4 ms·

One thing I really wonder is wheather those costs are actually necessary for simple online publications: - Peer review is basically "free", meaning it's done b

One thing I really wonder is wheather those costs are actually necessary for simple online publications: - Peer review is basically "free", meaning it's done by volunteers without compensation. - Hosting cost is magnitudes lower than publication/reading fees. A few dollars per paper should be enough by far. - Organisation of peer reviewing, editing and so on imposes some costs, but a lot of it could be automated and the remaining cost per published paper should still be quite low. So, would it be technically possible to create such journals? Of course, prestige might be a hurdle, but given some high-profile researchers would join as editors initially, that could work out.

rlayton2 8y ago
Prestige is a made up concept to keep the big players at the top. If the paper is good then it shouldn't matter where it's published.
- fwip 8y ago
  You've got it backwards though. A paper isn't good because it's in Nature - it's in Nature because it's good.
  - rlayton2 8y ago
    I'm actually more concerned about the negative (your statement is mostly true), i.e. "if it's in a second-tier journal, it doesn't exist". Sure, some just look for an outlet for their crappy research, but the publication outlet shouldn't be used as a shortcut to evaluating quality.
fourthark 8y ago
I have heard the organization, editing, and publication cost is underestimated because it's really boring work and not as automatible as you might think. But it's still not high enough to justify journal subscription prices. I don't know if typical open access journal fees are lower margin or not.
Vinnl 8y ago
The challenges are really not in the publishing infrastructure. Your assumption that some (where "some" really should be "pretty many" in absolute numbers) high-profile researchers would join does not seem likely, unfortunately. For some examples by some people who are spending a lot of effort trying to convince editors to do so: https://gitlab.com/publishing-reform/discussion/blob/master/Fair%20Open%20Access/Some%20responses%20of%20editors%20when%20approached%20to%20convert%20their%20journal%20to%20Fair%20Open%20Access.md https://gitlab.com/publishing-reform/discussion/blob/master/...

rlayton2 8y ago

Prestige is a made up concept to keep the big players at the top. If the paper is good then it shouldn't matter where it's published.

fwip 8y ago
You've got it backwards though. A paper isn't good because it's in Nature - it's in Nature because it's good.
- rlayton2 8y ago
  I'm actually more concerned about the negative (your statement is mostly true), i.e. "if it's in a second-tier journal, it doesn't exist". Sure, some just look for an outlet for their crappy research, but the publication outlet shouldn't be used as a shortcut to evaluating quality.

fourthark 8y ago

I have heard the organization, editing, and publication cost is underestimated because it's really boring work and not as automatible as you might think. But it's still not high enough to justify journal subscription prices. I don't know if typical open access journal fees are lower margin or not.

Vinnl 8y ago

The challenges are really not in the publishing infrastructure. Your assumption that some (where "some" really should be "pretty many" in absolute numbers) high-profile researchers would join does not seem likely, unfortunately. For some examples by some people who are spending a lot of effort trying to convince editors to do so: https://gitlab.com/publishing-reform/discussion/blob/master/Fair%20Open%20Access/Some%20responses%20of%20editors%20when%20approached%20to%20convert%20their%20journal%20to%20Fair%20Open%20Access.md https://gitlab.com/publishing-reform/discussion/blob/master/...