4 ms·
Honestly, they should just flip the journal funding model on its head. Instead of readers paying for subscriptions, publishing institutions can pay for publica
by a-dub 8y ago
Honestly, they should just flip the journal funding model on its head. Instead of readers paying for subscriptions, publishing institutions can pay for publication rights. In fact, they could probably take all the subscription money they get from institutions and change nothing but the name (something like "authorship fee", "membership fee" or "institutional publication service fee" or whatever). make the journals open access and not feel any change at all in revenue.
Besides, if you look at the money, fancy journals are responsible for a lot of funding that ends up in the coffers of researchers or the institutions that support them, so it really wouldn't be crazy. I read somewhere that a Science/Nature paper in some fields is thought to be worth >$1mm in funding.
- gowld 8y agoYou just invented the open access publishing model. https://www.plos.org/publication-fees https://www.plos.org/publication-fees It seems less profitable than the closed-access regime, since copyright is an economically powerful tool.
- a-dub 8y agoI don't know for sure, but I'd guess that the vast majority of NPG's revenue comes from institutional subscriptions and that the vast majority of those institutions make use of NPG's review/editorial process. I guess there's less of a notion of the accumulation of valuable property in the pay to publish regime. But seriously, just call the subscriptions "membership fees." Revenue would probably dip 5% from non-publisher subscriptions and things would stabilize. It would also neutralize the threat of open access journals gaining more ground.