Reviewing for journals that charge authors
Reviewing for journals that charge authors
The scientific publishing was up to now organized in a way that the authors could publish for free in high-quality journals.
Since recently more and more journals support article processing charge APC, in addition, classically, they charge the readers.
Before this age of APCs, it was more or less acceptable: we could publish for FREE in practically any journal and make our research available for FREE via, for example, arXiv.
It is no longer possible: too many journals (AGU, APS) charge the authors... morover, this charge does not even make the paper open-access!
Personally, I try to avoid publishing in journals that charge the authors, because I think that there's a better way to use public money.
However, I have been doing the review job for such journals.
Now I am starting to think that such a behaviour is not very consistent.
So I would like to know what do you think about reviewing for journals that charge authors?
António Pinto da Costa Wed 22 Nov 2017 3:31PM
The formation of a wide awareness by (the majority of) researchers that they should not collaborate with journals that are turning towards "article processing charges" (APC) would certainly have a dissuasive effect on the spreading of those practices by scientific publishers. However this takes time... It is not easy to put hundreds of thousands of independent researchers suddenly tunned with the idea of not sending their works to journals with APC. The only way to standardize quickly the behaviour of such a large quantity of researchers would be through a ban (or a draconian decrease) of APC expenses by the national science foundations from which those researchers receive money for their activities.
Deleted account Wed 22 Nov 2017 3:49PM
I have to admit that I am often unaware of the APC policy of the journals for which I am willing to undertake reviews. Yet, most of them are Green Access I believe. I make sure to mention at the end of my review that authors should upload an author version of their work on open archives, unfortunately, with minimal if not nonexistent outcome. As soon as our epi-journal is created, I will stop my reviewing activities for non overlay journals. By the way, I just saw this new initiative:
Daniil Yurchenko Wed 22 Nov 2017 8:30PM
If we all (meaning worldwide) agree not to review for such journals or ask to be paid for the review job I think this situation can be changed. I don't mean the open access journal but rather APL and others that have recently introduced these charges.
Vladislav A. Yastrebov Thu 23 Nov 2017 7:54AM
Thank you for your comments!
To António: an alternative should be suggested before banning anything. A more softer way would be at least if National Agencies support open science by informing the community about alternatives and by encouraging researchers to publish in open journals which do not require fees. I hope that this epijournal in mechanics will become this alternative to standard publishing. Anyway state funding would be needed: arXiv's cost is approximately $830 000 per year. https://arxiv.org/help/support/faq#5A
To Daniil: Personally, I would not support paying the reviewers, which would increase even more the prices. Another option could be to offer a free publishing option for people who review for this journal.
To Mathias: Yes, that's a great initiative, very similar to epi journal, isn't it? The direct link is https://peercommunityin.org/
To Philippe: Yes, we are deep in the imposed publication system, but I believe that there is a way out. Especially if it is supported by strong scientists and national agencies.
Deleted account Thu 23 Nov 2017 1:50PM
To Vladislav: yes, it seems like it. It looks like it is less structured than an epi-journal, but they seem to share many similarities.
Deleted account Thu 23 Nov 2017 12:57PM
Neither Arxiv nor HAL is free to the society. We know this already. It is just that it is way cheaper than the current model. It is also more transparent, and generated data belong to the taxpayer, which is a minimum. Mathematicians are much more active than any other research community I believe, to generate new publishing alternatives: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01646134/document
JPM Sat 25 Nov 2017 10:05AM
Regarding convincing our colleagues that journal with APC is bad for our community a few facts have to be mentioned
- clearly a major reason for the appearance of journal with APC, beside the business model, is the pressure for publication together with the extensive use of bibliometry indicators by managers that are unable to understand what they measure, what they dont' say and how uncertain these measurements are, not speaking about the basic paradigm underlying this indicator (the more you are cited the higher is the quality of your work..sure wilbert!). A lot of fake news are around the corner in the publishing business.. This pressure for publishing is just overwhelming and the result is that we don't have the time to read the papers in our domain, most of which being however of poor quality. A possible solution at the institution level is promoting, for hiring and promoting people, a rule that only a limited number of contributions (not only publication as in many domain publication is only part of the job) will be considered by the jury.
-it must also be said that some of our colleagues have personal interest in the publishing business: some are paid to be editor, they may receive free proceedings etc.. This may partly explain why senior people, who does not need one more paper, are still strongly supporting the commercial publishing business
- my personnal answer for reviewing for journal with APC is to ask to be paid. This usually definitely stops the process :-)
On a positive note: there is the Jussieu call for the use of only green open access journal(and developing tool for better search) and inria has signed this call. Let's hope that other institutions will sign this call
Philippe Leclaire · Wed 22 Nov 2017 3:19PM
I believe that reviewing is necessary but reviewing for journals that charge authors may be a problem indeed. However, if all journals start to do it (to stay in the competition) then will we all have to review for these journals? I have no clear opinion about this problem just comments on the publishing business. In my field, publishing is (still) free of charge but they find other ways : free is for online colored figures only, for a limited number of electronic versions that cannot be given away and limited number of pages. However, the cost for 1 extra page is high and highly illogical: you have to pay for all the pages then, back from page 1.
I heard the profit making of the publishing business is already high (even higher than banks), so why charge the authors? to make more profit and kill the competition (kill or be killed)? It's endless. Someone said that we would just need that people don't buy so that it's not sold. So let's boycott these journals. Unfortunately, we still need to buy. Our university, pressured by our government makes sure of that. Buyers are better, it's well-known. If we don't buy someone else will and better kill than be killed. Publishing business is only an example of a more global business. Free journals and resources like arXiv may be alternatives but I believe it will take time. We're too deep in. I have a question: will we soon have to pay to get an article we authored? In the journals we publish in, we still get a free electronic version... for now.... Sorry I should not....
De: "Vladislav A. Yastrebov (Loomio)" [email protected]
À: "Philippe Leclaire isat"
Envoyé: Mercredi 22 Novembre 2017 14:25:55
Objet: [For an epi-journal in Mechanics] Reviewing for journals that charge authors