Stephen Downes

The Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ-ACRS) has posted an opinion piece in University Affairs saying, essentially, that they are important and people should continue to pay for subscription-based journals. In particular, they criticize CBC coverage of the issue: "The CBC could have provided a more complete story if they had reached out to members of CALJ, who would have highlighted the cost-effectiveness of the Canadian journal publishing environment." But they're not cost-effective. Some of them, like the former NRC Research Press, should never have been charging subscriptions in the first place. And from where I sit, the CALJ editorial misrepresents the work that publishers do - it is the authors and reviewers to edit, typeset (yes, we must format them exactly right), fact-check, link-check, and the rest - everything, in fact, except 'build a brand' (and arguably, we do that too). Sorry - the CBC coverage is accurate. The CALJ editorial is rather less so.