The OSA Publishing Enterprise: Some Facts, Figures, and Economics Ted Bergstrom.
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Transcript of The OSA Publishing Enterprise: Some Facts, Figures, and Economics Ted Bergstrom.
Good News
• In 2008 OSA published 6 of the 12 top optics journals as measured either by citations or eigenfactor.
• Total subscriptions to OSA journals have increased since 2004.
• Net Revenue has increased by 21%, compared to CPI increase of 14% since 2004.
• Number of pages published more than doubled. – Growth comes from open access, Optics Express.
Pages in traditional journals unchanged.
More Good News
• Optics Express, the open access journal founded in 1997 has been a smashing success.
• In 2008, OE supplies 59% of OSA pages, 31% of OSA citations, and 25% of OSA profits.
Rankings of Optics JournalsRank by Imp Factor
Rank by Art Inf Factor
Rank by 5 yr Citations
Rank by Eigenfactor
Optics Express 3 5 4 2Optics Letters 4 6 2 3Applied Optics 18 20 3 5J. Ltwave Tech 8 9 8 6JOSA B 11 11 10 9JOSA A 16 14 9 12Applied Spec 15 19 13 19
Primer on Bibliometrics
• Impact factor vs Citation Counts– Impact factor of journal is average number of
citations per article in first 3 years.• Measure of average influence of articles• May be appropriate for guessing future importance of
an article without bothering to read it. Highly unreliable predictor of that.
– Citation count is number of times during given year that most recent 5 years’ volumes are cited.• A more reasonable measure of usefulness of a journal
to a library.
Eigenfactor and Article Influence
• Eigenfactor is a refinement of citation counts.– Citations from more frequently cited journals
count for more.– Calculated recursively, similar idea to Google
PageRank.• Fictitious researcher Markov process
Goes to library, picks a journal at random. Chooses a citation at random, goes to that journal, continues forever. Fraction of time he spends at a journal is that journal’s eigenfactor.
Article influence factor
• A journal’s A.I.F. is proportional to its eigenfactor divided by the number of articles published per year in this journal.
• A.I.F. is to eigenfactor as impact factor is to citation counts.
Relative Bang Per Cite(ratio of relative eigenfactor to relative citation count)
Eigenfactor/Cite
J. Lightwave Technology 1.26 Optics Express 1.11 JOSA A 1.03 JOSA B 1.03Applied Optics 0.94Optics Letters 0.94Average Elsevier Optics J. 0.86
Subscription Trends for 4 Main OSA Journals and InfoBase
Institutional Subscriptions 2004
Institutional Subscriptions 2009
Percent change
US and Canada 571 507 -11Western Europe 360 383 7E. Asia, Oceania 399 432 8Rest of World
93 395 326
Subscriptions, Revenue and Downloads
Share of Subscriptions
Share of Revenue
Share of Downloads
U.S. and Canada
0.29 0.38 0.57
Western Europe
0.23 0.27 0.17
East Asia, Oceania
0.25 0.29 0.21
Rest of World 0.22 0.07 0.05
Country by Country
Share of Subscription
Revenue
Share of Downloads
China 0.08 0.10Japan 0.12 0.04Germany 0.07 0.04U.K. 0.04 0.03France 0.05 0.03Taiwan 0.03 0.02India 0.02 0.01
Subs at U.S. Academic InstitutionsNumber of Institutions
Percent with at least 1 OSA Journal
Percent with 4 Main OSA Journals
Revenue from this Group
Doctoral I 151 97 81 $1,485,496
Doctoral II 108 60 26 $462,960
Masters I 493 17 5 $391,354
Masters II 111 4 2 $6,010
Bachelors I 223 24 8 $257,394
Bachelors II 319 5 4 X
Associates 1537 1 1 X
Value Comparison with ElsevierPrice/ Page
Price/ Cite
Price/ Eigenfactor
Applied Optics $0.50 $0.68 $55,672
JOSA A $0.58 $0.86 $63,963
JOSA B $0.85 $0.67 $49,762
Optics Letters $0.65 $0.18 $14,246
Elsevier $1.89 $2.12 $194,512
What about profits?• OSA subscription journals cost about 1/3 as
much per page as Elsevier’s optics-related journals.
• How do their profit rates compare?– OSA ‘s ratio of profits to sales is about 40%– Elsevier reports profits to sales ratio of 33%
• Rent Dissipation Theory – Much of monopoly “profit” gets spent on protecting
monopoly. Lobbyists, Lawyers, etc.– Some goes to overpaid executives– Some is hidden in less profitable parts of enterprise.
Do OSA journals outsell Elsevier in the “marginal” part of the market?
• We looked at a random sample of 17 Doctoral II universities.
• Elsevier optics journals averaged 12 subscriptions from this group.
• Optics Letters and Applied Optics averaged 10• Even though OL an AO cost less than 1/3 as much per
page or cite.• Elsevier sells huge multi-disciplinary bundles and price
discriminates on historic sales.• OSA probably could do better in this market with
targeted pricing.
A Tougher Standard
Price Per Page Price Per CiteApplied Optics $0.50 $0.68 JOSA A $0.58 $0.86 JOSA B $0.85 $0.67 Optics Letters $0.65 $0.18 APS Journals $0.22 $0.12AIP Journals $0.46 $0.21SPIE Journals $0.17 $0.50IOP Journals $0.71 $1.18
How much should OSA pubs subsidize other society activities?
• OSA made profit of almost $5 million on $11 million revenue—45%.
• Not for me to answer, but for you to consider– You might want to ask whether attendance at
conferences is more price elastic than subscriptions to pubs. Hence need subsidization.
– Or is it just a matter of getting money from university budgets that would otherwise go elsewhere.
Optics Express in 2008
• Author charges: – $1,585 for 7-15 pages – $925 for 1-6 pages
• About 2,300 articles published• Average revenue per paper $1,252• Average cost per paper: $570
Open Access Author Charges
Author Charge
Optics Express $1,252 (average)
New Journal of Physics (IOP) $1,200
APS (Open Access Option) $975
ACS (Open Access Option) $1,000
NAS(Open Access Option) $800
PLOS Journals $1,300, $2,250, $2,900
Biomed Central $1,700-$2,300
Elsevier, Springer (Open Access Option )
$3,000+
Hindawi Journals $250-$700
Growth of OSA offeringsPages in 2002 Pages in 2008
Top 4 Subscription J’s 15,488 15,250
Optics Express 1,626 22,128
Total 17,114 37,148
New in 2009 : Advances in Optics and Photonics
Building on Success: Three New Open Access Journals Planned: with “Express” branding
Production Costs of OSA Journals
Number of Articles
Cost per Article (excluding print costs)
Pages per Article
Applied Optics 1,027 $2,791 6.7
JOSA A 355 $3,685 8.9
JOSA B 334 $3,596 6.4
Optics Letters 1,006 $1,493 3.0
Optics Express 2,322 $574 9.5
OhioLink: A Natural Experiment
• How can we tell how much use current non-subscribers would make of InfoBase if they had it?
• Selection bias: We can only observe use by current subscribers, but these are the places that have most interest in optics (even controlling for size and Carnegie class).
• OhioLInk provides some evidence.
The data
• Almost every university and community college in Ohio participates in OhioLInk.
• Since 2005, all OhioLink members have had access to InfoBase.
• In 2002, there was no OhioLink contract with OSA.
• We have data on downloads from OSA journals by each OhioLink participant.
Downloads in 08-09 by OhioLink Institutions
Number of Institutions
Number with 4+ OSA subs in 2002
Number with 1-3 OSA subs in 2002
Number of Downloads in 2008-09
Doctoral I 6 6 6 32,058
Doctoral II 6 6 6 8,693
Masters 13 2 0 324
Bachelors 22 2 1 257
Community Colleges
12 0 0 238
Downloads from Ohio in 08-09
• 98% of downloads are from universities that subscribed to all 4 major OSA journals in 2002
• Total of 444 downloads from institutions that had no OSA subscriptions in 2002 (about 1%)
• 228 downloads from community colleges• Conclusion? – Not much extra usage from masters and bachelors
institutions– Some usage from community colleges– No evidence about Carnegie II
Pricing Strategies Issues to Consider
• Objectives– Maintain revenue– Increase Exposure
• Price Discrimination– Tiered Pricing– Consortial Deals– Pricing based on historical subscriptions
• Bundling• Rationalize Revenue Sharing• Rationalize and Simplify Print Pricing