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A Cost-Profile of Journal-Publishing
Appendix 4: Association, with a Single 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-ASJeJ.html

Category Description

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

The organisational category addressed here is an Association that publishes a single journal, in an electronic version in XHTML and/or PDF format, primarily as a service to its members, and secondarily for subscribers and (probably on a deferred basis) the general public. The revenue model is based on allocation of a proportion of the membership-fee.

It is an eJournal, and there is no hard-copy edition. Alternatively, a hard-copy version could be offered as a spin-off from the eJournal production process. This could be cost-neutral, with an additional fee aimed at recovering the costs of a small print-run or print-on-demand, plus handling and postage.

The eJournal 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.

For the purposes of computing per-article costs, however, the eJournal is assumed to resemble a hard-copy journal converted to electronic form, and to comprise quarterly Issues, each with 7-8 articles, for a total of 30 articles p.a.

The following tables reflect Bot et al. (1998), and information acquired from editors of three eJournals.

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, with some support from Association executives, and with the Web-site run probably using gratis, open source tools
9	Acquisition of operational resources	Undertaken by senior academics, but probably with a budget for an Assistant to the Editor
10	Acquisition of intellectual property (logos, trademarks, copyrights, licences)	Undertaken by senior academics, with some support from Association executives
11	Preparation of formal components of the printed journal and web-site	Undertaken by senior academics, with some support from Association executives
12	Preparation of web-site	Supervised by senior academics, with some support from Association executives, and 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, supported by a paid assistant, and possibly also by junior academics or students. A 0.1 equivalent full-time (EFT) staff-member, say $10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
2	Conduct and management of the assessment process	Editor, Editorial Committee and Referees, generally gratis, but possibly with an honorarium for the Editor, and possibly allowances, free advertising or similar partial recompense

• Article-Related

1	Production-editing	Partly by the Editor or a member of the Editorial Committee, partly by junior academics or students, and partly for-fee by an outsourced service provider. A 0.1 equivalent full-time (EFT) staff-member, say $10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
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, partly by junior academics or students, and partly for-fee by an outsourced service provider, but included within the production-editing costs immediately above
3	Production	For the Web-site, by the Editor, partly supported by a junior academic or student
4	Protection	None
5	Distribution	Network costs, absorbed by the Association

• Generic

1	Marketing	Limited, undertaken primarily by senior academics, with some support by the Association
2	Customer relationship management	An Association responsibility and cost
3	Archive management	An Association responsibility and cost
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, in conjunction with Association executives

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	Undertaken by the Editor and Editorial Committee, in conjunction with Association executives
6	Subscription-list facilities	Undertaken by the Editor and Editorial Committee, in conjunction with Association executives
7	Distribution mechanisms	Undertaken by the Editor and Editorial Committee, in conjunction with Association executives

Financial Costs

1	Interest on investment capital	Very little
2	Interest on working capital	Very little

TOTAL COSTS

Establishment	Nil
Operations – Submission-Related	$10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
Operations – Article-Related	$10,000 p.a., equivalent to $2,500 per Issue or $330 per article
Operations – Issue-Related	Negligible
Operations – Generic	Negligible
Infrastructure Maintenance	Negligible
Financial	Negligible
TOTAL	$20,000 p.a., $5,000 per Issue or $660 per article

Business Model

The undertaking is funded from the membership fees paid by Members of the Association, perhaps to some extent offset by non-member subscriptions (particularly libraries and other institutions) and advertising. For an Association of 10,000 Members, the publishing costs of the journal are up to about $2 p.a. (of a fee of perhaps $300). For a small specialist group of 250 members, on the other hand, the costs would be closer to $90 p.a.

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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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