Dear Per — and all,

Per shared the correspondence with me on the publishing firm he mentioned. I understand his decision not to name the firm, though I actually see no reason not to do so. This appears to be a respectable firm in scholarly terms and some of their journals are apparently indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge. The debate involves their business model, and I see no reason to be shy about taking the debate.

The firm do not seem to be a predatory publisher. Rather, they have an interesting business model that plays on the differential between Western publishing fees and the cost of labor in the scientifically advanced but economically developing nation in which the firm is based. This works together with the free scholarly labor Per identified. I don't like their model in one sense, and it bothers me as it bothers Per, but I can't argue with it on scientific or economic grounds when I compare this with other models — many of which deserve debate. While the firm publishes over 500 journals, they are not a crank firm that suddenly announces 500 journals on the launch date, or even expands their stable of problematic journals by suddenly breaking each journal into five journals or seven to open more space. Rather, the firm that invited Per to join the board of one journal has grown to 500 journals over a decade and a half of work.

The problem as I see it is a difference between the economics and publishing customs of different fields. Publishing fees for open access ("gold open access") are standard in the natural sciences and medicine, and much grant funding specifically allows for publication support. In contrast, there is little grant funding in design, and what little there is does not allow for publication support.

While I understand why Per chose not to publish the name of the firm. I'd see no objection to doing so. Per identified a reasonable publisher, but he has the right to take exception to their business model. Frankly, there is an argument to be made even against the highly respectable publishers that produce some of our best journals. Even without publishing fees, scientific and scholarly publishing is an industry that generates around $10,000,000,000 — ten BILLION dollars — in annual revenue to the publishers (See: Van Noorden 2013 for data. The figure was $9.4 billion in 2011, and it has gone upward since.)

But the ten billion dollars in revenue to the publishers of scientific and scholarly journals represents less that half the cost of the work reported in those journals. Funding agencies, foundations, government research agencies, research centres of other kinds, industry partners, other funding sources, and universities pay all the research funding costs. Scholars and scientists write all the content. Universities or other research organisations pay their salaries. However, many scholars and scientists more writing at night and on weekends than they do during salaried office hours, so the global community of scholars and scientists also funds the articles that publishers sell in the form of unpaid labour. Scholars and scientists also do all the editorial work for respected journals and they manage and conduct the peer review process.

As a result, most journals demonstrate the economic imbalance that Per identifies. While predatory publishers with poor quality journals make fee-based open access a problem, there is an argument to be made that serious open access publishing is less costly and more effective in some respects than standard journal publishing, even allowing for the publication fees.

This is a debate we have yet to develop in the design field. Fortunately, we have several serious open access journals and several fledgling open access ventures which aspire to excellence. Not all the fledgling journals do as well as the best journals, but we can hope that they improve.

The International Journal of Design (IJD) is a leading journal by any measure — indexed in all three Web of Knowledge indices, SCI, SSCI, and AHCI. Both Formakademisk and Artifact are serious venues, well worth considering. Some of the others have problems, but as standards rise in the field, I hope they will improve. (See Gemser et al. 2013 for a list of top design journals. Only one among these is open access, but that one — IJD — ranks very high.)

None of the open access journals in the design field charge fees. I concur with Per on choosing the no-fees open access model that until now has typified open access journals in the design field.

Warm wishes,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>    Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China

References

Gemser, Gerda, Cees de Bont, Paul Hekkert, and Ken Friedman. 2012. “Quality Perceptions of Design Journals: The Design Scholars’ Perspective.” Design Studies (2012), pp. 4-23. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2011.09.001

Van Noorden, Richard. 2013. "Open access: The True Cost of Science Publishing." Nature 495, 426–429 (28 March 2013) doi:10.1038/495426a Accessible from URL:
http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676




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