

One Graduate Student's Commitment to Open Knowledge - tibbon
http://alexleavitt.com/oa/

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anonymouz
You may also want register with other, already ongoing, efforts like the
Elsevier boykott [1], that already have considerable momentum behind them. See
[2] for the reasoning behind it and why one publisher was picked as a starting
point.

For others considering this but who might find the OPs approach to radical in
that it may easily harm their own career: The Elsevier boykott sends a strong
message, while not interfering to much with ones career prospects.

[1] <http://thecostofknowledge.com/>

[2]
[http://gowers.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementf...](http://gowers.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementfinal.pdf)

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short_circut
What will you do when your PI refuses to pay for open access on a publication?

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rflrob
Or when your not-yet-tenured PI thinks you have something really exciting, and
wants to publish in $(BIG_NAME_JOURNAL) to improve her tenure prospects?

To be fair, the OP is in a Communications and Journalism grad program, so
there may not be a PI equivalent role. However, my impression is that most
academic publishing by volume is in the sciences, where there is such a model.

~~~
tibbon
It would seem to me that there's little reason that there can't be a high
impact factor, well respected journal, that is also open in its publication.

Yes, there need to be people working to format articles, review papers, etc...
but as we've seen in the FOSS community, there are alternative ways of making
money, using modern technology to assist in reducing costs (printing paper?
seems wasteful, expensive and silly).

Also, most of these higher impact journals charge significant fees to the
authors to publish openly with them. $5000 for Nature. Sure, that's a lot of
money- but I'd to imagine people would still send papers to Nature even if
they made that the requirement for all their papers. Also- is high of a fee
really needed? I mean there are costs, sure.. but it seems to push people away
from open publication, not toward it.

~~~
pyre
As it stands, a lot of the peer-reviewed for-profit/pay-only journals
basically get the reviewers to review the submitted papers for free. There are
obviously some number of employees, but as it stands, they already get a ton
of 'free' work done for them (so far as I understand it).

~~~
streptomycin
That's the same with open access journals too, though. The difference is, who
pays the costs the publishers face? Traditional publishers are funded by
subscriptions. Open access publishers are funded by charging authors big fees
to publish in their journals.

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michael_nielsen
Only some open access publishers work that way. Some charge no fees. Some ---
including the best known open access publisher, the Public Library of Science
--- will waive their fee upon request. I am told by people who've used the
waiver that it went ahead with no questions asked; they simply indicated that
they were not in a position to pay.

~~~
streptomycin
Who charges no fees? How do they survive?

And PLOS will waive their fee, but in practice that's rare. If all the people
currently paying little/nothing to submit to non-open access journals instead
submitted to PLOS and waived the fee, PLOS would be fucked and they'd have to
change their policy. After all, they have to pay a lot of salaries:
<http://www.plos.org/about/people/staff/>

~~~
michael_nielsen
A detailed answer to the question "Who charges no fees? How do they survive?"
may be found here:

[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-06.htm#n...](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-06.htm#nofee)

Note also the linked studies. Summary: the majority of OA journals don't
charge fees.

"in practice [PLoS fee waivers are] rare": well, among the people I've spoken
with, 100% who asked for a waiver got one. So at present it's apparently not
difficult to get a waiver. And when you say "they'd have to change their
policy" that simply does not follow. What is true is that they'd have to
figure out some way of funding it. Eliminating fee waivers is just one
approach. But there are many other ways it could be funded. What would matter
in that instance is how committed the people running PLoS are to the waiver.

