Publishing in peer-reviewed journals

[MervinFerd]

Copyright?

That's right. But as ben m points out, there are substantial costs to running a journal, which have to be covered by page charges and subscriptions. And the astronomy journals that I'm talking about are not-for-profit. It will be interesting to see if costs drop in the future if they do eventually abandon the paper journal and go online only.

Now, many of us also post our papers, once accepted by a major journal, on astro-ph, which is freely available to everyone. astro-ph itself is not peer-reviewed, but it is a great place to find such work, as well as non-peer-reviewed work, such as lecture notes.

Normally, you sign over copyright to the Journal before publication. So, they might not be happy about having your paper publicly available immediately.

My understanding is that the journals would like to delay free online availability for a few months to preserve revenue from library and funded researcher subscriptions. Active scientists need immediate access to anything published in their fields and should be willing to pay for that. If the papers are available free immediately, there is not much point in paying for a subscription.

There's a substantial cost to publication, even for a non-profit and even without paper. Conceivably electronic publication could reduce the cost to the point where the journals could be published by professional societies through dues or grants or such.

But, there needs to be some equivalent of the permanent record and stamp of legitimacy created by paper journals.

 

[pgwenthold]

I haven't seen page charges in a chemistry journal in probably 10 years.

There used to be charges for color, but not any more.

 

[sol invictus]

Normally, you sign over copyright to the Journal before publication. So, they might not be happy about having your paper publicly available immediately.

Tough. In my opinion, any journal that doesn't allow public availability of a preprint should be boycotted and starved to death.

Science is far better served by openness and immediate and free access than it is by journals that charge exorbitant fees for subscriptions and often delay release of results for months or even years.

 

[bpesta22]

Tough. In my opinion, any journal that doesn't allow public availability of a preprint should be boycotted and starved to death.

Science is far better served by openness and immediate and free access than it is by journals that charge exorbitant fees for subscriptions and often delay release of results for months or even years.

Elsevier has a cool policy. Any prior version of the article except the final type-set published version is owned by the author. So, one can post a draft immediately, though the journal retains the rights on the version in its final form.

 

[pgwenthold]

Elsevier has a cool policy. Any prior version of the article except the final type-set published version is owned by the author. So, one can post a draft immediately, though the journal retains the rights on the version in its final form.

It's a good thing they allow that, because no one can afford their friggin subscriptions.

 

[ben m]

Normally, you sign over copyright to the Journal before publication. So, they might not be happy about having your paper publicly available immediately.

Heck, when you're submitting a paper to any of the Physical Review journals, they give you two options for how to upload it: (a) send them the paper, or (b) put the paper on the preprint server and send them the link.

 

[MervinFerd]

Tough. In my opinion, any journal that doesn't allow public availability of a preprint should be boycotted and starved to death.

They have lawyers. Presumably, they could do as the record companies have done and bring charges for copyright infringement. Though, as you say, that would likely result in boycott and starvation. (Which didn't stop the record companies.)

Science is far better served by openness and immediate and free access than it is by journals that charge exorbitant fees for subscriptions and often delay release of results for months or even years.

Of course. The question is how to fund the legitimate costs of editing and publication if there is no reason for anyone to subscribe to the journal.

NIH has moved toward requiring any work funded by them--just about everything in the biological sciences--to be publicly available. Last I checked, there was a delay permitted to allow for subscription revenue, but that may have changed.

 

[Startz]

In psych, it's very rare to pay to publish, and in fact suspicious. In other areas it seems much more common (economics is one that comes to mind).

Economics journals usually have submission fees on the order of $75-$150 for a manuscript. In many cases, these fees go entirely to the referees. Economics journals never charge a page fee.

 

[MervinFerd]

Elsevier has a cool policy. Any prior version of the article except the final type-set published version is owned by the author. So, one can post a draft immediately, though the journal retains the rights on the version in its final form.

That helps. The information is immediately available to anyone who needs it, but the journal can control the final archival product.

The internet, of course, provides for a lot of informal communication that used not to be available.

 

[sol invictus]

They have lawyers. Presumably, they could do as the record companies have done and bring charges for copyright infringement. Though, as you say, that would likely result in boycott and starvation. (Which didn't stop the record companies.)

I'm not advocating violating the copyright agreement. I'm saying put your preprint on the web first, then submit to a journal that is OK with that and with leaving it there. Don't submit to journals that aren't.

If enough people do that, pretty soon all the journals will be OK with it and everyone will be better off - especially researchers in poor countries that can't afford journal fees.

Of course. The question is how to fund the legitimate costs of editing and publication if there is no reason for anyone to subscribe to the journal.

There are a number of solutions to that, and the (many) journals that follow the policy I described seem to be doing just fine.

 

[NoisyAstronomer]

I'm not advocating violating the copyright agreement. I'm saying put your preprint on the web first, then submit to a journal that is OK with that and with leaving it there. Don't submit to journals that aren't.

If enough people do that, pretty soon all the journals will be OK with it and everyone will be better off - especially researchers in poor countries that can't afford journal fees.



There are a number of solutions to that, and the (many) journals that follow the policy I described seem to be doing just fine.

You're right, technically it's the preprint that gets posted to the astro-ph server. Some people post when they have submitted the paper, others after changes have been made at the request of the peer reviewer and it has been accepted. At that point, no actual content is going to change before publication. And it's a widespread enough practice in astronomy that the journals definitely don't seem to care.