diff --git a/finances/templates/finances/business_model.html b/finances/templates/finances/business_model.html
index 42a51474bc634b4a8abdcac5f0bdd81462cc77a9..074f9731db2f1f4625895b48f6535edc374ca784 100644
--- a/finances/templates/finances/business_model.html
+++ b/finances/templates/finances/business_model.html
@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@
<div class="m-2">
<p>
SciPost strives to reform the business of academic publishing
- by providing a top-quality infrastructure while:
+ by providing a top-quality infrastructure covering all aspects
+ of the publishing process while:
<ul>
<li>being entirely not-for-profit</li>
<li>not charging any subscription fees to its readers</li>
@@ -26,21 +27,29 @@
</ul>
</p>
<p>
- If this seems unrealistic to you, <strong>please read on!</strong>
+ The real drivers of the publishing business are the academics who write,
+ review and edit manuscripts.
+ We view publishing merely as a service making the workflow possible,
+ and empowering scientists to perform these duties in the most efficient
+ way possible.
+ </p>
+ <p>SciPost's mission is to provide such a service, make it entirely not-for-profit,
+ put its control in the hands of the academic community, and keep it
+ completely free of non-academic competing interests.
</p>
<p>
- This page will provide you with a quick run-down of how SciPost
- ensures the long-term sustainability of its operations.
+ If this seems impossibly idealistic to you, <strong>please read on!</strong>
+ We hope that you will find our no-nonsense approach refreshing and convincing.
</p>
-
- <p>Quick links:
+ <p><strong>Quick links</strong>:
<ul>
<li><a href="#bullets">Bullet Points Summary</a></li>
<li><a href="#details">The Details</a>
<ul>
+ <li><a href="#finances">The Finances Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="#organizations">The Organizations Pages</a></li>
<li><a href="#pubFractions">The PubFractions System</a></li>
- <li><a href="#medals">Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum Sponsors</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#sponsorshipLevels">Sponsorship Levels</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#why">Why do we push for this Business Model?</a></li>
@@ -53,13 +62,16 @@
<div class="m-2">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-lg-4">
- <p>Our business model, summarized in one phrase:</p>
- <p>
- we don't charge authors, we don't charge readers,
- we don't send bills to anybody for our services,
- and we certainly don't make any profit;
- we survive on donations from Organizations which benefit from
- our activities.
+ <p>Our business model can be summarized in one phrase:</p>
+ <p class="m-2">
+ <em>
+ We don't charge authors, we don't charge readers,
+ we don't send bills to anybody for our services,
+ and we certainly don't make any profit;
+ we are an academic community service surviving
+ on donations coming primarily from Organizations which benefit from
+ our activities.
+ </em>
</p>
<p>
The bullet points here give you the outline; you'll find
@@ -72,22 +84,22 @@
<strong>Linking Publications and Organizations</strong><br>
As part of our production workflow,
Organizations (author affiliations, funding agencies, ...)
- listed in our database are linked to each publication being readied.
+ listed in our database are linked to each publication.
This data is publicly displayed on our
- <a href="{% url 'organizations:organizations' %}" target="_blank">Organizations pages</a>.
+ <a href="{% url 'organizations:organizations' %}" target="_blank">Organizations pages</a> in the form of each Organization's NAP (Number of Associated Publications).
</li>
<li>
<strong>Determining PubFractions</strong><br>
After publication, authors are asked to specify PubFractions for their paper
- (a publication's set of PubFractions answers the question "which Organizations shared
- the support for the research leading to this publication?";
+ (a publication's set of PubFractions answers the question "what was each supporting Organization's share of the support for the research leading to this publication?";
see the <a href="#pubFractions">PubFractions system description</a> below).
</li>
<li>
<strong>Determination of operational costs</strong><br>
On a yearly basis, SciPost determines and makes publicly known:
<ul>
- <li>its total expenditures (on the <a href="{% url 'finances:finances' %}">finances page</a>)</li>
+ <li>its total expenditures (with a detailed breakdown, see our yearly reports
+ on the <a href="{% url 'finances:finances' %}">finances page</a>)</li>
<li>an average cost per publication (estimate for 2019: €400 per paper)</li>
<li>the free-riding fraction (proportion of our activities which are
benefitting Organizations which for one reason or another are
@@ -100,8 +112,9 @@
PubFractions, together with the free-riding fraction)
and hereby determine to which level
they choose to support SciPost (through a sponsorship agreement).
- Sponsors can fall into <a href="#medals">Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum</a>
- categories depending on their level of support.
+ Sponsors can fall into different
+ <a href="#sponsorshipLevels">recognition levels</a>
+ depending on their level of support.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
@@ -110,25 +123,55 @@
<h2 class="highlight" id="details">The Details</h2>
- <h3 class="highlight" id="organizations">The Organizations Pages</h3>
+ <h3 class="highlight" id="finances">The Finances pages</h3>
<div class="m-2">
<div class="row">
- <div class="col-lg-5">
+ <div class="col-lg-6"
<p>
- At SciPost, we curate a database of Organizations which benefit from our
- publishing activities in one form or another (think for example of
- academic institutions which are mentioned in author affiliations,
- and funding agencies listed in funding acknowledgements).
+ The first thing to mention is that we make all our financial data
+ openly available. This includes all revenues and expenditures for
+ all our activities. By going to our <a href="{% url 'finances:finances' %}">Finances page</a> you will find further links to our list of sponsors, the explicit list of
+ <a href="{% url 'finances:subsidies' %}">Subsidies</a> we have obtained,
+ and all our annual financial reports.
</p>
<p>
+ We strongly believe that such open accounting is
+ necessary for establishing trust and facilitating verifiability.
+ We see this as minimal standard practice for any Open Access
+ publishing infrastructure.
+ </p>
+ </div>
+ <div class="col-lg-6">
+ <img style="width: 90%;" class="m-2" src="{% static 'scipost/images/Finances_Page.png' %}">
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <h3 class="highlight" id="organizations">The Organizations Pages</h3>
+ <div class="m-2">
+ <p>
+ At SciPost, we curate a database of Organizations which benefit from our
+ publishing activities (think for example of
+ academic institutions which are mentioned in author affiliations
+ and funding agencies listed in funding acknowledgements).
+ </p>
+ <div class="row">
+ <div class="col-lg-6">
+ <p class="m-2">
The data we collect is presented on our
- <a href="{% url 'organizations:organizations' %}>">Organizations</a> pages,
+ <a href="{% url 'organizations:organizations' %}>">Organizations</a> page,
where you will find digested information including
the NAPs (Number of Associated Publications) pertaining to any given
instance.
</p>
+ <img style="width: 90%;" class="m-2" src="{% static 'scipost/images/Organizations.png' %}">
</div>
- <div class="col-lg-7">
+ <div class="col-lg-6">
+ <p class="m-2">
+ Each Organization also has a detail page, where further information
+ can be found (<em>e.g.</em> associated publications, authors,
+ support history).
+ </p>
<img style="width: 90%;" class="m-2" src="{% static 'scipost/images/Organization_detail_FWF.png' %}">
</div>
</div>
@@ -137,43 +180,97 @@
<h3 class="highlight" id="pubFractions">The PubFractions System</h3>
<div class="m-2">
<div class="row">
- <div class="col-lg-5">
+ <div class="col-lg-6">
+ <p>
+ The NAPs do not offer a very fine-grained resolution of each paper's
+ level of support obtained from particular Organizations. A paper is
+ typically associated to many Organizations (multiple authors with their
+ individual affiliations; multiple granting agencies etc), so NAPs for
+ a given paper can sum up to an abritrarily high value.
+ </p>
<p>
- Right after publication, authors receive an email notification with details
- about their brand new paper. In this email, we also ask authors to
- provide us with information about which Organizations actually supported the research.
- This is done by splitting an imaginary unit of support among author affiliations,
- funding agencies etc. (see image).
+ In order to resolve things more finely, we run an internal system
+ based on the idea of <strong>PubFractions</strong>, in which
+ each paper has one unit of support recognition to be distributed among
+ the Organizations having supported the research detailed in that paper.
+ This is not meant to be <em>extremely</em> accurate, but should still
+ somehow honestly reflect the support circumstances. Authors of a paper might
+ thus specify that Organizations A and B each have a $0.4$ pubfraction,
+ while C has $0.2$. This splitting can be made among an arbitrary number
+ of Organizations, as specified by the authors. The only requirement is that
+ any given paper's pubfractions sum up to $1$.
</p>
<p>
- These <strong>PubFractions</strong> are then compiled and linked to the relevant
- Organizations. This data is displayed on our <a href="{% url 'organizations:organizations' %}">Organizations pages</a>.
+ This information is prefilled by our editorial administration
+ at the moment of publication based on a reasonable guess,
+ which the authors are then asked to correct/complement/confirm
+ (see image).
+ These pubfractions are then automatically compiled and linked to the relevant
+ Organizations. This data is displayed on our Organization detail pages.
</p>
</div>
- <div class="col-lg-7">
+ <div class="col-lg-6">
<img style="width: 90%;" class="m-2" src="{% static 'scipost/images/PubFractionsExample.png' %}">
</div>
</div>
</div>
- <h3 class="highlight" id="medals">Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum Sponsors</h3>
+ <h3 class="highlight" id="sponsorshipLevels">Sponsorship Levels</h3>
<div class="m-2">
- <ul>
- <li>
- <strong>Bronze</strong>: sponsorship level $\gt 0$;
- </li>
- <li>
- <strong>Silver</strong>: sponsorship level $\geq$ (own PubFractions)
- $\times$ average cost per publication;
- </li>
- <li>
- <strong>Gold</strong>: sponsorship level $\geq$ (own PubFractions) $\times$
- average cost per publication $/$ (1 - free riding fraction);
- </li>
- <li>
- <strong>Platinum</strong>: sponsorship level $\gt 2 \times$ Gold.
- </li>
- </ul>
+ <p>
+ It is very important to understand that although we compile data on which Organizations
+ benefit from our activities, <strong>we do not bill these Organizations
+ for the services we provide</strong>. Our philosophy is to pool all the support we
+ receive, and use these resources to provide services for the community at large.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This opens up some frequently-asked questions:
+ <ul>
+ <li>why would any Organization donate anything?</li>
+ <li>isn't this simply letting "free-riding" Organizations get substantial value
+ on the back of those that <em>do</em> contribute?</li>
+ </ul>
+ The reason why we trust that Organizations will support us is quite simple:
+ each paper we publish which is linked to them, represents a direct economy of publishing
+ costs which would have otherwise been incurred had the authors published elsewhere.
+ Libraries can thus independently establish what the approximate impact of our
+ activities is on their own budget. We trust that simple algebra will then
+ prove our case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the question of <strong>free-riding</strong>, there will of course always
+ be Organizations which are better than others at taking responsibility for themselves,
+ and for the broader community.
+ Though we do not ban free-riding, it does make our model more challenging to
+ sustain. However, since our integrated costs are dramatically lower
+ than those of other publishers,
+ our infrastructure remains cheaper for our sponsors
+ to fund <strong>even if</strong> some level of
+ free-riding is present. And besides, since we make all data public, who
+ deserves credit for supporting us will be
+ clear and transparent for everybody to see.
+ </p>
+ {% if perms.scipost.can_attend_VGMs %}
+ <div class="container border border-danger">
+ <span class="text-danger">(ADMIN VIEW ONLY)</span>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <strong>Bronze</strong>: sponsorship level $\gt 0$;
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <strong>Silver</strong>: sponsorship level $\geq$ (own PubFractions)
+ $\times$ average cost per publication;
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <strong>Gold</strong>: sponsorship level $\geq$ (own PubFractions) $\times$
+ average cost per publication $/$ (1 - free-riding fraction);
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <strong>Platinum</strong>: sponsorship level $\gt 2 \times$ Gold.
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </div>
+ {% endif %}
</div>
<h2 class="highlight" id="why">Why do we push for this business model?</h2>
@@ -184,14 +281,15 @@
model which an academic publishing infrastructure can adopt.
</p>
<p>
- A subscriptions-based model is not even worth discussing because it is
- so far away from our core <a href="{% url 'scipost:about' %}#guiding_principles">guiding principles</a>.
+ A subscriptions-based model is out of the question because it is
+ incompatible with our
+ core <a href="{% url 'scipost:about' %}#guiding_principles">guiding principles</a>.
</p>
<p>
- We are <strong>resolutely against</strong> the author pays model, often
- implemented as Article Processing Charges (APCs). Why?
+ We are also against the author pays model, often
+ implemented through Article Processing Charges (APCs). Why?
+ Besides being arguably quite insulting to scientists,
<ul>
- <li>ask any researcher what they honestly think of an "author pays" model</li>
<li>APCs entangle editorial and financial issues, thereby leading
to various degrees of <a href="https://jscaux.org/blog/post/2017/09/18/noble-metals-noble-cause/">"lead pollution"</a>
in publishers' operations</li>
@@ -199,30 +297,27 @@
<li>for a multi-author paper, who should pay? Most publishers make it
administratively difficult to share costs among researchers</li>
<li>the handling of APCs for each individual publication is a substantial
- time- and resources-wasting accounting exercise</li>
+ time- and resources-wasting accounting exercise.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
- Our greatest source of inspiration is the <a href="https://arxiv.org">arXiv</a>,
- which has been providing an irreplaceable service to the community over the
- last three decades. This service, which is a complete solution for preprints
- in some fields of science, charges no fees to submitters or downloaders,
+ Our consortial funding model with pubfractions-based recognition
+ solves all these problems in one go. Our pooling of
+ resources and maximally simple accounting drastically simplifies administration
+ for everybody involved. Our transparency means that recognition is given where
+ it is due.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Similar consortial models already exist, and served us as source of inspiration.
+ The <a href="https://arxiv.org">arXiv</a> preprint server
+ charges no fees to submitters or downloaders,
and is instead financed by a consortium of academic institutions.
- Our model was similarly inspired by the consortial model of the Open Library of the
- Humanities.
+ On the publishing side, the <a href="https://openlibhums.org">Open Library of Humanities</a> is also funded through a consortial model.
</p>
</div>
<h3 class="highlight">Closing words</h3>
<div class="m-2">
- <p>
- The real drivers of the publishing business are the academics who write,
- review and edit manuscripts.
- We view publishing merely as a service making the workflow possible,
- and empowering scientists to perform these duties in the most efficient
- way possible. SciPost's mission is to provide such a service, and put
- its control in the hands of the academic community, without competing interests.
- </p>
<p>
As far as our operations are concerned, we run them in the most efficient way possible,
with complete transparency, for the benefit not only of scientists worldwide,
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