E-Letter responses to:

p-forum: Steven Bachrach, R. Stephen Berry, Martin Blume, Thomas von Foerster, Alexander Fowler, Paul Ginsparg, Stephen Heller, Neil Kestner, Andrew Odlyzko, Ann Okerson, Ron Wigington, and Anne Moffat INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Who Should Own Scientific Papers? Science 1998; 281: 1459-1460 [Summary] [Full text]

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Reality Check for Free Journals

Dr. Paul Thind   (18 April 2001)

Reality Check for Free Journals 18 April 2001
Dr. Paul Thind, Electronic Publishing ARKAT Foundation Respond to this E-Letter: Re: 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!