Case Study 7

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models

John W. Houghton

Abstract.

Financial pressures – reducing budgets and increasing prices – have been one of the key drivers in the search for alternative, open-access-based publishing models, particularly in the higher education sector. Houghton’s case study describes the ways in which he used lifecycle and costing techniques in a macro-economic modelling approach to test the extent to which new methods of publishing were more cost-beneficial to research and development activity than existing ones. He found that there was a significant return on investment especially through cost-savings over a transitional period of 20 years in all the countries studied, and for ...

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