Subscription Cancellations Research Articles

Intensified Customer Churn Prediction: Connectivity with Weighted Multi-Layer Perceptron and Enhanced Multipath Back Propagation

In the telecommunication industry, forecasting customer turnover in telecom networks is crucial for maintaining customers and increasing profits. The proposed model explores the importance of predicting churn, emphasizing its financial impact and strategic significance for telecommunications companies. Manual methods for predicting churn are restricted due to their dependence on basic models and human opinion, leading to less than ideal precision and effectiveness. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based methods have arisen as promising solutions in light of these limitations. Nevertheless, existing AI methods frequently encounter issues like over-fitting, restricted interpretability, and suboptimal generalization. The presented system introduces a novel technique, named "MBP-WMLP” abbreviated as Multipath Back Propagation with Weighted MLP, to improve prediction accuracy in telecommunication networks. The respective approach utilizes a specialized multi-layer perceptron (MLP) structure with weights, designed for managing the intricacies of telecommunications data. Moreover, an improved multipath back-propagation method is presented to improve the optimization of model training and convergence. The projected model combines weighted MLP and enhanced multipath back-propagation to achieve better prediction accuracy, increased interpretability, and improved generalization capabilities. Furthermore, the proposed technique will be applied to authentic Telco customer churn datasets containing sanitized customer activity features and churn labels indicating subscription cancellations for creating predictive models. The projected approach is intended to shows potential for improving customer loyalty tactics and boosting profits for telecom companies in a more competitive market environment.

Original Programming Characteristics That Cause Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) Subscription Behavior in Indonesia

This study aims to explore the characteristics of original content that can trigger Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) subscriptions in Indonesia, identify factors that influence the desire to subscribe or unsubscribe from SVoD, and analyze factors that have no effect on the desire to subscribe to SVoD in Indonesia. This study adopted a grounded theory approach and involved 16 informants from Indonesia as research samples. The results showed that the main characteristics of original content that can increase subscription intent or trigger SVoD subscriptions include country of origin, type of impression, genre, feelings evoked, stories that are close to the audience's life, provide insight or knowledge, and quality. Conversely, shows whose content is limited to a region, has story content that is too heavy, spoilers that have been widely circulated, open endings, and an incomplete catalog of SVoD content are characteristics that are not able to trigger someone to subscribe to SVoD. In addition, the original language in the original content produced and the popularity of impressions on the internet also did not have a significant effect in triggering SVoD subscriptions. Other external strategies and factors that can prevent SVoD subscription cancellations and increase SVoD subscriber numbers involve promoting compelling original content synopses, increasing review activities and public relations marketing activities when releasing new original content in exchange for recommendations, and increasing indirect anti-piracy campaigns. This study provides valuable insights on how to increase SVoD subscriptions through the characteristics of original content and external factors influencing subscription behavior in Indonesia.

In Search for an Audience-Supported Business Model for Local Newspapers: Findings from Clickstream and Subscriber Data

With the decline of advertising revenue, local newspapers must shift their revenue sources from primarily advertising to deriving a larger share from subscription fees. Although existing studies on willingness to pay for online news have examined the determinants of people’s paying intent, this study focuses on what factors drive digital news subscribers’ decision to cancel their subscriptions. We propose a framework that illustrates the sources of negative experiences on news websites—namely the inferior good hypothesis, ad-interference hypothesis, and newsletter intervention hypothesis—and investigate how these elements of negative experiences and news reading behaviors are associated with subscription cancellations. We analyze clickstream data merged with subscriber payment data to investigate these associations from three local news sites. Our findings indicate that regularity of news reading, local news content, using ad blockers, and subscribing to certain newsletters are negatively associated with cancellation. These results provide news organizations with a road map for managing the user experience so that consumers will be more willing to pay for the news.

Faculty Decisions on Serials Subscriptions Differ Significantly from Decisions Predicted by a Bibliometric Tool

A Review of:
 Knowlton, S. A., Sales, A. C., & Merriman, K. W. (2014). A comparison of faculty and bibliometric valuation of serials subscriptions at an academic research library. Serials Review, 40(1), 28-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2014.897174 
 
 Abstract
 
 Objective – To compare faculty choices of serials subscription cancellations to the scores of a bibliometric tool.
 
 Design – Natural experiment. Data was collected about faculty valuations of serials. The California Digital Library Weighted Value Algorithm (CDL-WVA) was used to measure the value of journals to a particular library. These two sets of scores were then compared. 
 
 Setting – A public research university in the United States of America.
 
 Subjects – Teaching and research faculty, as well as serials data.
 
 Methods – Experimental methodology was used to compare faculty valuations of serials (based on their journal cancellation choices) to bibliometric valuations of the same journal titles (determined by CDL-WVA scores) to identify the match rate between the faculty choices and the bibliographic data. Faculty were asked to select titles to cancel that totaled approximately 30% of the budget for their disciplinary fund code. This “keep” or “cancel” choice was the binary variable for the study. Usage data was gathered for articles downloaded through the link resolver for titles in each disciplinary dataset, and the CDL-WVA scores were determined for each journal title based on utility, quality, and cost effectiveness. 
 
 Titles within each dataset were ranked highest to lowest using the CDL-WVA scores within each fund code, and then by subscription cost for titles with the same CDL-WVA score. The journal titles selected for comparison were those that ranked above the approximate 30% of titles chosen for cancellation by faculty and CDL-WVA scores.
 
 Researchers estimated an odds ratio of faculty choosing to keep a title and a CDL-WVA score that indicated the title should be kept. The p-value for that result was less than 0.0001, indicating that there was a negligible probability that the results were by chance. They also applied logistic regression to quantify the association between the numeric score of CDL-WVA and the binary variable of the faculty choices. The p-value for this relationship was less than 0.0001, also indicating that the result was not by chance. A quadratic model plotted alongside the previous linear model follows a similar pattern. The p-value of the comparison is 0.0002, which indicates the quadratic model’s fit cannot be explained by random chance. 
 
 Main Results – The authors point out three outstanding findings. First, the match rate between faculty valuations and bibliometric scores for serials is 65%. This exceeds the 50% rate that would indicate random association, but also indicates a statistically significant difference between faculty and bibliometric valuations. Secondly, the match rate with the bibliometric scores for titles that faculty chose to keep (73%) was higher than those they chose to cancel (54%). Thirdly, the match rate increased with higher bibliometric scores.
 
 Conclusions – Though the authors identify only a modest degree of similarity between faculty and bibliometric valuations of serials, it is noted that there is more agreement in the higher valued serials than the lower valued serials. With that in mind, librarians might focus faculty review on the lower scoring titles in the future, taking into consideration that unique faculty interests may drive selection at that level and would need to be balanced with the mission of the library.

A Comparison of Faculty and Bibliometric Valuation of Serials Subscriptions at an Academic Research Library

Despite their professional training and study in the development of research collections in academic settings, librarians often consult with or even defer to faculty in selecting materials. Faculty often use various methods of evaluation that tend to emphasize qualitative data or even anecdotal evidence. Bibliometric analysis offers emerging tools to quantify these decisions, reflecting fundamental principles of library science. This study compares faculty choices of serials subscription cancellations to the choices that would have been predicted using a bibliometric tool, the California Digital Library Weighted Value Algorithm (CDL-WVA). Faculty choices differed significantly from the decisions predicted by CDL-WVA. However, as the bibliometric score increased, so did the rate of match between faculty choice and decisions predicted by CDL-WVA. Implications of these findings for collection development are discussed.

Featuring: Tim Tripp

Tell us about your current position I’ve been in my current role only a few months now, so I’m still learning about it! The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and its library is a fascinating place to work. There’s much that you would find typical in a library for an academic teaching hospital, but there’s much that’s unique as well. Focussing on a patient population that has mental health and addiction issues is a real eye-opener. I find it’s totally changing my perspective on much of news and even pop culture once your awareness has been raised around issues of stigma, language, trauma, etc., you can’t help but place a different lens over everything that you look at. It’s been a while since I’ve worked in an actual library, so it’s fun getting re-acquainted with that world. There’s the more mundane we just completed our annual subscription cancellation, er, I mean renewal, process. And then there’s the truly exciting we’ve just kicked off planning for brand new space in a building that is yet to be built. We’ll spend three years planning and then three years building, and if all goes according to plan, we’ll be moving into a brand new space at CAMH’s Queen Street West campus in downtown Toronto in 2020. The new space should be amazing we’ll be sharing ground floor space right on Queen St. West with the new student centre, conference centre, and Workman Arts theatre. There really is a transformation happening all across CAMH. It’s impacting everything from the physical spaces to clinical practice. I think the next decade here is going to be a blast! Your previous positions have been quite information technology (IT) intensive. What made you decide to move into a new role? How does your previous IT experience inform your work as the Director of Library Services at CAMH? The last 13 years I’ve been in a ‘‘nontraditional’’ role, that’s true, but I’ve always thought I’d return to the library world at some point. I’ve always loved the field, which is why I maintained my connections, primarily through my involvement in CHLA, with health librarians across the country. It’s not often an opportunity like this comes along, so I jumped at the chance. I think having IT experience is a definite benefit. So much of what we do is dependent upon technology that it really streamlines things when your IT folk know that you understand their language and their constraints. Having that background allows me to participate in other projects that are going on within Education at CAMH. There are a number of technology heavy projects around portal development and mobile app development that I’m just starting to get involved with, but I think the variety of work that I’m going to be getting involved with is incredible.

De la escisión a la unidad: los repartidores y cerradores de periódicos madrileños en la Segunda República y la Guerra Civil

The present article examines the final years of the existence of the Asociacion de cerradores y repartidores de prensa de Madrid, attached to the UGT and created in the early 20 th century. This period reflects the tensions undergone by an association which grouped two very different occupations; which for some time resulted in a split into two different associations. These confrontations, along with the dispute with newsagents, show the working of, and tasks involved in, newspaper distribution networks. They also reveal information about those behind the tasks, who were essential for newspaper publication but were, in general, poorly paid. A renewed unity was only achieved with the Civil War, under the most demanding conditions imaginable. Wages were certainly raised to adapt to the increasing cost of essential products, but the scarcity of paper and other war related problems caused enormous difficulties for journalistic firms, which were interfered with or seized: the cancellation of subscriptions was even considered. Although this measure was ultimately never taken, the end of this association was near; as near as the Francoist troops.

No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed

Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of Open Access Publishing (Gold OA) are premature. Funds are short; 80% of journals (including virtually all the top journals) are still subscription-based, tying up the potential funds to pay for Gold OA; the asking price for Gold OA is still high; and there is concern that paying to publish may inflate acceptance rates and lower quality standards. What is needed now is for universities and funders to mandate OA self-archiving (of authors' final peer-reviewed drafts, immediately upon acceptance for publication) (Green OA). That will provide immediate OA; and if and when universal Green OA should go on to make subscriptions unsustainable (because users are satisfied with just the Green OA versions) that will in turn induce journals to cut costs (print edition, online edition, access-provision, archiving), downsize to just providing the service of peer review, and convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery model; meanwhile, the subscription cancellations will have released the funds to pay these residual service costs. The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be on a no-fault basis, with the author's institution or funder paying for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality standards.

Mapping the Structure of Research: Business and Management as an Exemplar

Rating systems for journals often overlook the important issue of fit between journal and article. Strong fit is needed to obtain the most constructive review process which is critical to the eventual impact of the article. The relationship between journals is also important for decisions regarding the addition and cancellation of subscriptions from a collection of serials. We use a Kohonen self-organizing map as a visualization tool applied to business management literature to assess about 40,000 abstracts for 202 management journals listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, and the Financial Times list of business journals. We obtain a map which places journals with similar content very close together and journals with very different content far apart. This paper offers a method to consider how journals relate to each other and which journals are most and least likely to offer a fit with different types of research in the business management field.

Mapping the Structure of Research: Business and Management as an Exemplar

Rating systems for journals often overlook the important issue of fit between journal and article. Strong fit is needed to obtain the most constructive review process which is critical to the eventual impact of the article. The relationship between journals is also important for decisions regarding the addition and cancellation of subscriptions from a collection of serials. We use a Kohonen self-organizing map as a visualization tool applied to business management literature to assess about 40,000 abstracts for 202 management journals listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, and the Financial Times list of business journals. We obtain a map which places journals with similar content very close together and journals with very different content far apart. This paper offers a method to consider how journals relate to each other and which journals are most and least likely to offer a fit with different types of research in the business management field.

Subscription Cancellation Projects

SUMMARY When faced with yet another subscription cancellation project at Trinity University, a closer look at certain aspects of the budget was decided on by Caraway and Chamberlain as a way to determine price increases and possible cuts. A new way of deciding the amount to cut for non-United States titles was taken in this study, using projected inflation figures. During the project, an even more interesting discovery was made in working and communicating with faculty.

Economics of scientific and biomedical journals: Where do scholars stand in the debate of online journal pricing and site license ownership between libraries and publishers?

The emergence of e–journals brought a great change in scholarly communication and in the behavior of scholars. However, the importance of scholars’ behavior in the pricing of scientific journal has been largely ignored in the recent debate between libraries and publishers over site license practices and pricing schemes. Stanford’s survey results indicate that sharply increasing costs are the main reason for individual subscription cancellation, driving users to rely on library or other institutional subscriptions. Libraries continue to be a vital information provider in the electronic era and their bargaining power in the market and the importance of roles in scholarly communication will be increased by branding and a strong relationship with users. Publishers’ strategy for thriving in the electronic era is not to lose personal subscribers. Cooperation among the three sectors — scholars, libraries, and publishers — promises optimal results for each sector more than ever.

The FLAG Database Updated

This brief note describes the procedures followed and the results obtained through updating the FLAG (Foreign Law Guide) database (http://ials.sas.ac.uk/flag.htm), which took place over summer 2004. The results indicate generally a decline in the acquisition of new primary legal material in traditional paper format, within the foreign, international and comparative law collections of UK universities, national libraries and other major law libraries. From a small number of observations and comments noted by contributors to the survey, there appear to be three reasons for this. First, the availability of an increasing number of materials on the internet (a few titles are now no longer published in paper format). Second, difficulties in regularly acquiring material from some countries where publishing and distribution of publications are intermittent or severely delayed and, third, the cancellation of subscriptions due to budget cuts and a reappraisal of the value to the individual institution of maintaining particular collections.

Individual article supply: some strategic directions

Examines the increase in individual article supply and the resultant effects on journal subscriptions and site licensing, noting that pressure on library budgets has resulted in subscription cancellations but an increase in separates ordering, via document delivery and interlibrary loan (ILL). Increasingly sophisticated search and navigation tools enable users to navigate from a variety of primary, secondary and tertiary resources directly to an article – regardless of where the article is hosted or by which vendor it is sold. The implications for all the participants in the scholarly communications chain are examined and some pertinent questions are asked, including: does individual article supply erode existing publisher business; does the big (consortia) deal provide more value; and is ILL the most economical form of individual article supply? Concludes that both publishers and libraries must re‐examine their business models to counteract end‐users seeking freely available Web‐based or e‐print material, which is undermining the traditional, peer‐reviewed, scholarly communications process.

Retracted: Price development in important anesthesia and critical care medicine journals in comparison to journals of other disciplines.

In today's climate of financial restrictions, libraries and individual subscribers complain about the price increase of scientific journals. The development in prices of anesthesia/critical care journals was analysed over the past 6 years and compared to prices of some journals of other disciplines. Important journals in the categories Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine & Critical Care, Surgery, Medicine (General), and Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems listed in the 1999 Science Citation Index of Journal Citation Report were included and prices for the years 1995 to 2000 were analysed. Increase in prices ranged from +13% to +199%. The mean increase in journal prices was lowest in the category Anesthesiology (+61%), higher in the category Critical Care (+73%), and highest in the category Medicine, General (+101%). Changes in the impact factor (IF) varied widely, ranging from a decrease (Lancet: -43%; J Neurosurg Anesth: -44%) to a tremendous increase (e.g. Reg Anesth +165%; Ann Emerg Med +149%). The journals' size (number of articles or pages) did not increase proportionally with the increase in prices. A disproportionate rise in journal prices was seen over the past 6 years. The large increase in cost may have multiple reasons. The rapidly increasing cost of research journals may affect research quality because economic pressure may result in reduction in availibility of information due to cancellation of subscriptions to journals.

Serial Price Increases: A Survey from Chile

The authors discuss the possible causes of serial price increases since 1978 from a Chilean perspective. The most important causes are inflation and the increase in the number of pages per serial. Roughly, the average annual increase in serial prices has been 11% in nominal terms, 5% in real terms, and 2% when one adjusts for the increase in the number of pages per serial. The growth of mail, production and paper costs and exchange rate variations do not seem to cause the 2% increase in the real price per page for serials. Subscription cancellations, increased industry concentration, and quality improvement may be causes, but there is insufficient documentation in the literature to confirm these hypotheses.

Calculators and crystal balls: Predicting journal subscription prices

Subscription price projections are a helpful planning tool for libraries, which must make purchase decisions before actual prices are set. Predicting journal subscription prices requires a combination of art and science. Objective data include information on the publishing environment as well as the overall economic climate in major countries where publishing occurs. Increased manuscript submissions, subscription cancellations, paper and postage costs, and general overhead can all affect how publishers set prices. Currency exchange rates are a major, uncontrollable factor in this global market. A price projection methodology must predict how publishers will factor each of these variables, as well as their overall sense of market demand and price elasticity, into their price-setting decisions. Changes in application of the methodology must be made from time to time to reflect changes within the journal publishing market.

Under Siege : Journal Publishing in the 1990s

Budget cutbacks are the theme of the '90s, and all aspects of advanced education are under intense pressure from severely reduced federal and provincial funding. The realm of scholarly communication is no exception. At a time of rising production costs, reduced postal subsidies, and subscription cancellations from under-funded university libraries, publishers of scholarly journals are now faced with the outright elimination of funding sources such as the Scientific Publication Grants Program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). According to NSERC, the support of scientific journals is a "non-core program" and is therefore being terminated to allow more funding to be directed to research grants. It is difficult to understand how the dissemination of knowledge came to be defined as a non-core program. The goal of ensuring adequate funds for the direct costs of conducting research is certainly laudable. Nevertheless, the loss, through inadequate funding, of scholarly journals as a major forum for scientists to communicate the results of their work has serious consequences for the entire scientific endeavour. There is little point in funding research that will remain unknown to the broader academic community and to Canadian tax-payers who support that community. Such a move could easily result in the research being available only to a privileged few (relatively speaking) through informal networks of communication such as the Internet. ... The move to on-line publishing may somewhat ease the budgetary pressures on journal support programs and university libraries as more and more new journals are offered directly in the electronic media rather than in print. ... Until such time as the print journal has disappeared, publishers will continue to seek ways to make the production process as efficient and cost-effective as possible, while maintaining the quality and integrity of scholarly journals. ... Fiscally responsible journal management means maintaining subscriber rates that will cover the costs of production and distribution. But we need to look elsewhere to cover the myriad other costs associated with scholarly publishing. ...

Journal Runs

A methodology is presented that yields an evaluation of the degree of completeness of a library's joumal NnS. The proposed procedure is based on a classification of those runs defined in terms of the gaps incurred during certain periods, together with a point system. A formula gives that degree as the weighted mean of those points, and the resulting numerical value is then transformed into a verbal grade. An analysis is made of the results obtained by the application of this methodology to the journal runs of a specialized university library. A second approach is mentioned and compared with this one. In addition, the effect of subscription cancellations on the proposed methodology is considered.

Consequences of the budget crunch: using Q-methodology to prioritize subscription cancellations.

Consequences of the budget crunch: using Q-methodology to prioritize subscription cancellations.