context of scientific publishing
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The Context of Scientific
Society Publishing
Joseph J. Esposito
February 2015
![Page 2: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Processed Media is a
management consultancy working
in the areas of publishing,
software, and education. Clients
include both for-profit and not-for-
profit organizations.
![Page 3: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
What Is the Context?
1. Regulatory and compliance matters
2. The Marketplace
3. The Competition
4. Technology and Platforms
5. Organizational Issues
![Page 4: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Topics
1. Regulatory: How will the new open access mandates affect professional societies?
2. Marketplace: How will the maturation of the institutional market affect our program?
3. Competition: How do I navigate our organization through a publishing environment dominated by huge commercial concerns?
4. Technology: How should our program adapt to a rapidly evolving mobile computing ecosystem?
5. Governance: Is the management and governance structure of our society equipped to deal with pressing environmental issues?
![Page 5: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
#1, Regulatory: OA Mandates
• Mandates now imposed by universities, funding organizations, and by some government policies
• Growing amount of literature available—puts pressure on search and discovery
• Likelihood of multiple versions of same material online—making usage harder to assess
• In some fields, migration of papers, even some of the finest, toward Gold OA services
![Page 6: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
But why not simply create our own Gold OA service and migrate our
business from subscriptions to the author-pays model?
![Page 7: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
The Structural Problem with OA Economics
• Industry averages revenue of $5,000/article (2mm articles, $10b industry)
• Many Gold OA services charge far less (PLOS ONE is $1,350; new Elsevier service is $1,250)
• How to bridge the gap?
![Page 8: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
But There are Other Benefits
• Retains authors
• Potentially can be additive to subscription journals
• Can Gold OA fees be combined with membership dues, creating a path to a larger and more engaged membership?
• Creates direct business relationship with authors—potential new sales opportunities
![Page 9: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
#2, Marketplace: Mature Institutional Markets
• For most STEM fields institutions make up over half of revenue
• Library budgets are not growing at historical levels
• Some portion of library budgets being allocated to Gold OA APCs
• Rhetoric notwithstanding, libraries prefer to acquire large packages from major publishers
![Page 10: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Responding to Mature Markets
• Need to diversity revenue streams
• Downward pressure on cost structure
• Seeking growth in developing economies
• Gold OA and hybrid journals: additive market
• Developing new services that reach new audiences (individual researchers, administrators), which puts emphasis on new product development
![Page 11: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
#3, Competition: The Battle of the Behemoths
• The largest publishers have “won” the battle for the library budget (Elsevier, Wiley, Nature/Springer, Kluwer, Taylor & Francis, Sage)
• More dollars coming from large aggregations of content (the Big Deal) sold to large aggregations of libraries (consortia)
• Smaller publishers are being marginalized
![Page 12: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Prospects for Competitive Environment
• Likely to see more consolidations (like Nature and Springer)
• Short of acquisitions, more service agreements (i.e., small publisher creates arrangement with big publisher)
• Intensifying competition for library budgets
• The cycle thus repeats
![Page 13: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
The real issue for a society publisher today is how to get access to the
library budget, and increasingly the gateway to that income is controlled
by the largest commercial publishers.
![Page 14: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
A Society’s Typical Path
1. Go it alone—no partner, use own tech
2. Outsource tech, but remain independent
3. Join a consortium
4. Place journals under the umbrella of a university press
5. Place journals under the umbrella of a larger not-for-profit entity
6. Create an arrangement with a behemoth
![Page 15: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
#4, Technology: Mobile Platforms
• Mobile computing is not just a format but is a full ecosystem
• This ecosystem is just emerging for STEM
• Currently restricted to alerts and promotion
• Unprecedented issue: Gatekeeping by major tech companies (Apple and Google)
• No publisher has a dominant or even leading position here
![Page 16: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Addressing Mobile Platforms
• Creative use of mobile properties (ubiquity, location-based, availability of sensors, etc.)
• New information about user base (D2C)
• Gold OA may be harbinger or stepping stone to more D2C services
• Creation of customer/user database
• Must navigate privacy issues
• Will require investment
![Page 17: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
#5, Governance and Management
• Need to be responsive to environmental changes—and to anticipate them
• Efficient decision-making
• Open channel of communication between the Board and the publishing management
• The narrower missions of for-profit entities may provide an advantage to them (faster reaction time)
![Page 18: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
HighWire Illustration
• Large group of all HW publishers
• Presentation: How will OA affect your publishing program?
• Multiple requests for slide deck
• Need to inform society management of publishing issues
• Concern that societies were not attentive to business concerns
![Page 19: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
If governance is a problem, it is likely to become the defining
problem for the entire program.
![Page 20: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Practical Steps
1. Empower a special committee to oversee publishing operations; put outsiders on that board/committee
2. Hire “high”—that is, seek publishing managers who are strongly qualified to run operations
3. Exercise bias in favor of personnel with at least some commercial experience
![Page 21: Context of scientific publishing](https://reader030.vdocument.in/reader030/viewer/2022032421/55a739f01a28ab330e8b4668/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Practical Steps #2
4. Explore aggregating publishing operations with other societies
5. Explore Gold OA programs that tie publishing fees to society membership
6. Annual strategic planning review: place program into context of marketplace
7. To reiterate: Put special emphasis on diversifying revenue streams