The OSA Publishing Enterprise:Some Facts, Figures, and Economics

Ted Bergstrom

Good News

• In 2008 OSA published 6 of the 12 top optics journals as measured either by citations or eigenfactor.

• Total subscriptions to OSA journals have increased since 2004.

• Net Revenue has increased by 21%, compared to CPI increase of 14% since 2004.

• Number of pages published more than doubled. – Growth comes from open access, Optics Express.

Pages in traditional journals unchanged.

More Good News

• Optics Express, the open access journal founded in 1997 has been a smashing success.

• In 2008, OE supplies 59% of OSA pages, 31% of OSA citations, and 25% of OSA profits.

Rankings of Optics JournalsRank by Imp Factor

Rank by Art Inf Factor

Rank by 5 yr Citations

Rank by Eigenfactor

Optics Express 3 5 4 2Optics Letters 4 6 2 3Applied Optics 18 20 3 5J. Ltwave Tech 8 9 8 6JOSA B 11 11 10 9JOSA A 16 14 9 12Applied Spec 15 19 13 19

Primer on Bibliometrics

• Impact factor vs Citation Counts– Impact factor of journal is average number of

citations per article in first 3 years.• Measure of average influence of articles• May be appropriate for guessing future importance of

an article without bothering to read it. Highly unreliable predictor of that.

– Citation count is number of times during given year that most recent 5 years’ volumes are cited.• A more reasonable measure of usefulness of a journal

to a library.

Eigenfactor and Article Influence

• Eigenfactor is a refinement of citation counts.– Citations from more frequently cited journals

count for more.– Calculated recursively, similar idea to Google

PageRank.• Fictitious researcher Markov process

Goes to library, picks a journal at random. Chooses a citation at random, goes to that journal, continues forever. Fraction of time he spends at a journal is that journal’s eigenfactor.

Article influence factor

• A journal’s A.I.F. is proportional to its eigenfactor divided by the number of articles published per year in this journal.

• A.I.F. is to eigenfactor as impact factor is to citation counts.

Relative Bang Per Cite(ratio of relative eigenfactor to relative citation count)

Eigenfactor/Cite

J. Lightwave Technology 1.26 Optics Express 1.11 JOSA A 1.03 JOSA B 1.03Applied Optics 0.94Optics Letters 0.94Average Elsevier Optics J. 0.86

Subscription Trends for 4 Main OSA Journals and InfoBase

Institutional Subscriptions 2004

Institutional Subscriptions 2009

Percent change

US and Canada 571 507 -11Western Europe 360 383 7E. Asia, Oceania 399 432 8Rest of World

93 395 326

Subscriptions, Revenue and Downloads

Share of Subscriptions

Share of Revenue

Share of Downloads

U.S. and Canada

0.29 0.38 0.57

Western Europe

0.23 0.27 0.17

East Asia, Oceania

0.25 0.29 0.21

Rest of World 0.22 0.07 0.05

Country by Country

Share of Subscription

Revenue

Share of Downloads

China 0.08 0.10Japan 0.12 0.04Germany 0.07 0.04U.K. 0.04 0.03France 0.05 0.03Taiwan 0.03 0.02India 0.02 0.01

Subs at U.S. Academic InstitutionsNumber of Institutions

Percent with at least 1 OSA Journal

Percent with 4 Main OSA Journals

Revenue from this Group

Doctoral I 151 97 81 $1,485,496

Doctoral II 108 60 26 $462,960

Masters I 493 17 5 $391,354

Masters II 111 4 2 $6,010

Bachelors I 223 24 8 $257,394

Bachelors II 319 5 4 X

Associates 1537 1 1 X

Value Comparison with ElsevierPrice/ Page

Price/ Cite

Price/ Eigenfactor

Applied Optics $0.50 $0.68 $55,672

JOSA A $0.58 $0.86 $63,963

JOSA B $0.85 $0.67 $49,762

Optics Letters $0.65 $0.18 $14,246

Elsevier $1.89 $2.12 $194,512

What about profits?• OSA subscription journals cost about 1/3 as

much per page as Elsevier’s optics-related journals.

• How do their profit rates compare?– OSA ‘s ratio of profits to sales is about 40%– Elsevier reports profits to sales ratio of 33%

• Rent Dissipation Theory – Much of monopoly “profit” gets spent on protecting

monopoly. Lobbyists, Lawyers, etc.– Some goes to overpaid executives– Some is hidden in less profitable parts of enterprise.

Do OSA journals outsell Elsevier in the “marginal” part of the market?

• We looked at a random sample of 17 Doctoral II universities.

• Elsevier optics journals averaged 12 subscriptions from this group.

• Optics Letters and Applied Optics averaged 10• Even though OL an AO cost less than 1/3 as much per

page or cite.• Elsevier sells huge multi-disciplinary bundles and price

discriminates on historic sales.• OSA probably could do better in this market with

targeted pricing.

A Tougher Standard

Price Per Page Price Per CiteApplied Optics $0.50 $0.68 JOSA A $0.58 $0.86 JOSA B $0.85 $0.67 Optics Letters $0.65 $0.18 APS Journals $0.22 $0.12AIP Journals $0.46 $0.21SPIE Journals $0.17 $0.50IOP Journals $0.71 $1.18

How much should OSA pubs subsidize other society activities?

• OSA made profit of almost $5 million on $11 million revenue—45%.

• Not for me to answer, but for you to consider– You might want to ask whether attendance at

conferences is more price elastic than subscriptions to pubs. Hence need subsidization.

– Or is it just a matter of getting money from university budgets that would otherwise go elsewhere.

Optics Express in 2008

• Author charges: – $1,585 for 7-15 pages – $925 for 1-6 pages

• About 2,300 articles published• Average revenue per paper $1,252• Average cost per paper: $570

Optics Express Costs/Article and Scale

Open Access Author Charges

Author Charge

Optics Express $1,252 (average)

New Journal of Physics (IOP) $1,200

APS (Open Access Option) $975

ACS (Open Access Option) $1,000

NAS(Open Access Option) $800

PLOS Journals $1,300, $2,250, $2,900

Biomed Central $1,700-$2,300

Elsevier, Springer (Open Access Option )

$3,000+

Hindawi Journals $250-$700

Growth of OSA offeringsPages in 2002 Pages in 2008

Top 4 Subscription J’s 15,488 15,250

Optics Express 1,626 22,128

Total 17,114 37,148

New in 2009 : Advances in Optics and Photonics

Building on Success: Three New Open Access Journals Planned: with “Express” branding

Production Costs of OSA Journals

Number of Articles

Cost per Article (excluding print costs)

Pages per Article

Applied Optics 1,027 $2,791 6.7

JOSA A 355 $3,685 8.9

JOSA B 334 $3,596 6.4

Optics Letters 1,006 $1,493 3.0

Optics Express 2,322 $574 9.5

OhioLink: A Natural Experiment

• How can we tell how much use current non-subscribers would make of InfoBase if they had it?

• Selection bias: We can only observe use by current subscribers, but these are the places that have most interest in optics (even controlling for size and Carnegie class).

• OhioLInk provides some evidence.

The data

• Almost every university and community college in Ohio participates in OhioLInk.

• Since 2005, all OhioLink members have had access to InfoBase.

• In 2002, there was no OhioLink contract with OSA.

• We have data on downloads from OSA journals by each OhioLink participant.

Downloads in 08-09 by OhioLink Institutions

Number of Institutions

Number with 4+ OSA subs in 2002

Number with 1-3 OSA subs in 2002

Number of Downloads in 2008-09

Doctoral I 6 6 6 32,058

Doctoral II 6 6 6 8,693

Masters 13 2 0 324

Bachelors 22 2 1 257

Community Colleges

12 0 0 238

Downloads from Ohio in 08-09

• 98% of downloads are from universities that subscribed to all 4 major OSA journals in 2002

• Total of 444 downloads from institutions that had no OSA subscriptions in 2002 (about 1%)

• 228 downloads from community colleges• Conclusion? – Not much extra usage from masters and bachelors

institutions– Some usage from community colleges– No evidence about Carnegie II

Pricing Strategies Issues to Consider

• Objectives– Maintain revenue– Increase Exposure

• Price Discrimination– Tiered Pricing– Consortial Deals– Pricing based on historical subscriptions

• Bundling• Rationalize Revenue Sharing• Rationalize and Simplify Print Pricing

Had Enough?

• OK, I’m Done