Adding a free text box for PRICE and a drop-down box for CURRENCY

[rossmounce]

Hi Daniel,

I'm raising this as an issue for discussion rather than directly implementing it.

The system works really well currently. So I'm wondering whether we can perhaps be more ambitious and try and gather a 3rd piece of really valuable data:

namely APC's (article processing charges) charged by the publisher/society for publishing an article in that journal.

Some are free APC=£0 most are a fixed fee e.g. for PLOS ONE its $1350 then for a minority its a bit more complex e.g. per page charges &/or different charges depending upon article type (i.e. less for a discussion article, more for an original research article)

What we'd need is is a free text box that only accepts numbers 0-10,000 and a drop-down currency box to indicate the currency. e.g. USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, YEN (don't need to list too many, perhaps just these)

This would be really valuable data. No one is really collecting this atm. But it would be hard for people to find and would need further explanation in a tutorial.

Does this make sense?

[teleyinex]

Hi @rossmounce

It makes a lot of sense! and I think it will add a lot of value to your project. I think that we have two options:

• Implement it directly in this app, or
• Create another app: How much it cost to publish? with the previous and cleaned data by the volunteers.

The first approach will basically allow you to get all the data at once, but it may be more complicated for the volunteers as you have suggested. Thus, maybe, the second option could be more valuable as once you have all the data, you will be able to show that cleaned data to the users and ask them to find which is the price for publishing.

In both cases, the result will be amazing because you will be able to sort journals by price :-) I like it a lot, so what do you think about the second option? I like to split and conquer problems :dancer:

Cheers,

Daniel

[rossmounce]

Hmmm... I see your point re: divide & conquer. BUT for maximal efficiency from the citizen scientist POV, if they've already found the journal website it would be most efficient to find the price while they're there.

If we split this into two separate apps they'll have to google the journal & search for copyright details. Then assuming they're also interested in prices they'll later also have to google the very same journal to find the prices. I think the 'two' app user-communities are the same thus I feel it might better to do both things in the same app. It'd be easier for us to market 1 app rather than 2 apps any how?

Although on the negative side, it'll make the tutorial longer if we do this all within 1 app... hmmmm ponders

[teleyinex]

You need to find the balance. From our experience really complicated tasks, for example when a user has to do too many things withing the same task, usually lead to quit really soon, or not even completing the task and leaving it, so that's why I like the split and conquer approach. However, you need to be careful too, if you make everything too simple some people may feel that you are wasting their time.

My ideas are just suggestions, so go for the one that you like most, talk to your volunteers and get their feedback. Maybe it is really easy to get that info quickly, as they will be already browsing the journal website, so any user will be able to full fill it really fast. Can you do some tests with some friends about this question? That would be the most valuable outcome.

My vote will go to split and conquer :D You could frame it like, first full filling the journal info, getting the licenses approach, and then when you have all the data, you could engage with the cost of the journal. This may lead to a longer process, but in the way your volunteers will learn about licenses and costs, engaging the volunteers longer, but as I said, it depends on what you want to achieve with the app :-)

[rossmounce]

Okay, I think perhaps we should create a separate app to get Price & Currency. I will make a separate spreadsheet for this, taking out all the journals that I know the prices for, but adding-in thousands that I know nothing about.