ACM council elections 2014

The SIGPLAN EC has written to the candidates for the up-and-coming ACM council elections.

This page contains a copy of the letter sent, and the response from the candidates.

Dear [Candidate],

I write to you on behalf of the executive committee of ACM SIGPLAN. We are sending the questions to all candidates for ACM office, and will post the questions and all answers we receive on our website:

http://www.sigplan.org/.

We request you answer by WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2014, to give voters a chance to view your answers before voting.

We have reached a critical stage in publishing and we wish to ensure that the ACM develops a new policy to retain its quality position. Given the changes that are in the offing we believe that the elected ACM Officers should set the direction. We therefore ask you to answer the following questions:

  1. The cost of the ACM Digital Library in FY 2012 was $11.9M, while the cost of ArXiv was $0.9M. ArXiv supports fewer features than the DL, but many ACM members still find this cost difference baffling, especially when the DL's search facilities are so poor. Do you think ACM members' money is being well-spent on the Digital Library? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

  2. ACM offers full open access, but at a price of $1300 per paper for ACM members, which for many is prohibitively high. By comparison, Cambridge University Press plans to offer open access for a new journal at the rate of $750 per paper, with a waiver for those who declare an inability to pay. Do you believe that ACM's prices for open access have been set at an appropriate level? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

  3. The Author-izer service was introduced as a way of encouraging ACM members to link to the official versions of their papers in the DL. However, many ACM members have complained that the service is difficult or annoying to use (e.g., it makes whoever clicks on an Author-izer link wait 10 seconds to download the paper, requires that each link is obtained through a separate web transaction, and allows only a single link per author). Do you feel the current Author-izer service is adequate? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

  4. Do you have any other comments about ACM's plans for Open Access and the Digital Library?

Yours sincerely,

Philip Wadler Past Chair, ACM SIGPLAN

(Here is the response)

Dear Philip and the SIGPLAN Executive Committee,

We received the four questions from Philip Wadler and the SIGPLAN EC (indented, in italics, below). Thank you for your interest! We believe the general topic is an important one for ACM, although it is clear that some aspects are not well understood. We have obtained some specific figures to formulate a group response to help address your concerns. We are told the figures we cite were presented to the SIG leadership (among others), in depth, at the SGB meeting on March 14, 2013 in Chicago. The Publications Board of ACM reports to the ACM Council. We expect the Pubs Board to continue to take input from the membership, evaluate services and costs, investigate new possibilities, and make recommendations to the Council. The Council will continue to consider these recommendations, and as best as they can, make decisions that support ACM’s goals and principles of operation in a global environment.

1. The cost of the ACM Digital Library in FY 2012 was $11.9M, while the cost of ArXiv was $0.9M. ArXiv supports fewer features than the DL, but many ACM members still find this cost difference baffling, especially when the DL's search facilities are so poor. Do you think ACM members' money is being well-spent on the Digital Library? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

The cost you cite for operation of the ACM Digital Library is not correct. The figure $11.9M is not "the cost of the ACM Digital Library in FY 2012” — it is roughly the cost of the entire ACM publishing program! This includes publishing 72 journals, magazines and newsletters, and over 500 conference proceedings annually. That total cost in 2013 was approximately $11.4M. The cost of the Digital Library for functionality roughly similar to ArXiv in 2013 was only $1.045M. This is quite comparable to the $0.9M you quote for ArXiV, especially considering the more comprehensive feature set of the Digital Library.

ACM's Digital Library (DL) is a large repository and is the unique source for a great deal of important material, including historical material not found online anywhere else. ACM has made arrangements for the DL contents to be maintained over time, even in the face of unlikely and catastrophic circumstances such as major natural disasters or bankruptcy of ACM. ACM also pays for edge caching so that DL contents are quickly available all over the world at low latency. In addition, ACM has introduced iPhone and Android apps that facilitate use of the DL on mobile devices, and at conferences -- thus further reducing the need for paper and even flash drives. The DL mobile apps also facilitate potential future enhancements such as easier reader commenting and reviews of papers in the DL. All of these things require investment cost, and are worthwhile for ACM and the community.

Given the purpose of the DL, the curation, the reach, and utility of the DL, the slightly more than $1 million per year being spent on it does seem to be serving ACM member interests at a reasonable cost. Nonetheless, we will encourage the ACM staff and members of the Pubs Board to continue to investigate ways to make the DL services more efficient and less costly.

2. ACM offers full open access, but at a price of $1300 per paper for ACM members, which for many is prohibitively high. By comparison, Cambridge University Press plans to offer open access for a new journal at the rate of $750 per paper, with a waiver for those who declare an inability to pay. Do you believe that ACM's prices for open access have been set at an appropriate level? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

The $1300 fee you cite is for journal submissions with one ACM author. ACM conference papers with at least one ACM author have slightly lower fees, at $1100. ACM fees for Open Access seem reasonable when compared with other professional publications (these comparisons are for journal publication, Gold Access): IEEE: $1,750 ; American Chemical Society: $3,000; American Physiological Society: $2,000; Nature publishing: $3,000 - $3,900; Elsevier: $3,000 - $5,000; Springer: $3,000; PLOS: $2,000. Note also that Cambridge University Press tends to offer lower rates for a few years as introductory rates, then raises the rates for Gold Access (what we used in the comparison above); their usual rate seems to be $2700 and not $750. Thus, it appears that ACM offers the lowest regular Gold Access rate among all these publishers.

ACM should continually examine the Digital Library and make sure that underlying costs and services are appropriate for the membership. As noted in our answer to #1, the staff and Pubs Board are continually seeking ways to reduce costs. One specific issue that deserves further study and potential action is the difference between journal and conference pricing. Journals are more expensive because of the copy-editing that goes into them: formatting, redrawing figures, fixing author grammar and clarity, etc. Many options are available here, e.g. elimination of copy editing, making authors pay for their own copy editors, some form of reduced copy editing, etc. However, an issue of equity also arises. It is more common for authors whose native language is not English to submit papers needing heavy copy-editing -- as would happen for many English-speaking authors if a language other than English were used for ACM journals. It seems of some value for ACM to subsidize diverse, international participation. However, we welcome feedback from SIGPLAN and others about how the community values these things.

3. The Author-izer service was introduced as a way of encouraging ACM members to link to the official versions of their papers in the DL. However, many ACM members have complained that the service is difficult or annoying to use (e.g., it makes whoever clicks on an Author-izer link wait 10 seconds to download the paper, requires that each link is obtained through a separate web transaction, and allows only a single link per author). Do you feel the current Author-izer service is adequate? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

In principle, Author-izer should address many, but not all concerns about paper accessibility and availability. In practice, we have heard many complaints about Author-izer -- those enumerated above and others. Some of these appear to be caused by a lack of understanding of how Author-izer functions and can be configured. For instance, Author-izer is not limited to ACM members, but to all authors in the ACM DL. The 10-second splash screen is intended to appropriately credit the authors, but the screen also contains a direct link that bypasses the delay. Each author can customize her or his links to download several (or all) publications. There are several options available to customize the Author-izer interaction.

The staff and Pubs Board are open to suggestions and feedback, and to answer questions about the operation of the Author-zier service. All of us, if elected, will be willing to listen to questions or issues that are not resolved by reading the documentation or consulting the staff. Suggestions for improvements will also be welcome.

4. Do you have any other comments about ACM's plans for Open Access and the Digital Library?

ACM is a global organization, with a wide variety of members and operations. The publications of ACM, and the Digital Library, are important components of ACM’s support of its members, but not the only such component. There are on-going efforts within ACM to consider the ramifications of Open Access, the nature of the Digital Library, and their relationship to all aspects of the association. We expect to continue to support those efforts, and participate in them, so as to ensure the best value and service to all members of ACM around the world, especially as this field continues to evolve.

Reply agreed to by (in alphabetic order of last name):

Erik R. Altman
Victor Bahl
Vicki L. Hanson
Cherri M. Pancake
Ron Perrott
Eugene H. Spafford
Per O. Stenström
Alexander L. Wolf
David A. Wood