4 ms·

Under the Horizon 2020 programme, open access publishing (green or gold) is already mandatory today for all EU/EC funded projects. Grant proposals must incorpor

by brodo 10y ago

Under the Horizon 2020 programme, open access publishing (green or gold) is already mandatory today for all EU/EC funded projects. Grant proposals must incorporate open access fees in order to be accepted. It's not much money for most project consortiums as the EU tends to fund big projects with budgets of ~10 million € and more as the norm (there are smaller ones, but ~2 million is really as small as it gets as far as I know). So a couple of 10K€ won't make that much of a difference. If it would become mandatory for all publicly research in the EU, the problem would be quite different. There are really small grants (50K€ and smaller) and if you have 2 publications out of that grant, you now pay 10-20% of your grant money for publishing fees.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Gold open access needs to die, and "open access fees" with it. Seriously, there is no STEM field I know of where you can't find good journals that allow posting of preprints. Green open access solves all the problems at zero additional cost.
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  Gold open access is where the authors pay the journal a fee for open access publishing. I don't see what's wrong with that and actually I think it's the best approach. The journal offers a service (editing, hosting, ...) and charge for that. Very simple.
  - tagrun 10y ago
    If it was so simple as service -> $$$, they should be paying up the referees, which is the only task that requires rarely found scientific skills. I seriously can't see how editing, typesetting and hosting can host that much, or can make them a respectable journal. No-name journals (for which top scientists don't referee) have that too. BTW, Americal Physical Society journals don't even do that and outsource typesetting and editing.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    The main problem is that the open access fees are so insane. Publishers currently have ridiculous profit margins, and of course they're going to try and maintain them. Unless some US/EU regulations kick in and set a reasonable max limit to open access fees, the situation is just as bad (perhaps even worse) than the status quo: Now, researchers from "poor" universities, small research institutuons, third world countries etc. don't get full access to the published literatute. But at least they can publish freely. If gold open access becomes the standard, they won't afford publishing anymore.
    - tmalsburg2 10y ago
      > The main problem is that the open access fees are so insane. I'm confident that the market will take care of this. If there are people who can't or don't want to pay $3000 for an article and the profit margins are huge, there is room for journals who offer a better deal.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        I don't think so. The problem is that the market is completely dominated by a few big publishers, and that it's a really hard market to disrupt because everything is about prestige.
        tmalsburg2 10y ago
        The market has already started to change with new players like PlosOne and Peer-J successfully competing with the more traditional publishers.

by brodo 10y ago

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

Gold open access needs to die, and "open access fees" with it. Seriously, there is no STEM field I know of where you can't find good journals that allow posting of preprints. Green open access solves all the problems at zero additional cost.

tmalsburg2 10y ago
Gold open access is where the authors pay the journal a fee for open access publishing. I don't see what's wrong with that and actually I think it's the best approach. The journal offers a service (editing, hosting, ...) and charge for that. Very simple.
- tagrun 10y ago
  If it was so simple as service -> $$$, they should be paying up the referees, which is the only task that requires rarely found scientific skills. I seriously can't see how editing, typesetting and hosting can host that much, or can make them a respectable journal. No-name journals (for which top scientists don't referee) have that too. BTW, Americal Physical Society journals don't even do that and outsource typesetting and editing.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  The main problem is that the open access fees are so insane. Publishers currently have ridiculous profit margins, and of course they're going to try and maintain them. Unless some US/EU regulations kick in and set a reasonable max limit to open access fees, the situation is just as bad (perhaps even worse) than the status quo: Now, researchers from "poor" universities, small research institutuons, third world countries etc. don't get full access to the published literatute. But at least they can publish freely. If gold open access becomes the standard, they won't afford publishing anymore.
  - tmalsburg2 10y ago
    > The main problem is that the open access fees are so insane. I'm confident that the market will take care of this. If there are people who can't or don't want to pay $3000 for an article and the profit margins are huge, there is room for journals who offer a better deal.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      I don't think so. The problem is that the market is completely dominated by a few big publishers, and that it's a really hard market to disrupt because everything is about prestige.
      - tmalsburg2 10y ago
        The market has already started to change with new players like PlosOne and Peer-J successfully competing with the more traditional publishers.