Thanks to Ian Song from Simon Fraser University for providing this information about the OA APC charged by Hans Publishers’ Hans Journal of Neurotechnology (in Chinese). This is published separately as a good illustration of the variety of models within the article processing fee approach.

Ian Song:

I looked at the web site about the processing fee at http://www.hanspub.org/journal/Fee.aspx?JournalID=582
The processing fee is 1,900 Chinese Yuan (about 328 Canadian dollars) for 8 pages. If an article is more than 8 pages, 100 Chinese Yuan per page will be added to the extra pages. For good quality articles (reviewed by the committee) from low income authors, the charge can be reduced (does not mention how much). If the first author is a student, the student can get 20% off.

Comments

This is the first time I’ve seen discounts specified for quality articles and student discounts, although clearly quality is a factor for other publishers as many offer such options as language (generally English) editing for an additional fee. The per-page charge for long articles is one that is used by other publishers. When you think about it, this makes sense; if we’re paying for the service of publishing, it makes sense that the amount varies depending on how much work is needed.

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2014). OA APCs: Discounts for quality and students, page charges for length. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2014/07/09/oa-apcs-discounts-for-quality-and-students-page-charges-for-length/

Great idea from the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) for an institutional subsidy for publication of a scholar’s first book: http://www.arl.org/publications-resources/3280-aau-arl-prospectus-for-an-institutionally-funded-first-book-subvention

The rationale in brief is that the market model simply does not work for scholarly monographs. My research on this topic supports this rationale. In recent decades, while a few scholarly journal publishers have benefited from increasing revenues and profits, the average sales for scholarly monographs have plummeted. For details, see my dissertation, chapter 6: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/12537#310

My comment: why just the first book? For scholars in fields where monographs are the norm, why not set aside a reasonable amount (e.g. $10,000) for the first-copy cost to publish a monograph every four years or so?

Cite as: Morrison, H. (2014). Suggestion for institutional subsidy for first book. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2014/06/25/suggestion-for-institutional-subsidy-for-first-book/