PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY

Yearbook Revision Proposal

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PROPOSAL FOR REVISING PES YEARBOOK PRODUCTION (21st of January 2008)

Task force: Claudia Ruitenberg, Emily Robertson, Randy Curren, Michael Katz, Paul Smeyers (Chair)

This proposal is coming forth now because of three factors.

1. First, costs for staff support, paper, printing, and mailing are going up and will continue to do so as far as can be seen in the future (see budgets). Because Yearbook sales don’t come anywhere close to covering the costs of production, this means that PES as a society has been subsidizing the cost of producing this book, at a steadily increasing rate. Furthermore, library subscriptions for the print Yearbook have been declining over the past decade or so, and that is likely to be a long-term trend.
2. Second, the way the Yearbook has been produced has kept the costs to PES unrealistically low – not reporting full labor costs, cross-subsidizing Yearbook production with Ed Theory resources, and absorbing some cost increases internally without passing them on to PES. With closer campus auditing requirements, and a more strictly “business approach” this cannot be continued.
3. Third, the status of online publication has changed over the past decade. Online (refereed) journals are seen more and more as legitimate publications. More readers access articles online, and use online versions in their course syllabi. Online archives are much more easily searched by keyword for author or topic information (and of course, access is now limited to non-members, there is a wider audience that potentially may be interested).

The concerns of people, especially younger members, that Yearbook publications may be perceived as cheapened for tenure and other purposes if they go online entirely, is fully understood. But that value has to be balanced against the costs to the Society of continuing to subsidize its print production. It also needs to be considered whether policies for recognizing the value of online (refereed) publications in tenure and salary decisions will change, and are already changing, as academic traditions adjust to new publishing realities. (Incidentally, the Philosopher’s Index would continue to index the Yearbook if it were refereed, but online only.)

Three scenarios are presented

1. To continue publishing the Yearbook but with real-cost budgeting.
2. To do all the editing and formatting of pdf versions as is done now, up to the printing and mailing stage – in short, putting print-ready pdf’s online that will produce a “book-like” appearance when printed out. This is cheaper, but still fairly expensive – with no book revenues coming in to offset them.
3. To use the automated publishing capacity of OJS to produce an entirely online version of the Yearbook based on proofread versions of the final presented papers from PES into pdf’s with minimal editing.
   

FURTHER POSSIBILITIES THAT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED

• A. Whichever of the scenarios are chosen, Nick Burbules urges the Society to eliminate the “moving window” of a three-year lag before free versions of Yearbook papers go online. With OJS these can be published immediately after the pdf versions are completed. This proposal will entail a one-time fee (approx. $800) to convert the 2004 and 2005 papers for the Yearbook web site to bring it up to date. 2006, 2007, and future years can be published directly though OJS; that future cost is covered by the increased appointment of the Graduate Assistant.
• B. PES could decide to put all papers, special sessions, and panels online, not only those for the regular program (as a separate publication, not as part of the Yearbook).
• C. Another option is to raise the price to libraries of the print Yearbook, keep producing it, and using those additional revenues to try to offset the increased production costs of the book. The very low $35 price has not been increased for years – but it is not clear what effect a higher price would have on library renewal numbers.
• D. It would be possible to pursue a different publisher for the Yearbook entirely. A commercial publisher would, if they were willing to take this on, probably raise the price of the Yearbook significantly and try to turn it into a profitable venture. As more and more commercial publishers outsource work to low-wage countries like India, some production costs could be reduced (but also with a commensurate loss in the “hands-on” service and quality provided to PES).

A FINAL NOTE

It is possible that scenario 3 would negatively affect the status of the Yearbook publication. If that is true, than the likely choice is between scenario 1 and 2.

The question remains whether the financial differences alone are great enough to justify the change? Sasha Sidorkin comments on this that even though we should watch for the cost of the Yearbook, it is not by any means the biggest expense we have, and we can maintain the current spending level, providing they do not escalate, but increase modestly. Our finances are healthy, and we spend the bulk of our money on conferences.

Finally, if possibility A above is taken up, what is the argument in favor of scenario 2 (availability to non-members).

Outline of Yearbook Expenses for the 2004 -2007 Production Cycles

1. There does not appear to have been a significant increase in revenue from Yearbook sales between 2004 and 2006 (as the table seems to indicate). The revenue figure for 2004 is taken from the annual report for the 2005 PES conference and is a partial amount. The number of Yearbooks sold to libraries and individuals (non-PES members) appears to have held steady at approximately 180 between 2004 and 2006.

Scenario 1: Continue Current Approach

This scenario assumes the following:

1. The printing cost accounts for the print version of the book only, assumes a slight overrun by the printer, and assumes a count of approx. 452 pages (it has run between 400-500 pages during the past several years). Obviously, printing costs will increase over time. During the past few years, the rate has increased by roughly 3% annually.
2. The printing cost covers printing the book only. If ancillary projects (such as the CD-ROM prepared in 2007) are planned, those costs should be added to this base cost for the printed book.
3. This projection is based on shipping costs for the past 2 years. This cost will also increase somewhat annually.
4. For the past several years, the graduate assistant has been working on PES-related projects throughout the year, not only in the summer. This projection formally acknowledges that reality, assigning a 25%-time grad assistantship to PES-related matters year round. This change also covers the additional technical support needs associated with OJS, as well as the costs of putting the Yearbook online (which were previously billed separately on an hourly rate).
5. The freelance rate for typesetting and project management has stood at $20/hour since 1992. In this salary projection, we have increased the rate to $25/hr (still a modest rate by national standards). This number also reflects 120 hours for the project (rather than the 100 hours usually budgeted). We have been absorbing the extra time without billing it to PES.
6. For years, we did not factor in any amount for maintaining financial records for Yearbook sales or for distributing the book because that work was easily folded into distribution for the journal Educational Theory. It’s a different situation now, since the only inventory/distribution work that currently runs through this office is for the Yearbook. We have factored in a modest time allotment for the Business Manager to account for maintaining a record of payments received and for supervising and training the Graduate Assistant in preparing invoices and shipping books as needed.
7. This estimate is based on PES records of Yearbook sales annual revenue from 2006.

Scenario 2: Continue Current Approach to Production, But Stop Producing and Distributing a Print Edition (publish only online)

1. This change in approach requires that we perform most of the same tasks as in Scenario 1. We have reduced the ME time required, because some proofing and administrative tasks that are specific to the print process would be eliminated. Eliminating distribution also reduces costs relating to the Business Manager, but we have not been billing PES for that time anyway.

Scenario 3: Produce Online-only Edition of the Yearbook, Publishing Final Word Files via OJS

1. We would still need GA-support in the fall (for OJS tech support in preparation for Conference submissions and generally to support the Program Chair’s use of the system) and in the spring (again, for tech support to authors and Yearbook Editor, and for online publication of the final files). This approach assumes that all editing and formatting of the files for online publication will be completed by authors and the Yearbook Editor.
2. We have factored in 20 hours of ME time, to train the GA with OJS matters and to provide OJS and any other needed support to the Program Chair/Yearbook Editor.

CONTACT: PES Executive Director Jeff Milligan
850-644-8171; milligan@coe.fsu.edu