Open access publishing – researcher’s perspective
Open access: outline
- What is open access?
- Why is open access gaining traction?
- Why is all open access not predatory?
- Ethical versus predatory open access
- Why do we need to pay for open access?
- How to support open access publication financially?
- Researchers and research institution and open access
- Types of open access
- Plan S
What is open access?
Open access
- Freely available,without financial, legal, or technical barriers to the readers.
- Permanently stored in a repository
Logic of open access
- Knowledge,information, and data are products of research.
- Research is funded by the state using public funds or by other not-for-profit funding agencies. Therefore, products of research should also be freely available.
Why is open access gaining traction?
- Rising costs of journal subscriptions
- Journal bundling by publishers
- Increasing penetration of the internet
- Supplanting of print publishing by electronic publishing
- Ever increasing number of researchers
- Greater push from library consortia, funders, and governments
Why is all open access not predatory?
- Crucial difference
Open access: matter of payment comes up only after final acceptance by the journal
Predatory: payment is a foregone conclusion, made up front
- Other indications of predatory journals
Invitation to publish, publication within a few days, ISSN displayed prominently on website, dubious physical address, dubious impact factor
Ethical versus predatory open access
Legitimate open-access journals
- Mostly transitioned from subscription-based journals
- More citations
- Mainstream: commercial or society publishers
- Both print and electronic
Predatory open-access journals
- Set up to exploit pressure to publish
- Typically multidisciplinary
- Up-front article-processing charges
- Electronic only
Predatory, open-access, and subscription-based journals compared
| Test | Predatory | Open access | Subscription based |
| Spelling errors on home page | 66% | 6% | 3% |
| Distorted or unauthorized images on home page | 63% | 5% | 1% |
| Dubious impact factors | 33% | 3% | 0% |
| Unverified affiliation of editors or board members | 73% | 2% | 1% |
| Article processing charges($) | 63-150 | 800-2205 | 2500-3000 |
Why do we need to pay for open access?
Services rendered by publishers cost money
- Developing and maintaining content management systems
- Tracking submissions, routine correspondence
- Copy-editing, typesetting,design, page make-up
- Publishing(including printing if required)and mailing
- Promoting and publicizing
How to support open-access publication financially?
Ways of subsidizing or paying for the costs of publishing
- Subscribing(including bulk subscriptions)
- Paying article processing charges
- Paying for color printing(because it is much more expensive)
- Helping out in publicity and promotion
- Funding special issues
Researchers and research institutions and open access
- If funds are available, making your paper open access is possible.
- If funds are scarce, uploading papers in a repository is an option.
- The most prestigious journals are still subscription based.
Types of open access
- Gold
- Applicable at the level of the whole journal
- Free to read and use immediately upon publication
- Final published version,or version of record
- Article-processing charges paid by the author(s) or their employers or funders
- Hybrid
- Applicable at the article level
- Final published version,or version of record
- Article-processing charges paid by the author(s)or their employers or funders
- Author’s Choice available: not tied to a journal but to a publisher
- Copyright with author(s)
- Platinum or Diamond
- No cost to authors
- Article-processing charges paid by authors employers or funders including government agencies
- Final published version, or version of record
- Copyright with author(s)
- Transformative
- Transformative open access journals
- Transition stage from subscription-based to fully open access
- Committed to annual increase in the proportion of open-access articles
- Fourteen publishers-large and small, for-profit, not-for-profit, society publishers, and university presses-and some 2270 journals, have enrolled in this programme
Plan S
- Publications from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.
- 17 national funders including national agencies in Britain,France and Sweden,World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,and Wellcome Trust have joined the Plan, as has Nature.
- Plan S for ‘science, speed, solution, shock’, says Robert-Jan Smits, the chief architect of the plan.
Resources
https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/
https://finelib.fi/open-access-publishing-in-wiley-journals/