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Didi Park

Mr. Miller

English 11 P. 2

18 December 2013

Abolishing the Academic Paywall:

Replacing Paid-Subscription Journals with Open-Access Journals

One of the internets most attractive features is its ability to disseminate

information. It has changed the way scientists share their findings. New research

has been published in print scientific journals since the late 1600s 1, but modern

technology has brought on the advent of online scientific journals searchable in

databases. They allow for faster publishing and make it easier for users to find

papers on specific topics. However, many of these online databases require a paid

subscription, also known as a paywall for access. This isnt a big issue for many

members of academia, who can access these databases from their schools library

subscription. But why should access to scientific papers be limited to those

connected to institutions of higher learning, people who are often of high

socioeconomic status? Scientific articles should be available for everyone,

including high school students and amateurs.

Furthermore, the prices of subscriptions have been steadily rising 2a .

According to Stallman 3, the cost of editing for a typical paper is between 1% and

3% of the cost of funding the research t o produce it. In April 2012, The Harvard

University Library wrote a memorandum to the faculty stating that Many large

journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally

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unsustainable and academically restrictive. 4 Online journal publishing has

become more of a monopoly as large companies take over the market 2b .

I propose that the paywall be completely abolished and that scientific articles be

published in open-access journals. Costs would be accounted for by submission

fees. Those who publish are usually scientists whose careers depend on the

volume and quality of what they publish, so higher submission fees would not

necessarily discourage publishing. Open-access journals have been shown to

increase citations 5. Though open-access journals generally have lower funding

and less revenue than paid-subscription journals, they do not necessarily have

lower quality standards: the journal of the Public Library of Science was the only

journal out of many, including more prestigious ones, to reject a spoof paper 6.

Of course, there are problems with the abolishment of the paywall and the

establishment of purely open-access journals. As mentioned earlier, open access

journals charge the publisher (author of an article) much more than paid-

subscription journals, so that less well-established scientists have less

opportunity to publish. Open-access journals also have a higher variation in

quality because of a lack of quality peer review due to lower maintenance funds 7.

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Works Cited

1. http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2661

2. http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-

behind-a-paywall

a) price increases as high as 145% over the past 6 years

b) Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, account f or roughly 42% of all articles

published in the $19 billion plus academic publishing market for science,

technology, engineering, and medical topics

3. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/stallman.html

4. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-

journal-publishers-prices 5. http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-

together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/

6. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

7. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-

access-journals/

He identified 304 open access journals that publish in English. He

created a fake scientific paper with blatant fatal flaws that rendered the

research uninterpretable and the paper unpublishable. He actually created

304 versions of this paper by simply inserting different variables into the

same text, but keeping the science and the data the same. He then

submitted a version of the paper to all 304 journals under different fake

names from different fake universities (using African names to make it

seem plausible that they were obscure).

The result? over half of the papers were accepted for publication.

http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2661http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2661http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v09n03/mcguigan_g01.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/stallman.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/stallman.htmlhttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.fullhttp://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.fullhttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-problem-with-open-access-journals/http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.fullhttp://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/18/8200-strong-researchers-band-together-to-force-science-journals-to-open-access/http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-priceshttp://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/stallman.htmlhttp://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v09n03/mcguigan_g01.htmlhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywallhttp://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2661