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A Cost-Profile of Journal-Publishing
Appendix 2: Unincorporated Mutual, Gratis eJournal

Version of 24 March 2006

This document is an Appendix to 'A Cost-Profile of Journal-Publishing'

© Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 2005-06

This document is at http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/JP-CP-UMeJ.html

Category Description

This Appendix presents an indicative cost-profile for a particular kind of journal-publisher.

The organisational category addressed here is an Unincorporated Mutual (or an Association that publishes a journal as a service), which has little or no revenue, and relies on cost absorption, donation and sponsorship.

It is an eJournal, and there is no hard-copy edition.

It may be published periodically (probably monthly or quarterly), or spasmodically. But an eJournal does not have to be constrained to the concept of an 'Issue', and publishing may be continual, as articles come out of the production process.

An eJournal similarly does not have to be limited by page-counts or article-counts. It might publish 20-100 articles p.a.

Costs

Establishment Costs

1	Conception and articulation of the journal's name, scope, philosophy and modus operandi	Undertaken by senior academics
2	Preliminary negotiations within the intellectual community	Undertaken by senior academics
3	Preliminary negotiations with potential providers of operational resources	Undertaken by senior academics
4	Preliminary negotiations with potential providers of infrastructure	Undertaken by senior academics
5	Acquisition of investment and working capital	Undertaken by senior academics
6	Appointment of Board, Editor and Editorial Committee(s)	Undertaken by senior academics
7	Accumulation of Referees List	Undertaken by senior academics
8	Acquisition of infrastructure	Undertaken by senior academics, probably with the Web-site run using gratis, open source tools, and probably with the Web-site costs absorbed by a sponsor
9	Acquisition of operational resources	Undertaken by senior academics
10	Acquisition of intellectual property (logos, trademarks, copyrights, licences)	Undertaken by senior academics
11	Preparation of formal components of the printed journal and web-site	Undertaken by senior academics, supported by outsourced service provider
12	Preparation of web-site	Undertaken by junior academics or students
13	Announcement to the community	Undertaken by senior academics
14	Issue of initial calls for papers	Undertaken by senior academics

Operations Costs

• Submission-Related

1	Receipt, acknowledgement and management	Editor, Editorial Committee and Referees, possibly supported by junior academics or students
2	Conduct and management of the assessment process	Editor, Editorial Committee and Referees, generally gratis, but possibly with allowances, free advertising or similar partial recompense

• Article-Related

1	Production-editing	Partly by the Editor or a member of the Editorial Committee, and partly by junior academics or students
2	Cataloguing	Partly by the Editor or a member of the Editorial Committee, and partly by junior academics or students

• Issue-Related

1	Editorial	Effort by the Editor
2	Production-editing	Partly by the Editor or a member of the Editorial Committee, and partly by junior academics or students
3	Production	Supervised by the Editor, supported by a junior academic or student
4	Protection	None
5	Distribution	Downloaded by HTTP or FTP

• Generic

1	Marketing	Very limited, undertaken primarily by senior academics
2	Customer relationship management	Very limited, undertaken primarily by senior academics
3	Archive management	Mirrored, by senior academics and perhaps by libraries
4	Indexing	Dependent on commercial search-engines such as Google, or using an on-site search-engine, probably open-source and gratis
5	Governance	Undertaken by the Editor and Editorial Committee

Infrastructure-Maintenance Costs

1	Editor and Editorial Committee(s)	Undertaken by senior academics
2	A pool of referees	Undertaken by senior academics
3	Communications channels	Arranged by senior academics, supported by junior academics or students
4	Norms for communications and formatting	Undertaken by senior academics
5	Production facilities	Included in the fees charged by the outsourced service provider
6	Subscription-list facilities	None
7	Distribution mechanisms	Dependent on Internet infrastructure

Financial Costs

1	Interest on investment capital	None
2	Interest on working capital	None

TOTAL COSTS

Establishment	Nil
Operations – Submission-Related	Nil
Operations – Article-Related	Nil
Operations – Issue-Related	Nil
Operations – Generic	Nil
Infrastructure Maintenance	Nil
Financial	Nil
TOTAL	Nil

Business Model

This is a communitarian undertaking, or from an economist's terms a 'gift economy'. The statements above are subject to qualifications, in that various costs are absorbed by the participants' host institutions, or the low costs are covered by donations and sponsorships, perhaps in cash but in many cases in kind, e.g. use of equipment, software licences and office-space.

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Created: 31 March 2005 - Last Amended: 24 March 2006 by Roger Clarke - Site Last Verified: 15 February 2009
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