Comments on: JoVE Leaves Open Access Behind http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/04/06/jove/ What's Hot & What's Cooking in Scholarly Publishing - from the Society for Scholarly Publishing Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:16:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Priyan Weerappuli http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/04/06/jove/#comment-4198 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:35:24 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=3561#comment-4198 It seems to me the difficulties associated with running projects like JoVE and PLoS is that all of the information that is gleaned from a given study is concentrated in one document – the final publication. This means that the (inflated?) costs of reviewing, editing, and publishing each work (i.e. development/maintenance of the online interface, salaries, etc.) must be recovered from fees attached to this single document.

An extremely inefficient model considering the relatively small size of the academic research readership.

We’ve developed a slightly altered model for academic research. Rather than conduct research behind closed doors; we’ve produced a microfinance platform that functions to encourage the general public to play a more active role in the research process by investing directly in the research projects that interest them. This frees researchers from having to invest (waste?) time completing lengthy grant applications; and allows them to devote their time and energy to the creative and innovative work they ultimately seek to do. In exchange, researchers maintain research logs that will (1) allow their investors to follow the progress made by a given researcher as it happens, as well as (2) serve as a written record for any researcher seeking to verify the results of the initial study.

The presence of such a document renders the expensive formal academic review process (and most of the other ‘overhead’ costs associated with formal publication) largely unnecessary as any experimental mistakes/oversights made by the researcher could be identified in real-time (as they occur) by any individual who followed the researcher’s regular research log entries.

For anybody curious to know more about this project, please visit our website. Any feedback regarding our project, the website, or additional resources that may further enhance their utility, will also be highly appreciated:

http://www.theopensourcescienceproject.com

http://www.thehumanbrainproject.com

]]> By: Philip Davis http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/04/06/jove/#comment-2794 Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:51:39 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=3561#comment-2794 I don’t think Pritsker is saying that academic institutions are unable (or unwilling) to pay $6000/article for production costs. He is saying that it is unreasonable for authors to bare the full costs alone, which is why JoVE has implemented an institutional subscription model.

This solution is similar to BioMed Central, whose revenue stream is a combination of author fees and institutional “memberships”. PLoS has a similar model, but in addition, receives hefty philanthropic support.

If there is a lesson here, it would be that high-quality publishing cannot rely on a single producer-pays revenue stream.

]]> By: Kaveh Bazargan http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/04/06/jove/#comment-2789 Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:12:35 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/?p=3561#comment-2789 I came across this journal at a talk by Moishe Pritsker at an STM seminar. I have since looked at the videos which have obviously been professionally made. But surely it was clear from the start that academic institutions would not be able to pay $6000.

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