Browsing by Subject "Scholarly Societies"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Publishing: Will Radiation Research Survive?
    (Radiation Research Society, 2013-10) Odell, Jere D.; Whipple, Elizabeth C.
    As a society published journal, Radiation Research has been a successful and enduring project of the Radiation Research Society (RRS). In 59 years of publication, the journal has produced 732 issues and 10,712 articles. As a nonprofit organization, RRS, like most societies, has used revenues from subscriptions to support, in part, the life of the organization (meetings, conferences and grants to new scholars). The model for scientific publishing, however, continues to evolve. Radiation Research has weathered the rise of electronic publishing, consolidation in the commercial publishing industry, the aggregation of library subscriptions and library subscription cuts. Recent years have seen dramatic changes in how scholarly publishing is financed and new funder and institution policies will accelerate these changes. The growth of open access to journal articles reflects the information habits of readers and facilitates the dissemination of new knowledge. The Radiation Research Society, however, will need to account for and adapt to changes in the publishing market if it intends to support the communication of peer reviewed scholarship in the future.
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    Conservation Biology as an Example of the Dilemmas Facing Scholarly Society Publishing
    (2018-12) Lewis, David W.
    This paper looks and the journal Conservation Biology published by the Society of Conservation Biology. It considers the dilemmas that the society must confront as it confronts Plan S and the potential requirement that the journal change its economic model from hybrid to fully open access. The dilemmas are: 1. ethical; 2. concerning the value the society offers its members, and 3. financial.
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    How Scholarly Societies Solved Their Collective Action Problem
    (2019-05) Lewis, David W.
    Like all organizations, scholarly societies, face a collective action problem. As defined by Mancur Olson, the collective action problem is that individuals are not general prepared to fund initiatives that further their collective interest. This paper explores the collective action problem faced by scholarly societies and how they solved it by generating significant surpluses from their publishing programs. It is argued that this solution will not survive the shift to open access publishing models, especially in light of Plan S.
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    Scholarly Societies and the Newspaper Problem
    (2018-11) Lewis, David W.
    This paper looks at the current economic model of large scholarly societies. This model relies on significant surpluses from publishing operations to fund other activities of the societies. It is argued that this economic model lacks transparency as colleges and universities supply a subsidy to the societies by overpaying for journals and indexes and that they are generally not aware that this is happening. If is further argued that as was the case with newspapers a decade ago, scholarly societies will need to reinvent their economic model. The driving force is likely to be the coming pressure to adopt an Open Access model. Plan S is the current manifestation of this pressure.