The editor of a journal whose editorial board staged a mass walkout has said that he hopes that the decision encourages others to do the same.

After more than a year of crisis talks, the full editorial board of The Journal of?Informetrics, a quarterly, peer-reviewed title published by Elsevier, resigned on 12 January, citing immovable differences over the publisher¡¯s lack of progress towards open access.

The same team plans to launch a rival title under the name Quantitative Science Studies, which will be fully open access and published through MIT Press.

Speaking to?³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ?following the announcement, Ludo Waltman, professor of quantitative science studies at Leiden University and former editor-in-chief of Informetrics, explained that high article processing charges set by Elsevier, along with the publisher¡¯s refusal to make citations openly available within article reference lists, were at the heart of the disagreement.

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¡°After almost two years of discussion, we seemed to agree there was no alternative solution other than to end it ¨C the differences in opinion were too big and we were not prepared to compromise,¡± he said.

¡°There are lots of advantages to staying with a big company like Elsevier, and it¡¯s not easy starting a new journal, but equally I think lots of editors feel the same way [as us] on open access principles and we could see more stands being taken before long,¡± he said. ¡°There are certainly more editorial boards like ours starting to question [their publishers¡¯ policies]¡±.

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Initiatives such as Plan S ¨C the Science Europe initiative to bar researchers in receipt of public funding from publishing in closed-access journals ¨C would probably force bigger publishers to change their policies in time, ¡°but I hope our example will speed up the process¡±, Professor Waltman added.

The team is not the first to jump ship in this way. Three years ago, the editorial board of?Lingua, one of the best-known linguistics journals, resigned in protest over the company¡¯s pricing policies and refusal to convert the journal to full open access. The team set up?Glossa, a rival title, at Ubiquity Press.

The?Informetrics?board said that they conflicted with Elsevier over three main issues. Professor Waltman wanted to make all article citation data available, a suggestion that Elsevier declined on account that it could not ¡°make such a large corpus of data, to which it has added significant value, available for free¡±.

Second, the board said that they felt that Elsevier¡¯s article processing charges were too high ¨C about $1,800 (?1,400), according to Professor Waltman, for?Informetrics. In a public?, Elsevier responded that the fee had been ¡°set at an appropriate rate,¡± however.

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The third point of contention for board members came over a debate around ownership, which Elsevier said was ¡°not negotiable¡±.

¡°In many ways Elsevier have been supportive and they have made some progress towards open access, but at the same time¡­their decisions about commercial models are set too broadly,¡± Professor Waltman explained. ¡°There are some policies which fit other journals well but are less suitable for?Informetrics, which is relatively small¡±.

Professor Waltman will remain as acting editor for?Informetrics?until a new board is hired ¨C the process of which is currently underway, Elsevier confirmed, While the decision to quit had been ¡°necessary but still painful¡±, there was no animosity between the board and publisher, Professor Waltman said.

rachael.pells@timeshighereducation.com