Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics

Editorial

Transaction Costs and Scholarly Publishing

The Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics (JACMP) is here because of a revolution in publishing technology.  That publishing revolution has greatly lowered some of the costs of publishing scholarly articles. However, this is not true of all costs across the board, as some do not change. For example, it costs as much for copy-editing, layout production and quality assurance services for the JACMP as for any print journal. Still, take a look as some of the costs associated with a print and electronic journal:

  • A library will typically pay $1.00 per print article per year to obtain, own and archive that article
  • A library will typically pay far less than $0.10 per article per year to provide access to all the open source scholarly articles on the internet
  • A scholar will typically pay $0.50 per print article per year to have a journal subscription containing the articles of interest
  • A scholar will typically pay less than $0.05 to access and print an open source article from the internet.

    These are examples of "transaction costs", the cost of exchanging or transferring information from one point to another.  The internet only / open source model lowers transaction costs across the board for stakeholders by factors of between 5 and 20. The total cost to publish an article online in the JACMP is approximately $300 per article.  Presently, that cost is borne by our advertisers, and that is how we provide the JACMP to a worldwide audience, to anyone with web access.

    Our advertisers also experience the benefit of lowered transaction costs. Generally, it costs less to buy a pair of eyes to look at a vendor web site in the electronic media than in the print media. I sincerely hope you will support our vendors and use the vendor links in the JACMP. We track the number of click-throughs in order to justify to our vendors the cost of a banner ad. If you just make it a habit to visit vendor web sites using JACMP banner ads, it helps us keep the journal available to you without cost.

    Let me express my very best wishes and thanks to Walter Huda and John Horton for their dedicated support as Associate Editors over the past several years.  Both are leaving the JACMP, and we appreciate all the volunteer work they have done.

    Michael D. Mills, PhD


    Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics

    Editorial Board 2005

    Editor-in-Chief Michael D. Mills
    Deputy Editor-in-Chief Timothy D. Solberg
    Associate Editor-at-Large Richard Stark

    Associate Editors

    Radiation Oncology Physics Nzhde Agazaryan, B. Gino Fallone,
    John Gibbons, Michael Herman,
    Edwin McCullough, Janelle Molloy,
    Matthew Podgorsak, Nikos Papanikolaou,
    Mehrdad Sarfaraz, Lu Wang
    Medical Imaging Walter Huda, William Pavlicek
    Radiation Measurements Larry DeWerd
    Radiation Protection & Regulations James Deye
    Nonionizing Topics Bhudatt Paliwal
    Other Topics Timothy Solberg
    Book/Media Reviews James Smathers
    Editorials John Horton

    Journal Production Team

    Proofreader Heather Shand
    Copy Editor Betty R. Robinson
    Layout Editor Laura Shand
    Manuscript Manager Patricia Walker


    © 2005 Am. Coll. Med. Phys.