems with staff burnouts or getting content reviewed in time, the main challenge was ensuring the incoming flow of papers was high enough to fill the announced issues.

Toby Green
Publisher, Policy Commons
https://policycommons.net

Coherent Digital LLC
https://www.coherentdigital.net

Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +33 6 07 76 80 86
Twitter: @tobyabgreen





On 23 May 2025, at 21:17, Bob Henkel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



1. That the number of articles published is linked to journal income/profitability etc is not a new phenomenon thanks to APCs. I can remember when subscription prices were linked to the number of issues published and doubling the number of issues was justification to double a subscription price.

 

Do you mean doubling the number of articles within an issue?  Or going from 12 issues a year to 24 issues per year?

 

Either way, editing/comp/production, printing, paper, and mailing costs in order to accomplish either would be extraordinarily more expensive (especially paper and USPS) and the cost to do so not likely to be recoupable from increasing subscription rates.  Based on my experience, only a massive increase in new print advertising (@ 24 issues per year) could help cover the large increases of costs noted above and print advertising has only fallen YoY for many years now, so that business model wouldn’t be sustainable. 

 

Furthermore, the burnout of the reviewers and editorial teams would be unmanageable at a doubling of MSs being crammed through peer review.

 

My .02 cents.

 

 

Bob Henkel

Senior Director of Publications

American Society of Nephrology

1401 H Street NW #900

Washington, DC 20005

p. 202-557-8360

www.asnjournals.org

 

From: OpenCafe-l <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Toby Green
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2025 1:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OPENCAFE-L] Toward Science-Led Publishing

 

Having read the article, some reactions and thoughts:

 

1. That the number of articles published is linked to journal income/profitability etc is not a new phenomenon thanks to APCs. I can remember when subscription prices were linked to the number of issues published and doubling the number of issues was justification to double a subscription price.

2. The article seems to assume that all research findings are published in journals and/or preprints. This ignores a large amount of research, especially in the social sciences, that appears in reports published by research entities like NGOs and think tanks. An increasing number carry statements about their review process and often list the reviewers - so transparency is growing. I’m also seeing more university-based research centres publishing their findings as reports rather than as journal articles and preprints. Maybe this form of publishing, which eschews journals and seems to tick the science-led box, is a model to consider?

3. Retractions should be proof (if it’s needed) that journals are a lazy-person’s prestige marker. Awards are given to films, not to production houses, so isn’t it time that prestige markers should be added to individual articles? And, like an Altmetric badge, a prestige mark could evolve over time - down as well as up!

 

Toby Green

Publisher, Policy Commons

 

Coherent Digital LLC

https://www.coherentdigital.net



Phone: +33 6 07 76 80 86

Twitter: @tobyabgreen





 

 



On 23 May 2025, at 15:32, Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



Hi, George –

 

Thanks for this. I’m thinking that maybe I should rephrase my question: when we talk about “science-led” (or “scientist-led” or “scholar-led”) publishing as distinct from “publisher-led” publishing, how do we deal with the fact that so many scholarly publishers are themselves organizations consisting of scientists and scholars? And why do we assume that science-led publishing will necessarily and always move in the direction of more OA? What about when scientists and scholars want something other than OA?

 

Take the work of cOAlition S, for example. I don’t think there’s any reasonable sense in which we could characterize Plan S as “science-led” (or “scientist-led” or “scholar-led”). It is, by design, funder-led – and it’s designed to take control away from scientists and scholars. Plan S arose because its organizers didn’t believe that global OA was going to happen if publishing choices were left in the hands of authors. (As cOAlition S founder Robert-Jan Smits famously put it, “Why do we need Plan S? Because researchers are irresponsible.”)

 

So what do we do if, given the opportunity to take more control of publishing, scientists and scholars move it in a direction other than universal OA? Would that be okay because the result is science-led? Or would it not be okay because the result is not universal OA?

 

Rick

 

---

Rick Anderson

University Librarian

Brigham Young University

(801) 422-4301

[log in to unmask]

 

 

From: OpenCafe-l <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of George Currie <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: George Currie <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, May 23, 2025 at 12:04 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [OPENCAFE-L] Toward Science-Led Publishing

 

Thank you Rick!

Please take this as my response and not necessarily an eLife position or response. 

So we've taken this framing as a system-level view, not to label individual publishers. The dominant system and centre of mass is what we term publishing-led science and this system could potentially have an influence on decisions up and down the research/publishing pipeline even if research is eventually published on the very edges of the system. Thinking of it as a kind of gravitational pull that's exerting some level of influence in most, if not all scholarly publishing.

That's probably not a very satisfying answer to your question so I'll pick at your example: we do talk about commercial incentives but do (can?) non-profit publishers behave in ways that are fundamentally different from for-profit (thinking from attracting authors through to publishing papers), is hybrid the direction of travel towards fully OA or is it some level of having the cake and eating it too, and if funds are reinvested into communities, that's better than some alternatives in my view, but is it (or when is it? when is it not?) robbing Peter to pay Paul? 

 

On Thu, 22 May 2025 at 18:06, Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thanks very much for sharing this, George.

 

I do have one question: suppose a non-profit scientific society publishes a hybrid journal, the proceeds from which are used entirely to fund initiatives of the society. Would this be considered “science-led publishing”? Why or why not?

 

---

Rick Anderson

University Librarian

Brigham Young University

(801) 422-4301

[log in to unmask]

 

 

From: OpenCafe-l <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of George Currie <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: George Currie <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 10:58 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [OPENCAFE-L] Toward Science-Led Publishing

 

Dear all,

Long time listener, first time caller -- or the email equivalent! Pleased to meet you!

Damian Pattinson and I (both at eLife) recently published an article in Learned Publishing titled Toward Science-Led Publishing. We hope it constructively contributes to discussion of the role of scholarly publishing and believe it may be of interest to this group.

The article discusses some well trodden issues with researcher and publisher incentives, looks at the role of preprints and peer review, and asks if our current systems best serve the interests of advancing science.

Any and all thoughts or questions gratefully received. Thank you.

With best wishes,

George

------------------------------

George Currie (he/him)
Content Manager
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9410-0974

 


Error! Filename not specified.

 

 

eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd is a limited liability non-profit non-stock corporation incorporated in the State of Delaware, USA, with company number 5030732, and is registered in the UK with company number FC030576 and branch number BR015634 at the address 95 Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1AW.

 

Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]


Image removed by sender.

 

 

eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd is a limited liability non-profit non-stock corporation incorporated in the State of Delaware, USA, with company number 5030732, and is registered in the UK with company number FC030576 and branch number BR015634 at the address 95 Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1AW.

 

Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]

 

Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]

 

 

This email has been scanned for spam and viruses by Proofpoint Essentials. Click here to report this email as spam.

 

 

Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]


Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]


Access the OPENCAFE-L Home Page and Archives

To unsubscribe from OPENCAFE-L send an email to: [log in to unmask]