Abstract
This chapter summarizes briefly the cost factors involved in publishing scientific journals as print and/or electronic media. Different business models to cover the expenses are introduced. Classical subscriber-based models are opposed to the increasing number of author-based paying schemes which are commonly collected under the expression ‘open access’. The concept of open access publishing and its peculiarities are briefly addressed.
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Notes
- 1.
Elsevier replied in an open letter to this criticism and claimed ‘distortions and misstatements of fact’ [4].
- 2.
Typical disciplines from the humanities are, for example, languages, literature, religion and art. Typical disciplines from social sciences are, for example, economics, education, law and political science.
- 3.
A similar trend can be observed for books where the e-book is the most convenient form of distribution and ensures that content is read. Hard copies of books are only demanded by authors (psychological effect: an author likes to have his own book printed over his table or in his bookshelf) and used for advertisement purpose, for example, in the scope of book fairs or conferences.
- 4.
Sometimes called ‘toll-access literature’.
- 5.
Some publishers, in particular IEEE, require overlength and other charges which can be quite expensive.
- 6.
An author contributes, however, in the case of public institutions through his taxes in an indirect way.
- 7.
In the case of ‘sponsored open access’, an association covers the open access fees. An example is the ‘Gold Bulletin’, the journal of gold science, technology and applications where the fees are sponsored by the World Gold Council.
- 8.
Director of the Harvard Open Access Project.
- 9.
It should be noted here that the relocation of the costs to the individual author may establish new barriers if the author and/or its institution cannot cover the required fees.
- 10.
The consent to OA commonly comprises unrestricted reading, downloading, copying, sharing, storing, printing, searching, linking, and crawling of the full-text version of an article.
- 11.
Typical exceptions are topics related to defence, patent applications and royalty generating publications as in the case of books.
- 12.
The international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal PLoS ONE may be mentioned here. This journal is published by the PLoS (Public Library of Science), a nonprofit organization and applies a rigorous peer-review process which is clearly indicated on their home page. In addition, PLoS ONE provides tools which allow commenting and rating by readers and thus assessing and discussing the published work (PLoS One concept).
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Öchsner, A. (2013). Publishing Companies, Publishing Fees, and Open Access Journals. In: Introduction to Scientific Publishing. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38646-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38646-6_4
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