Comparing Published Scientific Journal Articles to Their Pre-print Versions by Martin Klein, Peter Broadwell, Sharon E. Farb, Todd Grappone.
Abstract:
Academic publishers claim that they add value to scholarly communications by coordinating reviews and contributing and enhancing text during publication. These contributions come at a considerable cost: U.S. academic libraries paid $1.7 billion for serial subscriptions in 2008 alone. Library budgets, in contrast, are flat and not able to keep pace with serial price inflation. We have investigated the publishers’ value proposition by conducting a comparative study of pre-print papers and their final published counterparts. This comparison had two working assumptions: 1) if the publishers’ argument is valid, the text of a pre-print paper should vary measurably from its corresponding final published version, and 2) by applying standard similarity measures, we should be able to detect and quantify such differences. Our analysis revealed that the text contents of the scientific papers generally changed very little from their pre-print to final published versions. These findings contribute empirical indicators to discussions of the added value of commercial publishers and therefore should influence libraries’ economic decisions regarding access to scholarly publications.
The authors have performed a very detailed analysis of pre-prints, 90% – 95% of which are published as open pre-prints first, to conclude there is no appreciable difference between the pre-prints and the final published versions.
I take “…no appreciable difference…” to mean academic publishers and the peer review process, despite claims to the contrary, contribute little or no value to academic publications.
How’s that for a bargaining chip in negotiating subscription prices?