Comment Advertising isn't practical, Author pays is (Score 1) 390
Currently it's easier for me to get a copy of a Metallica mp3 than to get a research paper who's author would really like me to read it. But that's changing.
The cost of preparing a single item for a journal is at least $500+. Don't forget that for every item accepted for a (good) journal, up to ten are rejected. Then there is the costs of proof reading and type-setting. Advertising is unlikely to provide $500 per article, when some articles are probably relevant to less than 500 experts in the world.
Somebody has to pay that, it's either the university libraries subscribing to the journal, or the research projects budgets in the author-pays model. In an author pays model there should also be some overcharge so that really good work from unfunded researchers (such as those in the third world) can make it in.
It's true that some journals will be nothing more than vanity publishing, and will accept anything. But being published in such a journal will not be desirable as they will not have the same "impact" as well respected journals.
The current model and author-pays both have the same approximate cost to the tax payer, except that one provides more short and long term benefits to the world scientific community. The funny thing about reasearchers in a poor university in the middle of Africa is that they're just as smart as people in more developed countries. It's insane that they do not have access to the current state of research.
I expect that we'll see some very interesting author-pays models coming out of developing nations, as the primary costs are staff time, not technichal resources, and staff time is the thing they have as much of as us. Just slower PCs.
Christopher Gutteridge
University of Southampton
Maintainer of GNU EPrints - research archiving software: http://software.eprints.org/
The cost of preparing a single item for a journal is at least $500+. Don't forget that for every item accepted for a (good) journal, up to ten are rejected. Then there is the costs of proof reading and type-setting. Advertising is unlikely to provide $500 per article, when some articles are probably relevant to less than 500 experts in the world.
Somebody has to pay that, it's either the university libraries subscribing to the journal, or the research projects budgets in the author-pays model. In an author pays model there should also be some overcharge so that really good work from unfunded researchers (such as those in the third world) can make it in.
It's true that some journals will be nothing more than vanity publishing, and will accept anything. But being published in such a journal will not be desirable as they will not have the same "impact" as well respected journals.
The current model and author-pays both have the same approximate cost to the tax payer, except that one provides more short and long term benefits to the world scientific community. The funny thing about reasearchers in a poor university in the middle of Africa is that they're just as smart as people in more developed countries. It's insane that they do not have access to the current state of research.
I expect that we'll see some very interesting author-pays models coming out of developing nations, as the primary costs are staff time, not technichal resources, and staff time is the thing they have as much of as us. Just slower PCs.
Christopher Gutteridge
University of Southampton
Maintainer of GNU EPrints - research archiving software: http://software.eprints.org/
