3 ms·

As another commenter alluded to, the cost to host PDFs is barely a factor in the cost of the whole process. The bulk of the cost is the paid staff and the syste

As another commenter alluded to, the cost to host PDFs is barely a factor in the cost of the whole process. The bulk of the cost is the paid staff and the systems required to run the submission and peer review process. Yes, reviewers review for free. But often there are paid editors and there is always significant staff to handle the submissions, find appropriate reviewers, follow up on the process, and ensure that the whole thing actually gets done, check for plagiarism and fraud, etc. That's not to say it's a particularly good system. The whole process of submission, revise and resubmit, rejection, submit to another journal, etc can take many many months (or even years) and traditional peer review isn't perfect (or even close to it) by any means. But arguing that there are no costs involved is simply false. If we look at non-profit publishers like PLoS we see processing charges between $1,500 - $3,000 per article. And you have to realize that there are multiple kinds of peer review, at a basic level it breaks down to two categories, what I'll call "methodological review" and "impact review". PLoS One, for example, only does methodological review. So at no point in that process is anyone trying to assess the importance of the paper. eLife is a newer open access publisher going a bit the other way, trying to have a journal selecting for importance of the caliber of Nature, Cell, etc. Their initial costs (these numbers are a few years old) came out to be about $14,000 per article. Depending on how you approach peer review and what services you are trying to provide you can certainly get the cost down, but I have yet to see a model that can get down below about $700 per article (still only doing methodological review). Sci-Hub can be cheap because it piggy backs on the process after the vetting and curation are done. But that's like comparing apple to oranges.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
"Sci-Hub can be cheap because it piggy backs on the process after the vetting and curation are done. But that's like comparing apple to oranges." Thats actually the most important counter in your post. It's a good point as they do effectively piggyback on the curation process. I think there's still a smaller comparison to be made if we look at the web. All kinds of people post all kinds of stuff. Good stuff eventually makes it into paid or free places that curate it for various communities. Yet, I can access any of these public sites at any time. I can look myself, follow a recommendation made on a forum, go to a free site offering links to good resources, or go to paid site claiming higher quality. Whereas, with main publishers in academia, I have no such options: paid, expensive, and for a long time. Let's get to the costs you describe, though, as it's the meat of your counter. "If we look at non-profit publishers like PLoS" Doing that was going to be my proposal as they filter out the fat that comes with management-heavy for-profits. Good you beat me to it. ""methodological review" and "impact review". " Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? "processing charges between $1,500 - $3,000 per article" That should be easy to cover with non-exhorbitant, subscription models plus some charge to submitting organization. Such articles, after costs recovered, should become free with journal subscription. I think your organization is already doing something like that with one of the startups, though. "came out to be about $14,000 per article." This is where publishers won't be able to absorb the costs unless they're charging an arm and a leg. I think the article's recommendation of it coming out of grant money of submitting organization is best one. Want to get prestige? Then review is a cost of doing it. Could be uphill battle but I agree nobody can offer anything free unless such costs are covered externally or with charges for a period of time.
- dougmccune 10y ago
  > Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? You can read PLOS One's criteria here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication or their reviewer guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines which states: Unlike many journals which attempt to use the peer review process to determine whether or not an article reaches the level of 'importance' required by a given journal, PLOS ONE uses peer review to determine whether a paper is technically sound and worthy of inclusion in the published scientific record. So basically they've removed any assessment whatsoever about the "importance" of the work, but keep the aspect that assesses for scientific soundness. One note on that is that it allows you to use a broader pool of reviewers. If I'm looking for reviewers to assess the impact of a certain study, I'm going to need potentially very specific people who deeply know the field and how this particular study falls in the context of other noteworthy studies. However, if I only need reviewers to assess scientific soundness I can include a larger pool of reviewers for each paper, since theoretically someone's ability to assess scientific method doesn't require quite the same deep expertise (obviously there's still a good amount of expertise required, just not within the specific micro sub-specialty). So the theory is that that allows you to do faster peer review and accept more papers because 1) you don't have to be so specific with regard to finding the right reviewers, 2) the review itself is faster because the reviewer can focus purely on methodology, not on importance, and 3) you can accept everything that meets the methodology bar. And remember that the revenue of these types of journals is directly related to how many articles are accepted because it's purely author pays upon acceptance. But other than those distinctions in general the peer review process is the same as a traditional journal. Typically at least 2 reviewers, and either single-blind (which is the case for PLOS and others like PeerJ) or double-blind. And typically the process can take a few rounds, because the reviewers can reject a paper in its current form but ask for a revision and then re-review the new version. The PLOS pricing is listed here: https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ PLOS One is their megajournal that does the type of methodological review discussed above. Other PLOS journals, like PLOS Biology have different review criteria (and higher author charges) that does include importance as a factor (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-re...).

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"Sci-Hub can be cheap because it piggy backs on the process after the vetting and curation are done. But that's like comparing apple to oranges." Thats actually the most important counter in your post. It's a good point as they do effectively piggyback on the curation process. I think there's still a smaller comparison to be made if we look at the web. All kinds of people post all kinds of stuff. Good stuff eventually makes it into paid or free places that curate it for various communities. Yet, I can access any of these public sites at any time. I can look myself, follow a recommendation made on a forum, go to a free site offering links to good resources, or go to paid site claiming higher quality. Whereas, with main publishers in academia, I have no such options: paid, expensive, and for a long time. Let's get to the costs you describe, though, as it's the meat of your counter. "If we look at non-profit publishers like PLoS" Doing that was going to be my proposal as they filter out the fat that comes with management-heavy for-profits. Good you beat me to it. ""methodological review" and "impact review". " Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? "processing charges between $1,500 - $3,000 per article" That should be easy to cover with non-exhorbitant, subscription models plus some charge to submitting organization. Such articles, after costs recovered, should become free with journal subscription. I think your organization is already doing something like that with one of the startups, though. "came out to be about $14,000 per article." This is where publishers won't be able to absorb the costs unless they're charging an arm and a leg. I think the article's recommendation of it coming out of grant money of submitting organization is best one. Want to get prestige? Then review is a cost of doing it. Could be uphill battle but I agree nobody can offer anything free unless such costs are covered externally or with charges for a period of time.

dougmccune 10y ago
> Do you have a link to what goes into methodological review, esp good review, so I can try to assess how to reduce its cost? You can read PLOS One's criteria here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication or their reviewer guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines which states: Unlike many journals which attempt to use the peer review process to determine whether or not an article reaches the level of 'importance' required by a given journal, PLOS ONE uses peer review to determine whether a paper is technically sound and worthy of inclusion in the published scientific record. So basically they've removed any assessment whatsoever about the "importance" of the work, but keep the aspect that assesses for scientific soundness. One note on that is that it allows you to use a broader pool of reviewers. If I'm looking for reviewers to assess the impact of a certain study, I'm going to need potentially very specific people who deeply know the field and how this particular study falls in the context of other noteworthy studies. However, if I only need reviewers to assess scientific soundness I can include a larger pool of reviewers for each paper, since theoretically someone's ability to assess scientific method doesn't require quite the same deep expertise (obviously there's still a good amount of expertise required, just not within the specific micro sub-specialty). So the theory is that that allows you to do faster peer review and accept more papers because 1) you don't have to be so specific with regard to finding the right reviewers, 2) the review itself is faster because the reviewer can focus purely on methodology, not on importance, and 3) you can accept everything that meets the methodology bar. And remember that the revenue of these types of journals is directly related to how many articles are accepted because it's purely author pays upon acceptance. But other than those distinctions in general the peer review process is the same as a traditional journal. Typically at least 2 reviewers, and either single-blind (which is the case for PLOS and others like PeerJ) or double-blind. And typically the process can take a few rounds, because the reviewers can reject a paper in its current form but ask for a revision and then re-review the new version. The PLOS pricing is listed here: https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ https://www.plos.org/publications/publication-fees/ PLOS One is their megajournal that does the type of methodological review discussed above. Other PLOS journals, like PLOS Biology have different review criteria (and higher author charges) that does include importance as a factor (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/editorial-and-peer-re...).