Scholarly Electronic Journal Publishing

ABSTRACT Pricing is a critical aspect of economic and business models of scholarly electronic journals. This study, in accordance with conventional wisdom, has divided publishers into two broad groups-those in the for-profit sector (hereafter called commercial publishers) and those in the nonprofit sector (hereafter called nonprofit/university publishers)-and examines the differences between the two groups in terms of journal price. It focuses on ten publishers, five in each group, and 4,415 electronic journals published by them. The Average Subscription Price (ASP) and the Average Subscription Price per Issue (ASPPI) of the various publishers and disciplines in 2003 were calculated. A comparison of the two publisher groups revealed that the number of journals published by the commercial publishers was higher than the journals published by the nonprofit/university publishers. Blackwell was found to be the least expensive (US $455) among the five commercial publishers and Cambridge University Press had the lowest ASP (US $279) among the five nonprofit/university publishers. MCB University Press was the most expensive publisher. Ranked ASP and ASPPI showed that, with the exclusion of MCB University Press, there was a remarkable difference between the commercial and nonprofit/university publishers studied. The Average Subscription Price of journals from the commercial publishers was 2.8 times higher than the ASP of journals from the nonprofit/university publishers, and the Average Subscription Price per Issue of commercial-owned journals was 1.8 times higher. These results confirm the findings of earlier studies in this regard. Physics and chemistry titles were the most costly disciplines in comparison with the other subject categories surveyed.

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