Who Should Own Scientific Papers?
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
(0)eLetters
eLetters is a forum for ongoing peer review. eLetters are not edited, proofread, or indexed, but they are screened. eLetters should provide substantive and scholarly commentary on the article. Embedded figures cannot be submitted, and we discourage the use of figures within eLetters in general. If a figure is essential, please include a link to the figure within the text of the eLetter. Please read our Terms of Service before submitting an eLetter.
Log In to Submit a ResponseNo eLetters have been published for this article yet.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
4 September 1998
Copyright
Submission history
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Usage
Altmetrics
Citations
Cite as
- Steven Bachrach et al.
Export citation
Select the format you want to export the citation of this publication.
View Options
Check Access
Log in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS Members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
- Become a AAAS Member
- Activate your AAAS ID
- Purchase Access to Other Journals in the Science Family
- Account Help
More options
Purchase digital access to this article
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Reality Check for Free Journals
There are several important issues that get missed in our desired goal of trying to establish free online access to scientific research results and knowledge in general. These are the following:
1. Cost of publishing -- unless quality is permitted to vary widely, the cost of producing free journals is not going to be vastly different (less) from the cost of producing the same journals in a for-profit organization. Experience shows that the cost can actually be more in government-funded projects. Publishing requires, quality control such as proper layout, spelling checks, correspondence with authors, coordinating the peer-review process, maintaing Web site, answering e-mails, and most importantly marketing the publication. Some sort of budget is required for all of these activities.
2. Author resistance to publish in new journals is real. Impact factors are at the forefront of this debate, and it is a circular argument. Scientists have a lot of loyalty to their societies. Most society journals are not cheap.
3. If a journal has to be a paid journal, the pricing structure should be based on "ability to pay" model.
3. Who should pay for the costs? Asking authors to pay is another way of excluding the less well off from the publication process. Libraries are not positioned to pay for free online journals, even when they support the concept. Institutions such as the European Community, registered charities, and government departments may support these projects, but one should seek and receive the approval for support before starting the publication process. If one is not careful, the effort (time = money) required in trying to get financial support can end up being more than the cost of producing the journal itself.
In my view there are only two ways forward: first, have government(s) pay for or establish these projects. Second, compete with established commercial publishers by making authors partners (stake holders) in new publishing ventures, effectively distributing back to authors the money that now goes to shareholders.
The lessons from doing things are vastly different from talking about projects. Certainly the winds of change are in the air!