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Researchers are already paying to get their articles published. Given how much journal subscription costs, that cost is a fraction of the taxpayer money that is
by obtu 15y ago
Researchers are already paying to get their articles published. Given how much journal subscription costs, that cost is a fraction of the taxpayer money that is spent buying back the articles for the university libraries the same researchers use.
- jedbrown 15y agoIt depends what institution you are at and how much research funding you have. If you are a professor at a small teaching university (even in the US), a few publications per year in open access journals is the same cost as supporting a student for a year. Depending on the field and how established you, obtaining research funding can take a lot of time that might be better spent doing actual science. (This is true at all levels, but in high-profile fields, the grant sizes are large enough that publishing costs are almost negligible.) Although I am friends with David (the author of this blog post), I do not agree that open access is fundamentally the wrong model, but his argument is not without merit.
- abrahamsen 15y agoHow much does a "small teaching university" pay for access to scientific journals? I'd guess that a "teaching university" would have nearly the same need for access (if the teaching is any good), but much less need for submission, compared to a "research university", so the teaching university should benefit from shifting cost from access to submission.