It's amazing to me that the big research universities haven't banded together to make a competing open-access system of journals.
It would require no more work on the side of the academics -- they are already doing all the work for Elsevier -- and the administrative costs of hiring editors would almost certainly be equal to the fees they currently send to Elsevier.
The fact that they haven't makes me think that, with the exception of independent universities such as MIT, Elsevier's lobbyists are able to lean on the political people at the top of most large universities.
It would require no more work on the side of the academics -- they are already doing all the work for Elsevier -- and the administrative costs of hiring editors would almost certainly be equal to the fees they currently send to Elsevier.
The fact that they haven't makes me think that, with the exception of independent universities such as MIT, Elsevier's lobbyists are able to lean on the political people at the top of most large universities.