Dear Ken,

thank you for your long reply, impressive that you have the time to write these extensive posts.

Here just a short reply for clarity.

I am NOT arguing that we should shut down commercial journals, not at all.

BUT, if you run a commercial journal and earn quite a decent amount of money with it, then you should simply PAY the people you engage to do the work that results in the products and services that you sell.
Imagine the bakery around the corner would tell you, you had to come in for an hour each week to help them bake the bread, before you are allowed to buy a loaf of bread from them.
After a few times you’ve done that for fun, you would question why you do the work AND pay for the bread, does not make a lot of sense, does it?
So why do we do the exact same thing with commercial scientific journals?

My suggestion is rather that if we have to work for them for free anyway then we could simply also create our own free access, open source, crowd sourced and crowd funded journals rather then supporting this pretty unethical mainstream commercial publishing business.

As you and quite a few others do.

With the opportunities internet, social media etc. offers today, we have all the tools at hand.

E.g. my team and I run the open innovation for sustainability platform www.innonatives.com <http://www.innonatives.com/> that does a similar thing for open innovation and design activities. Non commercial organizations and people can use it totally for free.

E.g. I know many  journalists who are organized in open source reporting groups such as
https://krautreporter.de <https://krautreporter.de/>
https://perspective-daily.de <https://perspective-daily.de/>
These have crowd based „democratic“ financing models and offer normally much better content than the flawed mainstream media, which fails to do any serious investigative journalism anymore.

So why not look into similar models for scientific journals?

Best…..

Ursula Tischner

econcept, Agency for Sustainable Design
Albatrosweg 11
50259 Pulheim
Tel.: +49-151-22650776
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> Am 04.12.2017 um 12:52 schrieb Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
> Dear Ursula and Gunnar,
> 
> Ursula Tischner asked an important question at the end of her reply to Gunnar Swanson. (The exchange between Ursula and Gunnar copied below.) This requires a reasonable yet pragmatic answer. 
> 
> It interests me that Don Norman’s post on digital libraries has attracted such a significant series of replies. I am interested in the question of libraries as well, and in the suggestions that Don’s query brought in. The question of digital libraries overlaps the question of journals in interesting ways. At some point, I want to reflect on the libraries thread. Here, I want to respond to Ursula’s proposal that we no longer work with the journals of for-profit publishing firms and that we deny them access to this list.
> 
> This proposal is more likely to harm our field than to serve it. 
> 
> As the editor of a not-for-profit open access journal with no publishing fees, my argument is based principle. I have no personal or financial stake in for-profit publishing firms.
> 
> Nevertheless, the success of such journals as Design and Culture, Design Studies, and others matters a great deal to me as a researcher. We need them to maintain and improve the quality of our field. They are vital to our research ecology. To work against some of our best journals simply because the publishers are profitable — and because some are unreasonably profitable — is short-sighted. It is likely to damage the field.        
> 
> It is true that journal publishers make a lot of money. This has been a major debate within universities for the past two or three decades. It is particularly intense because the research mission of the university requires libraries to subscribe to journals. Publishing firms can therefore exploit a unique position and the archives of digital journals that permit them to force university libraries to invest massive and ongoing expenditures.
> 
> In the past, libraries paid once for paper journals that were then held and stored in physical form. Today, many libraries have given away or even recycled their paper journal collections because all journal subscriptions include digital access. But this transformation has also tied university library to the digital subscription packages that allow publishers to set the terms of payment. 
> 
> In essence, for-profit journal publishers are now a rentier class able to capitalize on decades or even centuries of sunk costs. The rents on these sunk costs have now become massive profits. 
> 
> The broad complaint is that universities pay for journals three times. First, university salaries pay for the research expenses, research time, and writing time that goes into writing the articles. Then, university salaries pay editors and reviewers to do the work of a journal. This is supplemented by the personal free time that many journal editors and reviewers invest outside working hours as a contribution to the field. Finally, universities pay for the subscriptions that allow them to buy back the finished articles for their library systems.
> 
> It should be noted that these funds are primarily taxpayer funds or endowments. Students at private universities do not fund journal subscriptions through tuition fees. Even the most expensive private research universities support research costs and libraries from sources other than tuition. 
> 
> For example, the total budget of Stanford University is just under $6 billion. Only 15% of this total comes from student tuition. 18% of the Stanford budget comes from funded research, 20% from the endowment, 10% from funding to the SLAC National Linear Accelerator Laboratory, and so on. At Harvard, 2017 budget revenue is $5 billion. Student income is only 21% of the total. The rest comes from sources such as sponsored support and funded research at 18%, endowment income 36%, gifts for current use 9%, and so on. Many sources of funding pay for the journal subscriptions at research universities. Tuition mostly pays for teaching, and academic teaching salaries at nearly all universities cost more than student tuition fees bring in.
> 
> The real question is whether university libraries will support the research mission of the university or not.
> 
> I’m not justifying the profits of the publishing firms. Most of us are aware of the problem. 
> 
> The amount of money in for-profit scientific publishing is massive. The global revenues of scientific and scholarly publishing are more than £19 billion. That is $26 billion or €21 billion. More than this, the profit margin is 36%, roughly £7 billion pounds, $9.3 billion, or €7.5 billion. And most of this profit goes to an oligopoly of five firms that account for more than half of all scientific publishing: Reed-Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and Sage.
> 
> A recent article in The Guardian examines the problem in depth:
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science
> 
> Some nations are finding ways to counteract this problem on an organized basis. For example, the Dutch universities worked together to push hard against Elsevier, securing the beginning of important changes in the system:
> 
> https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/dutch-universities-and-elsevier-reach-deal-over-open-access
> 
> Not-for-profit companies do not profit from the situation. For example, this includes The MIT Press, publisher of Design Issues; University of California Press, publisher of Representations and publisher of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians; and University of Chicago Press, publisher of Critical Inquiry and Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics. Other not-for-profit journal publishers include The Royal Society, publisher of the world’s oldest scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions. Other scientific and learned societies also publish journals. These include the American Physical Society and the American Psychological Association, each with a long list of journals. While they make no profit, their publishing model is the same.
> 
> Some not-for-profit journals use for-profit publishing platforms. For example, She Ji uses the Elsevier platform to distribute freely accessible open access articles with no author fees. She Ji is funded and published by Tongji University and Tongji University Press. 
> 
> Much of the argumentation on this is quite confused. Shortly after the launch of She Ji, I got a letter from a subordinate editor at a journal then published by Bloomsbury and now published by Taylor & Francis, which acquired all the Bloomsbury journals. He criticized She Ji because we use the Elsevier platform, claiming to support the boycott against Elsevier. I thought it odd because we are a fully not-for-profit journal, while he served two for-profit Bloomsbury journals, now published by Taylor & Francis. This is a company that controls roughly the same percentage of social science and humanities journals as Elsevier does. Nevertheless, he still works for the two journals. 
> 
> As I see it, once you place these kinds of complaints in context, only the not-for-profit journals from not-for-profit publishers come out looking squeaky clean. Those of us who work with not-for-profit journals would be foolish to argue that not-for-profit journals are morally superior to journals published by for-profit publishers. You might as well argue that we are somehow better human beings because we are lucky enough to work at universities that are willing to fund top quality free journals. (Lest there be any doubt, this was an ironic proposition.)
> 
> The reality is that most of us believe that the for-profit journals deserve our support and respect. Even though there may be problems with the companies that publish the journals, the journals are worthy ventures that serve the field.
> 
> The entire business is a problem, and the not-for-profit side is as tricky as the for-profit side. You would be surprised to know just how much it costs to develop, launch, and maintain a journal. You are right to suggest that we should solve the problems associated with journal publishing. Solving them is not easy. 
> 
> Those of us who do this work are generally not paid for the work we do. Even when we are paid through salaried faculty positions, there is little return on our personal sunk costs. I first worked in professional publishing in 1971 as manager of a small trade publisher, Something Else Press. For nearly half a century, I have been involved in different forms of trade publishing, scientific publishing, and academic publishing. This includes working with books, magazines, and newsletters, as well as learned and scientific journals. While some of my work has been salaried work, or consulting work, much of the experience I have accumulated has been service to the field. I got my first full-time academic post at the age of 44 at the Norwegian School of Management. My academic salary has never had a direct relationship to the investment of time and money for in experience as an editor and publisher. Even so, I am happy with the life I chose. 
> 
> Finance and commercial publishing were not for me. Even so, I sometimes daydream about the financiers that Michael Lewis described in The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Imagine burning through several hundred million dollars of other people’s money and walk away with a twenty million dollar bonus when you get fired. These guys make publishers look like angels. 
> 
> But once we start complaining and comparing, it is worth noting that successful designers generally make far more than most academics. 
> 
> In a world filled with such incomparable issues, it is hard to argue that we should dismiss the entire for-profit research publishing system before we can replace it by another kind of publishing system of equal quality. 
> 
> It would be a mistake to kill the journals of for-profit publishers or deny them access to a list such as this simply because the publishers of those journals make money. The research publishing system has far too many contradictions and flaws to permit easy answers.   
> 
> Samuel Johnson once wrote: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” By definition, nearly everyone involved in scientific and scholarly publishing is a blockhead. I count myself in this group.
> 
> The problem is that nearly no one who condemns the current process of academic publishing in learned journals has found a way to publish research at the same level of quality. Open access alone is not the answer. There is a difference between well funded, high quality journals that distribute open access, and the vast majority of mediocre or poor quality open access journals that cannot afford effective editorial work and journal management. 
> 
> The massive cost and time required to publish a serious not-for-profit open access journal makes high quality open access journals without publishing fees especially impressive. We have four in the design field: the well known International Journal of Design from Taiwan, the more recent and highly promising Form Akademisk from Norway, Visible Language from the University of Cincinnati College of College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and She Ji. There are also high quality not-for-profit open access journals in design that charge publishing fees. Design Science from Cambridge University Press is one. 
> 
> It will take real work to find an appropriate solution to the problems inherent in journal publishing. In the meantime, those of us who value research publishing recognize that we must live with — and work within — a problematic system. 
> 
> Those of us who engage in research and publish our findings are obliged to work within the existing journal structure until there is a better system. Many of us question the system. We nevertheless respect and welcome the contributions of the journals from the for-profit publishers. 
> 
> It is impossible to imagine the field of design research without decades of work from such journals as Design Studies. No matter what you think of Elsevier, Design Studies and its editor-in-chief Nigel Cross have made a major contribution to our field, and Peter Lloyd will build on this as the new editor-in-chief. 
> 
> The same is true of Design and Culture. Whether or not Taylor & Francis makes a profit, Elizabeth Guffey and the Design Studies Forum have served us all. 
> 
> The not-for-profit  journals cost *someone* money. Richard Buchanan’s universities have long funded many of the editorial management costs of Design Issues. The University of Cincinnati College of College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning — where Mike Zender works — funds all costs for the not-for-profit Visible Language. DAAP makes the journal accessible as an open access journal following a one-year subscriber-only access period. Tongji University carries all the costs for She Ji.
> 
> Until we find a better way forward for the field, I prefer to treat all serious journals on an equal basis. We need all our best journals. The fact that some publishers profit and others don’t is less relevant than the question of publication quality.      
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ken   
> 
> Ken Friedman | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
> 
> Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 
> 
> —
> 
> Ursula Tischner wrote:
> 
> —snip—
> 
> I understand and respect what you wrote, but sorry, it literally means;
> 
> that Taylor & Francis which is a business and part of the informa group which is a self declared leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events business, operating in the Knowledge and Information Economy listed on the London Stock Exchange and a member of the FTSE 100.
> 
> Is using Universities to pay for part of the work they have to do or subcontract to generate their „products and services, i.e. journals“, with which they earn money.
> 
> In Germany and Austria most Universities are financed by the state that means by the tax payers. So as a result the tax payers pay for the work that is done by University employees to enable T&F and many other publishers to earn their money. In other countries Universities are financed by the university students, in these countries the students pay for the same.
> 
> Correct?
> 
> I still find that highly unethical and I still think that there is a need to rethink and redesign this whole procedure and process.
> 
> —snip—
> 
> Gunnar Swanson wrote:
> 
> —snip—
> 
> I’m not sure that anyone here disagrees with you. Don mapped out some basic problems and possible paths and Ken pointed out that some of the easy and obvious solutions are unlikely to work out as neatly as they sound like they should.  
> 
> Ken also pointed out that, in addition to the labor of the authors and reviewers, there is considerable work involved in putting out a journal. I didn’t read that as an endorsement of the current state of things in academic publishing. 
> 
> It’s clear that many (most?) journals cost too much and that it is a perverse outcome that universities (which, in your case, mine, and many more means taxpayers) are paying for them twice. > 
> 
> —snip—
> 
> and Ursula Tischner wrote:
> 
> —snip—
> 
> so why then not just stop playing their game?
> And stop publishing these ads here?
> 
> —snip—
> 
> --
> 
> 
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