Hi,
Having received a few emails off list on the subject of tiered pricing for
the University of Chicago Press journals from 2007 we've recently been
informed by our agent, that SLACK Inc. is also introducing tiered pricing
based on total institutional FTEs for its titles from 2008.
It will no longer be offering free online access via password from 2008,
instead there is a choice of print only or print/online with up charge. 2008
online access will require an electronic access subscription with pricing by
tier and authentication via IP address.
We already upgraded all our SLACK subscriptions to print/online with up
charge and access via IP for 2007 at an additional cost, now we find that we
will probably have to pay more as this up charge will be based on the
following tiers:
FTE:
1-250
251-3,000
3,001-10,000
10,001-20,000
20,001-50,000
There is nothing as far as I can see on the SLACK Inc. site at:
http://www.slackinc.com/default.asp about these changes or the costs of this
tiered pricing, so it isn't very transparent.
Once again I am concerned that institutional pricing based on the total
number of institutional FTEs is a very crude pricing mechanism for journals
whose audience is a sub-set of the total institutional FTEs. In the UK we
have JISC Band which I believe is much fairer as it is based on central
funding rather than student/staff numbers/FTEs - see
http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/jisc_banding.aspx.
It maybe that publishers need to think again about basing pricing on total
institutional FTEs?
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant,
Learning and Information Services
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lesley Crawshaw
Sent: 03 September 2007 15:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: How Fair Are Tiered Pricing Models Based on Total Institutional
FTEs? - University of Chicago Press's Enterprise-Wide Access Policy
Hi,
There is an increasing "drip drip drip" of publishers moving to more complex
pricing policies year on year, although there are a few who are making their
policies simpler e.g. American Meteorological Society.
When the University of Chicago Press moved its journals (with a few
exceptions) to a tiered pricing model based on FTEs in 2007 I am sure we
weren't the only institution that decided that we would move all the
affected subscriptions to the option of the Non-Enterprise wide licence-
limited concurrency of 1 and not move to the tiered pricing model.
Partly, this was because we didn't have time to look into the full impact of
the additional cost of having to move to a Tier 4 institution (having to
deal with all the other changes affecting our subscriptions for 2007), but
also because it seems profoundly unfair for the pricing for these journals
to be based on the total number of users (primarily undergraduates) across
all disciplines irrespective of the numbers of FTEs that are likely to want
to access any particular title. Why should specialised titles with a very
limited audience have to have their pricing based on the total number of
FTEs within an institution? This approach may be just about acceptable with
titles with a broader audience like Nature, but I am very uneasy about the
same approach being carried out with specialist primary research journals.
Having just worked out the cost of moving all our University of Chicago
Press subscriptions for 2008 from an online only Non-Enterprise wide licence
- limited concurrency of 1 to a Tier 4 online only Enterprise wide license
we would need to find an additional $1852 i.e. a 66% increase in price!
Whilst from a practical point of view (for us and our users) I would prefer
to move these subscriptions to the Enterprise wide license with no
restrictions on usage, but how can I possibly justify such a large price
increase on what we currently pay?
When I checked the usage (excluding the astronomy titles as this new pricing
doesn't apply to them) the highest number of successful full text downloads
for a title in 2006 was 110. For all the other titles the usage was under 25
per title.
Now some people might argue that with such low usage taking out the online
only Non-Enterprise wide licence- limited concurrency of 1 for all our
subscriptions was the sensible route for us and the usage statistics back up
that decision. My concern is that any concurrency restriction is a major
hindrance to trying to promote journals to our community. This concurrency
of one seems to be a particularly restrictive option. How do such policies
fulfil this publisher's mission to "always improve the unrestricted flow of
knowledge through information access to as many people as possible"?
To add insult to injury the new perpetual access is only available to
Institutional Enterprise Wide License subscribers at no additional charge,
whereas those of us with the Non-Enterprise wide licence- limited
concurrency of 1 would have to pay an annual maintenance fee to retain
access to content published during the subscription pricing period.
There were some murmurings of discontent on liblicense about this particular
publishers pricing policy at the beginning of the year, but I wondered what
members of this list thought about this change in policy as it enters its
2nd year.
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant,
Learning and Information Services
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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