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SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING
To be held on Friday, 5 February 2015, at 3.30pm
in the Paget Room, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JP
AGENDA
At its meeting in October 2015, Council was asked to take a decision on the future of the Journal of
Computation and Mathematics (JCM). After much consideration of the matter, Council agreed to close
the JCM, while also requesting that Publications Committee consider the development of a new and
better journal in the field of the interface between computation and mathematics that would more
effectively utilise the Society’s resources. Subsequent to this decision a group of 30 members signed a
letter requesting a Special General Meeting, the object of which would be ‘the reversal of the LMS
Council's decision to close down The LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics’.
The business of the Special General Meeting shall be to consider the following motion:
- Instruct the Council to continue publication of the LMS Journal of Computation and
Mathematics as a charitable activity, thus reversing the Council’s decision to close
down the Journal.
The following papers are included for consideration by Members:
Paper A
Paper B
Letter to the LMS Council requisitioning the Special General Meeting
Response to the letter by the (then) President, Professor Terry Lyons
Paper C Papers by those who requisitioned the Special General Meeting
Paper D A paper by the LMS Publications Secretary
Fiona Nixon
Executive Secretary
Notes:
1. Statute 23: Twenty-one days' notice shall be sent to every Member of every General Meeting and of the
business for which it is summoned but no business shall be conducted at a General Meeting except that for
which notice has been given.
3. The Statutes allow all Ordinary Members, Associate Members and Representatives of Institutional Members,
including Members under Reciprocity Agreements with overseas mathematical societies, to vote at each
Special General Meeting in person or by a proxy, except if at the time of the Meeting they owe any moneys to
the Society which have been due for more than one year. The member or proxy must be present at the
Meeting to cast the vote or proxy vote.
1
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Paper A
1
From: Tony Gardiner [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 10 November 2015 19:15 To: Council <[email protected]>; Fiona Nixon <[email protected]> Cc: Professor Bryan Birch FRS <[email protected]>; Alexandre Borovik <[email protected]>; Professor Ronald Brown <[email protected]>; Professor Peter Cameron <[email protected]>; Professor David Epstein FRS <[email protected]>; Professor Victor Flynn <[email protected]>; Dr Tony Gardiner <[email protected]>; Dr Andrew Glass <[email protected]>; Professor Timothy Gowers FRS <[email protected]>; Professor Derek Holt <[email protected]>; Professor Jon Keating <[email protected]>; Professor Andrey Lazarev <[email protected]>; Professor Josef Lauri <[email protected]>; Professor Charles Leedham-Green <[email protected]>; Professor Angus Macintyre FRS <[email protected]>; Dr Kay Magaard <[email protected]>; Dr Christopher Mulvey <[email protected]>; Professor Graham Niblo <[email protected]>; Professor Jeffrey Paris <[email protected]>; Beatrice Pelloni <[email protected]>; Professor Norbert Peyerimhoff <[email protected]>; Dr Colva Roney-Dougal <[email protected]>; Professor Peter Rowley <[email protected]>; Professor Tony Scholl <[email protected]>; Professor Sergey Shpectorov <[email protected]>; Professor Leonard Soicher <[email protected]>; Dr Alina Vdovina <[email protected]>; Dr Theodore Voronov <[email protected]>; Professor John Wilson <[email protected]>; Professor Robert Wilson <[email protected]> Subject: Letter
LETTER TO THE COUNCIL OF THE LMS
--------------------------------
In accordance with Statute 19 of the LMS Charter and Statutes, we, members of the LMS, make a requisition to
convene a Special General
Meeting of the Society; the object of the meeting shall be the reversal
of the LMS Council's decision to close down The LMS Journal of
Computation and Mathematics.
The Council's decision to close the Journal seems to conflict with the
public benefit statement of the Trustees' Annual Report. Moreover,
closing The LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics may be at odds
with the charitable aims of the LMS as spelled out in its Charter.
Indeed, Article 3 of the Charter says:
"The objects for which the Society is incorporated shall be: [...]
(vi) To *make grants of money* or donations in aid of mathematical
investigations or *the publication of mathematical works* [our emphasis]
or other matters or things for the purpose of promoting invention and
research in mathematical science, or its applications, or in subjects
connected therewith; [...]"
We trust that our requisition will be treated in line with Statute 19 of
the LMS Charter and Statutes:
"19. The Council shall within twenty-eight days of the receipt of a
requisition in writing of not less than twenty Members of the Society
stating the objects for which the meeting is desired convene a General
Meeting of the Society. If upon a requisition the Council fails to
convene a Special General Meeting within twenty-eight days of a receipt
of the requisition then a Special General Meeting to be held within
three months of the expiration of the said period of twenty-eight days
may be convened by the President or the requisitionists."
SGM 05/02/2016
Paper A
2
10 November 2015
Professor Bryan Birch FRS <[email protected]>
Professor Alexandre Borovik <[email protected]>
Professor Ronald Brown <[email protected]>
Professor Peter Cameron <[email protected]>
Professor David Epstein FRS <[email protected]>
Professor Victor Flynn <[email protected]>
Dr Tony Gardiner <[email protected]>
Dr Andrew Glass <[email protected]>
Professor Timothy Gowers FRS <[email protected]>
Professor Derek Holt <[email protected]>
Professor Jon Keating <[email protected]>
Professor Andrey Lazarev <[email protected]>
Professor Josef Lauri <[email protected]>
Professor Charles Leedham-Green <[email protected]>
Professor Angus Macintyre FRS <[email protected]>
Dr Kay Magaard <[email protected]>
Dr Christopher Mulvey <[email protected]>
Professor Graham Niblo <[email protected]>
Professor Jeffrey Paris <[email protected]>
Professor Beatrice Pelloni <[email protected]>
Professor Norbert Peyerimhoff <[email protected]>
Dr Colva Roney-Dougal <[email protected]>
Professor Peter Rowley <[email protected]>
Professor Tony Scholl <[email protected]>
Professor Sergey Shpectorov <[email protected]>
Professor Leonard Soicher <[email protected]>
Dr Alina Vdovina <[email protected]>
Dr Theodore Voronov <[email protected]>?
Professor John Wilson <[email protected]>
Professor Robert Wilson <[email protected]>
De Morgan House 57-58 Russell Square London WC1B 4HS United Kingdom
Web: www.lms.ac.uk
The London Mathematical Society is incorporated under a Royal Charter and is a Charity registered with the Charity Commissioners
Registered number: 252660
From The President:
Professor Terry Lyons FRSE FLSW FRS
Email: [email protected]
Executive Secretary:
Fiona Nixon
Email: [email protected]
To: All signatories (names listed below) of the letter to the Council of the LMS regarding a Special General Meeting, dated 10 November 2015
12 November 2015
Dear Colleagues
Journal of Computational Mathematics
Thank you for your letter to Council calling for a Special General Meeting of the Society. The request is in order and we will organise an SGM in accordance with the Statutes.
In view of the quite understandable disappointment around the decision at the last Council meeting not to include JCM in the list of journals the LMS will publish with their commercial publisher it might be helpful to summarise some of the salient points raised in discussion and leading to that decision. Perhaps the most important point from my own perspective was the high priority, expressed in the Council discussion, for supporting this critical area of mathematics and computation with quality publications in a more effective manner. Speaking personally, I am very disappointed that this decision was necessary – but do think that it was the right decision. The key to the future is some new member-generated proposals to fill the space that is computational number theory, computational group theory and the mathematics of computational science, with high quality LMS publications that can achieve the standing and sustainability of other recently established journals, such as Nonlinearity, and the Journal of Topology.
To give some perspective and context, the JCM was set up by LMS Council in 1998. It had an initial budget of £130k to cover its launch and the original intention was to create a quality journal in this area, one that was ultimately sustainable. Attempts, between 2000 and 2002, to improve sustainability through a subscription model failed. The initial budget was spent by the end of 2003. The quality of the journal was patchy with a low impact but with excellent papers in specific sub-fields. In 2010 further efforts were made to promote the journal. When Council reviewed the position of the JCM at its meeting on 29 June 2012, CUP (and other publishers) remained unwilling to sell the journal. The Publications Committee declined an open access fee model, fearing that it would further damage the brand and would likely stop the best authors from submitting papers to the journal.
By the time of the review of the journal by Council in 2012 the total direct support provided to the journal over its by then 15 year existence, was £380k. Council took the decision to make one last effort to improve the quality and visibility of the journal. It set the journal specific performance targets to be achieved over the following three years with a review to consider possible closure at the end of that period.
SGM 15/02/2016Paper B
1
It was against the set performance targets that the current Council reviewed the journal at its meeting in October this year. These goals were not entirely met, but Publications Committee had worked with the current editors on a plan for a way forward which was approved at its meeting last September, and which the Publications Secretary subsequently recommended to Council. At that meeting Council was provided with the details of the progress of the journal and the proposal for its future development, by way of a paper introduced by the Publications Secretary. There was a lengthy discussion on the issue, including that the performance of the journal was mixed in the sense that in some areas it was doing a good deal better than in others, that there seemed to be difficulty in identifying new editors of an appropriate calibre, that the Society had been attempting to improve the success of the journal for the 18 years since its inception with relatively few results.
Following this, Council decided that the Society would do better by this subject area to draw a line under this journal and start afresh with a new title or titles supporting the areas of mathematics and computation. This decision was passed by Council with 12 in favour, 5 abstentions and no one voting against. I would emphasize that the decision was not at all about income generation, but rather how the Society could best use its resources to support mathematics, and in this context, particularly computational mathematics.
The decision was a matter of judgement, of regret, and of looking for better alternatives; there were arguments for alternatives, and many were expressed at the Council meeting. In my view Council, in this nem com decision, was doing exactly what is asked of them – trying to do what works best for mathematics in an uncertain world.
Yours sincerely
Professor Terry Lyons FRSE FLSW FRS
President
List of signatories
Professor Bryan Birch FRS Professor Alexandre Borovik Professor Ronald Brown Professor Peter Cameron Professor David Epstein FRS
Professor Victor Flynn Dr Tony Gardiner Dr Andrew Glass Professor Timothy Gowers FRS > Professor Derek Holt
Professor Jon Keating Professor Andrey Lazarev Professor Josef Lauri Professor Charles Leedham-Green Professor Angus Macintyre FRS
Dr Kay Magaard Dr Christopher Mulvey Professor Graham Niblo Professor Jeffrey Paris Professor Beatrice Pelloni
Professor Norbert Peyerimhoff Dr Colva Roney-Dougal Professor Peter Rowley Professor Tony Scholl Professor Sergey Shpectorov
Professor Leonard Soicher Dr Alina Vdovina Dr Theodore Voronov Professor John Wilson Professor Robert Wilson
Cc: LMS Council
SGM 15/02/2016Paper B
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LMS SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING 5 FEB 2016:
MOTION
We, Requisitionists of the Special General Meeting, hereby put thismotion:
Instruct the Council to continue publication of the LMSJournal of Computation and Mathematics as a chari-table activity, thus reversing the Council’s decision toclose down the Journal.
Requsitionists of the Special General Meeting:
Professor Bryan Birch FRSProfessor Alexandre BorovikProfessor Ronald BrownProfessor Peter CameronProfessor David Epstein FRS
Professor Victor FlynnDr Tony GardinerDr Andrew GlassProfessor Timothy Gowers FRSProfessor Derek Holt
Professor Jon KeatingProfessor Andrey LazarevProfessor Josef LauriProfessor Charles Leedham-GreenProfessor Angus Macintyre FRS
Dr Kay MagaardDr Christopher MulveyProfessor Graham NibloProfessor Jeffrey ParisProfessor Beatrice Pelloni
Professor Norbert PeyerimhoffDr Colva Roney-DougalProfessor Peter RowleyProfessor Tony SchollProfessor Sergey Shpectorov
Professor Leonard SoicherDr Alina VdovinaDr Theodore VoronovProfessor John WilsonProfessor Robert Wilson
12 January 2016
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LMS SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING 5 FEB 2016:
MOTION WITH SUPPORTING NOTES
Motion
We, Requisitionists of the Special General Meeting, hereby put thismotion:
Instruct the Council to continue publication of the LMSJournal of Computation and Mathematics as a chari-table activity, thus reversing the Council’s decision toclose down the Journal.
Supporting Notes
We ask all LMS members to vote for the Motion stated above.
The background of the Motion. We considered the LMS Councildecision to close the Journal a mistake serious enough to justify con-vening a Special General Meeting of the Society in accordance withStatute 19 of the LMS Charter and Statutes. We requisitioned thismeeting in a letter to Council of 10 November 2015, with the object ofthe meeting being to reverse the LMS Council’s decision. It is impor-tant to correct the mistake with minimal disruption of publication tothe JCM.
The JCM is an online-only open access peer reviewed (and peerreviewed to the highest standards) journal, free for authors and readers.It is one of the rare examples of a mathematical journal that allows andencourages the publication of data files and computer codes supportingthe mathematical content of papers. It is the only LMS publicationthat fully responds to the new technological demands of mathematicspublishing.
By closing the JCM the Council puts all LMS peer-reviewed onlinepublishing on a 100% commercial basis.
The already existing commercial online journal, the Transactions ofthe LMS, charges an authors’ fee of £800 to £1,600 per paper (+ 20%VAT, if payment comes from the UK or EU). In effect, this is a £960 to
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2 LMS SGM 05.02.16: MOTION AND SUPPORTING NOTES
£1,920 charge for access to peer review made by fellow mathematiciansfor free as a charitable contribution and service to the community.
The charitable nature of the JCM. As a charity, the LMS enjoyssignificant privileges including tax breaks. To justify its charitablestatus, the LMS must spend money on its charitable objects.
Being free both for authors and for readers, the JCM is a shiningexample of a truly charitable activity which fully complies with theLMS Royal Charter, which lists among the LMS charitable objects:
(iii) To print, publish and distribute gratuitously or otherwise theProceedings and Journals of the Society containing such com-munications as in the opinion of the Council are worthy of pub-lication;
(vi) To make grants of money or donations in aid of mathemati-cal investigations or the publication of mathematical works orother matters or things for the purpose of promoting inventionand research in mathematical science, or its applications, or insubjects connected therewith;
The quality and standing of the JCM. The JCM plays a uniquerole as the leading journal in a specific and increasingly importantcross section of advanced theoretical mathematics: symbolic and/orabsolute precision arithmetic computations—frequently at the limitsof the capacity of modern computers—in algebra, representation the-ory, combinatorics, number theory, algebraic geometry, etc. The realstrength of the JCM is hard core computation at the boundary of whatis possible. Moreover, the publications in the JCM help (and aim) topush this boundary farther and farther away, and make possible the-oretical results that nobody believed were achievable just a few yearsago.
This aspect of the Journal’s work will become only more importantin the future.
The high reputation of the JCM is witnessed by letters of supportfrom our colleagues in the UK and around the world.
The blogs
• Future of the LMS, https://futurelms.wordpress.com/• Open Access, http://discussions.lms.ac.uk/openaccess/
will run a comprehensive discussion of the role of the JCM and its ser-vice to the British and international mathematical communities. The
SGM 05/02/2016Paper C (b)
LMS SGM 05.02.16: MOTION AND SUPPORTING NOTES 3
medium of blogs allows our colleagues from outside the LMS and fromoverseas to take part in this discussion. Please check the blogs – it islikely that new contributions will appear right up to the last minutesbefore the SGM.
The innovative ground-breaking nature of computational pure math-ematics represented in the JCM makes it unattractive to commercialpublishers. This is why it has been, and remains, the LMS’ duty tostep in and run the Journal as a charitable activity.
The alleged financial issues. Members should not be confused bythe alleged huge costs of the JCM which have already been mentionedin some discussions and which might be reported as potential savings,in the run-up to Special General Meeting. The actual costs of publi-cation of the JCM are modest and not long ago were comparable, perannum, with the cost of a small grant and even now, after changingthe web hosting provider, are comparable with the cost of a LMS work-shop grant. The data from official LMS Annual Reports filed with theCharity Commission in 2005–2015 show the modest scale of the JCMcosts:
£467 in 2005£741 in 2006£367 in 2007 (11 months)£341 in 2008—— in 2009 (no figure given)£4,294 in 2010£4,894 in 2011£5,930 in 2012£6,180 in 2013£7,224 in 2014£15,275 in 2015
The growth from 2010 most likely can be explained by the change of aweb hosting provider which happened around that time; unfortunatelyit appears that no attempts have been made on the part of Council tofind cheaper providers of Internet hosting.
The jump in costs in 2013–15 is likely to be the result of Council’sinstructions to Editors of the JCM to increase the number of publishedpapers and pages of at least the same quality as those recently pub-lished. Every additional paper resulted in additional per paper and perpage charges being paid to the Cambridge University Press.
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4 LMS SGM 05.02.16: MOTION AND SUPPORTING NOTES
Still, the costs of the JCM are modest and it is instructive to comparethem with the total LMS income figures:
£2,288,142 in 2010£2,484,898 in 2011£2,220,556 in 2012£2,399,378 in 2013£2,613,903 in 2014£2,908,113 in 2015
With income on that scale, we perhaps need to improve efficiencyelsewhere rather than close one of the most cost-effective and tech-nologically advanced channels of worldwide dissemination of modernmathematical knowledge.
Requsitionists of the Special General Meeting:
Professor Bryan Birch FRSProfessor Alexandre BorovikProfessor Ronald BrownProfessor Peter CameronProfessor David Epstein FRS
Professor Victor FlynnDr Tony GardinerDr Andrew GlassProfessor Timothy Gowers FRSProfessor Derek Holt
Professor Jon KeatingProfessor Andrey LazarevProfessor Josef LauriProfessor Charles Leedham-GreenProfessor Angus Macintyre FRS
Dr Kay MagaardDr Christopher MulveyProfessor Graham NibloProfessor Jeffrey ParisProfessor Beatrice Pelloni
Professor Norbert PeyerimhoffDr Colva Roney-DougalProfessor Peter RowleyProfessor Tony SchollProfessor Sergey Shpectorov
Professor Leonard SoicherDr Alina VdovinaDr Theodore VoronovProfessor John WilsonProfessor Robert Wilson
12 January 2016
SGM 05/02/2016Paper C (b)
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Paper D
Background on the decisions of Publications Committee and Council on the LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics
1. It may be helpful for Members to understand some of the background and history of the JCM leading to the decisions made last autumn. Attached to this note is an appendix giving a brief history and breakdown of the finances and costs of the journal since its inception in 1997 and launch in 1998. It has been prepared by Susan Hezlet, the Society’s Publisher who has been in post for essentially all the life of the journal.
2. It will be noted from these that issues such as the publishing model, whether or not to have copyediting, where the journal is hosted, and worries about its overall quality have been repeatedly raised, considered and reconsidered throughout most of its history, each change reflecting the fact that the previous model was not considered a success.
3. By 2012 Council was sufficiently concerned about the journal that it was given specific targets to achieve, to be reviewed in 2015 with the understanding that the journal would be closed if these were not met. The minimum targets set centred around the quality and quantity of papers published, and the commissioning of two good quality conference proceedings, where the editors believed there was scope to develop the journal. Publications committee met in early 2015 to consider progress; it was clear that the targets had not been met, and it was a moot point as to how much progress had been made towards them. The one conference proceeding published had made a considerable loss (this largely accounts for the significantly increased costs listed in 2014/5). Given the broad range of subject areas published and the varying quality of papers, the overall quality of the journal was seen as stagnant, and the download figures for articles published remained disappointingly lower than had been hoped. Nevertheless, Publications committee firmly considered that computational mathematics is a research area that the LMS should be involved in publishing. Considerable efforts were made during the following months, in conjunction with the main Editors and in particular through Rick Thomas, Editor and member of Publications committee, to develop a plan for the journal that could be put to Council. The plan the Editors recommended, and which was accepted by Publications Committee with a few minor amendments, was to refocus the journal, concentrating on those areas that clearly were a success, while reducing the overall costs by the introduction of a modest APC.
4. In the event, Council debated the proposal at length, but in the end decided a better course of action would be to draw a line under the current journal and instead start a new title. Council’s view was that it would be hard for the journal – for any journal – to significantly alter its profile and perceived quality, even over the medium term, and that a new title would be able to achieve greater success more easily.
5. Let me come to costs. While I can confirm that in all the discussions I have sketched above, the primary concerns of Publications committee and Council have been with the quality and not the finances, it is nevertheless no small thing that over its history the journal has cost the Society
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Paper D
approximately £24k per annum. Good stewardship of the Society’s finances requires – and continues to require whatever the outcomes of these discussions – Council to at least ensure that if it spends that sort of money on an individual research area then it is being spent as well and effectively as possible.
6. It will be noted from the appended documents that the journal has tried a number of different models, including library subscriptions, purely `in house’ production and the removal of copy-editing. The former failed due to the lack of library subscriptions, and the disinterestedness, on grounds of quality, on the part of publishers to sell the journal; I understand in house production was stopped because of the resulting workload on the volunteer editorial body. However, as can be seen from the financial spreadsheet, these changes made only modest differences to the overall costs – nearly two thirds of the costs of the journal have been related to the time of the LMS staff involved, and with the associated overheads. While it may seem that a journal can be run with little cost if done by volunteers, the actual cost is of course in terms of those volunteers’ time: if they are employed mathematicians then that is carried by their employers, if they are LMS staff it is carried by the Society.
7. Let me draw out two issues that seem to have become confused in some recent discussions. On the one hand there is the publishing model (free for authors, free for readers, all costs covered by the LMS), and on the other there is the particular journal under discussion. One can be a staunch supporter of the publishing model, but not believe the best future for LMS efforts in this area is with the JCM as it has been running. Indeed, if throughout its history Council had considered the JCM to be of a quality consistent with the Society’s other publications, I very much doubt anyone would have been thinking about change.
8. My recommendation is for members to vote against this motion and support Council’s original decision, to close the JCM and look to develop a new, quality journal in an appropriate area of mathematics and computation. Details of such a development, including its publishing model, are best carried out in conjunction with whoever is to be the Editor in Chief of the new journal, on whose energy and enthusiasm much would depend, together with any relevant publishing partners, and it does not seem appropriate to speculate publicly on details in advance. In the meantime, I would hope that if any group wished to take over the existing JCM from the LMS and publish it independently themselves, then this could be arranged.
John Hunton Publications Secretary
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Paper D
Appendix
The following table gives a brief history of the LMS JCM and the lifetime costs to the Society of its publication.
The primary source of information on its history comes from the minutes of Publications Committee, papers sent to Council and their decisions. Estimates of time spent on the journals by staff members come from annual appraisals and, in 2010 and 2012, from a detailed time analysis of LMS publications staff activity.
The financial figures have been taken from our audited accounts that run on our financial year, currently 1st September 2015 – 31st August 2016. I have included projected figures for this year and next, assuming no change to Council’s decision to close the journal.
Revenue This line is revenue that has been apportioned to the journal. In the period 1999-2001, the revenue was a fraction of that received from sales of the Proceedings. This was not considered fair accounting practice (there being no evidence that the libraries taking the Proceedings valued the JCM) and, in 2001/2 only the direct library subscription sale was included in the accounts.
In 2013/4 and 2015/6, the revenue received comes from the ANTS conference budget for production of their conference proceedings.
External costs These are payments made to third parties. Our detailed financial records do not go back as far as the audit year 1997/8 but, from the minutes of meetings it appears that the payments made in 1996 – 1998 were to the Open University services to build the website and infrastructure for the journal.
After that, in the period 2000 – 2004, payments were made to a freelance software designer for implementing access controls and fixing various bugs on the journal platform. The following years to 2009 show only small costs paid to our Executive Editor’s office for paper, printing, phone etc.
From 2009, the external costs are to Sunrise Setting, for the copy-editing, typesetting, production of proofs and final files, and to Cambridge University Press for hosting the journal and other services such as obtaining an impact factor and providing usage data.
Annual loss as it appears in the Audited accounts This is simply Revenue – External costs. It does not include the costs of the journal associated to staff time and overhead: they appear in the accounts under ‘Apportioned Support costs and irrecoverable VAT’.
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Paper D
Direct Staff Costs These are the costs of employing staff within the LMS and include the Society’s costs of salaries, pension contributions and NICs. We have records from annual appraisals that provide information on how much time each staff member spent directly working on the journal. In the case of the Executive Editor, she was responsible for copy-editing and loading the papers to the system, using the uniquely-designed article management system. I was involved in negotiations with external suppliers and preparing reports and proposals for Publications Committee and Council. Currently, our Managing Editor and Assistant Editor work directly with the authors, Editors and external suppliers on the individual articles and conference proceedings.
Overhead costs There are two sources of these costs, born by the Society, that support the publications of the journals and books.
a) Publications staff time and office costs that cannot directly be assigned to an individual journal but considered a necessary part of the Society’s operation. A simple example of this is the time I have spent on the journal tenders process. The tender included the JCM and therefore it is reasonable that it should bear some of the costs.
b) Other office and administration support costs. These overheads include a portion of the building and office costs, the services provided by our accounts department and HR support from the Executive office. All of these costs are essential for the support of the publications by the Society, Some are legal obligations on the Society as employers, others are obligations from the Charity Commission with regard to correct accounting practices.
Prior to 2005, there was no legal obligation to provide a full overhead analysis and assign overheads to the different activities of the Society but, with the introduction of SORP 2005, the Society changed its practices.
From 1997 – 2005, I have estimated the overheads as just 3% of publications staff time and office costs described under a) above.
After 2005, I have estimated the overhead costs at just 3% of the total indirect staff and office costs and other support costs – i.e. a) + b) above.
Both of these estimates are below the real overhead costs to the Society. It is clear that more than 3% of the Society’s publication staff and office time has been devoted to the JCM over the years and it is also clear that we were using the services of our accounts department and working in this building prior to 2005, only we had not fully accounted for it.
Susan Hezlet Publisher
4
JCM
History
# articles
published
# pages
published
JCM
finances Revenue
External
Costs
Annual loss
as it
appears in
audit
Direct
staff costs
Overhead
costs Total loss
Cumulative
loss
1996/7 -£40,705 -£40,705 -£40,705 -£40,705
1997 Launch of journal approved. James Davenport appointed first Editor-in-Chief.
Open University build the website and infrastructure for the journal.
1997/8 -£19,277 -£19,277 -£9,493 -£2,936 -£31,706 -£72,411
1998 7 200 Executive Editor employed on 0.5 FTE for the JCM from 1 January.
Susan Hezlet employed on 1 FTE as Publications Manager from 1 September.
Journal launched as part of LMS Website.
1998/9 -£4,447 -£4,447 -£15,824 -£3,141 -£23,412 -£95,823
1999 6 154 Publications Committee discussion whether to move to a subscription model.
CUP paid to collect subscriptions, Julian Gilbey, freelancer paid to add
access software.
1999/0 £301 -£6,899 -£6,598 -£14,266 -£4,176 -£25,041 -£120,864
2000 16 355 JCM bundled with Proceedings and received first income as a fraction of
the total Proceedings revenue. E-in-C reports that the quality of submitted
papers is low. Suggests call for papers advertising short production times.
Also reminds Editors of the BJPLMS journals that papers they reject might be
suitable for JCM.
2000/1 £501 -£2,438 -£1,937 -£11,887 -£4,649 -£18,472 -£139,336
2001 10 210 One independent library subscription collected.
March Council decides that the journal should be freely available from 2002
because of the low level of interest; libraries unwilling to pay for journal.
2001/2 £63 -£1,674 -£1,611 -£10,769 -£5,350 -£17,730 -£157,067
2002 12 243 Access software stays in place but anyone can register for free.
2002/3 -£1,493 -£1,493 -£8,951 -£5,490 -£15,934 -£173,000
2003 15 334 Executive Editor now working 0.13 FTE on JCM but Publishing Editor also
working on the journal.
2003/4 -£1,954 -£1,954 -£11,220 -£5,962 -£19,135 -£192,135
2004 15 351 Registration requirement for free access software for journal removed.
2004/5 -£467 -£467 -£13,355 -£6,222 -£20,045 -£212,180
2005 14 315 Several discussions over appointment of next E-in-C.
Concern in Pubs Committee again over low number and quality
of submitted papers.
2005/6 -£741 -£741 -£15,347 -£8,701 -£24,790 -£236,969
2006 13 329 John Cremona appointed new E-in-C and puts forward a proposal for focussing
on the strengths of the journal, which are considered to be computational
number theory, computational group theory and numerical analysis.
January: Executive Editor now 0.25 FTE on JCM. First discussions over removing
copy-editing, agreed in May. Proposal to sell printed volumes to
libraries rejected by Pubs Committee due to the perceived low quality of the articles.
2006/7 -£367 -£367 -£15,889 -£8,195 -£24,450 -£261,420
2007 18 388 E-in-C raises concerns over who is to check final changes in absence
of copy-editing. Review of staffing leads to redundancy offer to Exec Editor.
2007/8 -£341 -£341 -£15,903 -£8,717 -£24,961 -£286,381
2008 16 380 Remaining secretarial and production work on the JCM now taken up by Managing
Editor and Editorial Assistant. John Cremona steps down to become new
Proceedings co-Editor. Derek Holt appointed.
2008/9 £0 £0 -£12,517 -£7,516 -£20,033 -£306,414
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JCM
History
# articles
published
# pages
published
JCM
finances Revenue
External
Costs
Annual loss
as it
appears in
audit
Direct
staff costs
Overhead
costs Total loss
Cumulative
loss
2009 12 339 Discussions in Publications Committee over moving JCM production to CUP
and Sunrise Setting. Benefits: assigning DOIs, return to quality copy-editing,
obtaining an impact factor, placing journal on a robust web platform.
CUP agree to host the journal but refuse to market or sell the journal.
2009/0 -£4,294 -£4,294 -£10,620 -£8,813 -£23,727 -£330,141
2010 26 479 JCM moves to CUP website and Sunrise Setting typeset and edit papers.
Fixed costs in audited accounts are those sums paid to CUP and Sunrise Setting,
excluding overheads.
2010/1 -£4,894 -£4,894 -£7,784 -£9,542 -£22,221 -£352,362
2011 20 350 First full analysis of fixed costs, staff time and overheads apportioned to journals,
based on 2010 costs. JCM's full costs are of the order of £25,000 per annum.
2011/2 -£5,930 -£5,930 -£7,162 -£10,298 -£23,389 -£375,751
2012 28 462 June: JCM discussed in Council with five year forecast 2012-2018 predicting full
costs for this period to be £145K. Journal placed under special measures.
Its performance to be reviewed in 2015 and journal closed if targets not met.
Assumption that Editflow would reduce full costs to £19,000 not fulfilled,
partly due to sustained growth in # articles.
2012/3 -£6,180 -£6,180 -£6,910 -£9,686 -£22,775 -£398,527
2013 22 423 Second full analysis of fixed costs, staff time and overheads apportioned to
journal, based on 2012 figures. Costs of JCM still about £25,000. The discrepancy
between this analysis and the financial year is due to the number of papers
published being greater in the calendar year 2012 than financial year 2012/2013.
2013/4 £1,550 -£7,224 -£5,674 -£7,261 -£9,931 -£22,866 -£421,393
2014 31 618 ANTS Conference proceedings published for fee of £1550.
ANTS 26 432 Helps to reduce the 2013/2014 audited cost, however costs included in 2014/15
audit jump to £15K due to publication of ANTS and increase in # regular articles.
There is a similar increase in staff costs due to increase in articles being handled.
2014/5 -£15,275 -£15,275 -£10,254 -£10,497 -£36,026 -£457,419
2015 33 773 Journal reviewed and discussed at Jan, May and September meetings of Pubs
Committee. Noted that, in 2014 # full text downloads lower than a similarly-sized
subscription journal on same platform and impact factor in the lowest 5%.
Review and recommendation, supported by E-in-C and co-Editors,
to move the journal to gold open access passed from Pubs Committee to Council.
October Council discusses the detailed report and decides to close the journal.
Increased portion of Pubs staff time spent on preparing reports.
Journal is closed to new submissions and ANTS organisers informed.
ANTS organisers understand the decision and would still like to publish next
conference proceedings in JCM.
2015/6 £4,500 -£7,667 -£3,167 -£12,620 -£10,602 -£26,389 -£483,808
2016 20 378 Projected figures, taking into account final papers in pipeline.
ANTS 24 420
2016/7 -£7,055 -£7,055 -£4,363 -£4,241 -£15,659 -£499,467
2017 Projected figures assuming no further publication and move of journal
archive to final home: perhaps NUMDAM or Portico.
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