Publish and be poor

By Michael Barrett Published 04 July 2011

Scientific information usually disseminates in peer-reviewed journals. A pecking order pushes the best science into the highest-ranked journals. Most articles, however, end up in one of thousands of other periodicals.

The internet has precipitated change; now, almost all journals publish online, too, but usually behind a paywall. The argument that scientific findings should be freely available is compelling. Some scientists blog about their research online, but without peer review their findings lack credibility. "Open-access" publishing, pioneered by the Public Library of Science in the US, offers a third way. Open access involves peer review, editorial and quality production processes. The papers, however, are then freely available online.

Perfect? Not quite. Even without printing, the publication costs for a typical paper are several thousand pounds. If readers don't pay, the cost falls on the author. There is unease about authors paying to publish potentially controversial findings. Most, but by no means all, science today is funded by grants that include publication costs. But where will poorer scientists go? Conventional scientific publishing houses could get squeezed and the societies whose journal sales keep them afloat might also disappear. Science, like journalism, is having to face the perils of publishing in the internet age.

2 comments

Wed, 2011-07-13 09:42 — JUSTICE FOR CYPRUS

Your comments about the cost of open access publishing based on 'author charging' are correct, Michael, but that is not the 'third way'. The real third way is genuine open access publishing with no subscription and no author charges based on subsidy and collaboration. The majority of the journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org) follow this model. Of course, it is not one that the publishers want to hear about and it is not one that is supported by the bodies that could make a difference in the UK - the research councils and the Joint Information Systems Committee - they would rather see public money going directly to the pockets of the publishers by providing funds to enable author charging. In 'minority' languages, however, the subsidy model has always applied, with journals being published by universities and exchanged with other universities - transferring this model to the web is straightforward and cheap. SCIELO in Brazil is another example - it now publishes more than 200 OA electronic journals. Developing countries are increasingly recognizing that the subsidised OA route is the way to go. A more modest example, which illustrates how the maintenance of standards can ensure that a truly OA journal achieves a high rating in the ISI journal rankings is Information Research, which I publish as a one man operation (aided by volunteers) and in the publication of which no money is involved. It is now in its 16th year of publication - http://informationr.net/ir/ If universities in the UK got their act together the real OA model could transform the availability of scientific, medical, and social scientific research. But it won't happen on Cameron's watch :-)

Thu, 2011-08-04 14:39 — Spectator

You say :
"There is unease about authors paying to publish potentially controversial findings. Most, but by no means all, science today is funded by grants that include publication costs."

Of course a lot of research is funded by producer companies - your Big Pharma - who fund publication but only if they approve of the results. Otherwise they hold veto on publication. So here publishing is a financially slanted decision.

Far better to self publish but again, for your "potentially controversial findings" it's still got to be refereed. How open is scientific research these days?

I'll leave that last question for any truly independent referees there may be out there!