Posted by dricecream on 30 Sep 2011 /
5 Comments
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5 Comments
I strongly support the idea of open access journals, but the problem for authors remains without any solution: why authors have to pay for publishing in open-access journals? Most of the work that we do is unfunded, so is it fair for authors to do all the work, then pay a publication fee for publishing in a open access journal? Ideas? Leo
It’s a difficult one isn’t it? I would disagree with you on one point Leo, the work we do isn’t unfunded in the sense that we do it for nothing – ultimately someone is paying, usually the taxpayer, either directly or via universities/research institutes. I do think it is an issue though that the people who pay for the research for example; the university, then has to pay for the right to access the research via a journal subscription.
As researchers we can complain about handing over our work and rights for someone to make money from them i.e. journal publishers or via the other model complain about having to pay to have our stuff published but… someone has to pay for it. The fact is that operating a journal isn’t free. It’s hard to see how the usual publishing model would work, by that I mean the way book publishing works: the author provides the content, the publisher produces and sells the book and then divides the profits from the sales (more or less fairly) between themselves and the author. Maybe some big-hearted/altruistically motivated publishing company could start up publishing journals from which the profits are re-invested in research – obviously they still have to get scientists to publish there and institutions and individuals to subscribe.
I don’t know what the answer is to this question, I do hope though that some people who are smarter than me are thinking about it because it is a bit unsatisfactory at the moment.
Fair enough Steve, I just don’t think the system of open-acess is fair for authors… I don’t mind using grant money for paying for publication fees, however I don’t like the idea to take a piece of my salary for paying for publication fees after working for ages in a specific “unfunded” project.
Some more on this on the BadScience blog. Some interesting comments too:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/09/academic-papers-are-hidden-from-the-public-heres-some-direct-action/#more-2376
[...] Posted by Rachael Lowe on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 · Leave a Comment Here’s the problem [...]