MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.* The loss of MIT gives permission to other institutions who may be more concerned about reputation to do the same (they don’t want to generate whispers of “did they do this because they are having money troubles?”). It may also cause authors to submit other prestigious journals before elsevier ones.
* really any change in the top 10 ranked schools from year to year are just a kind of browning motion. They are as a group equally prestigious.
MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.
The difference in approach, outcome and size of expenditure between MIT and the University of California System in their negotiations with Elsevier interests university libraries everywhere when considering their own publications strategies. It is great that both institutions have been open about their budgets, their negotiation stance, and the outcome.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion>
TIL: Named for Robert Brown.
This move saves MIT approximately $2 million each yearThe largest universities are distance learning organisations and large groups of affilianted colleges or university systems.
E.g. Indira Gandhi National Open University has an enrollment of 7.1 million students (distance learning) and National University of Bangladesh about 2 million (affiliate colleges). Iran's Islamic Azad university system has ~1m.
The US also has a long list of much bigger universities/university systems. E.g. SUNY, Cal State, University of Phoenix, UC, UNC all have more than 200k students each.
So I'd imagine MIT makes up far less than 1/2000th of the student and staff population.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...
I don't know how this ranks internationally, but I guess that US universities have the largest endowments globally.
Copy-editors are expensive, and paid for by the researchers, not the journals.
My spouse is an editor at an academic journal in her field and does some of both. In papers selected for publication, she does exert editorial input. In terms of remuneration, it is a compensated position; but how the money flows between the academic society, the journal and Elsevier, that part is lost on me.