{"id":9402,"date":"2022-11-26T18:09:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T18:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9402"},"modified":"2022-11-26T18:09:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T18:09:45","slug":"tearing-down-the-academic-research-paywall-could-come-with-a-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9402","title":{"rendered":"Tearing down the academic research paywall could come with a price"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Right now, the majority of published scientific findings \u2014 and the vast majority of prestigious new research \u2014 is hidden behind paywalls. Most of the top scientific publications<\/a> charge readers high fees for access, with prices that are rising faster than inflation<\/a>. An annual membership with Nature<\/em><\/a> costs $199, Science<\/em>starts at $79 per year<\/a>, and The Lancet<\/em><\/a> charges $227. And these are only a few of the hundreds of journals<\/a> where new research appears.
This money goes to publishers, not to the academics who actually write scientific papers.”
…
“in a bid to tear down the paywall and make science more accessible to all, the White House last month announced new guidelines<\/a> requiring that all taxpayer-funded research, including data used for a study, be made public<\/a> at no cost by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden plan is one of the biggest wins yet for the \u201copen science<\/a>\u201d movement. In practice, it often refers to publishing the papers that describe new scientific findings immediately and without paywalls. It can also include publicly sharing full datasets and code used for analysis.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Freeing research largely paid for by taxpayer money can seem like a no-brainer, but over time, the potential downsides<\/a> of open science efforts like the Plan S mandate have become more apparent. While pay-to-publish but free-to-read platforms bring more research to the public,they can add barriers for researchers and worsen some existing inequalities<\/a> in academia. Scientific publishing will remain a for-profit industry<\/a> and a highly lucrative<\/a> one for publishers. Shifting the fees onto authors doesn\u2019t change this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the newly founded open-access journals<\/a> drop the fees entirely, but even if they\u2019re not trying to make a profit, they still need to cover their operating costs. They fall back on ad revenue<\/a>, individual donations<\/a> or philanthropic grants<\/a>, corporate sponsorship<\/a>, and even crowdfunding<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But open-access platforms often lack the prestige of well-known top journals like Nature<\/em>. Scientists early in their careers \u2014 as well as those at less wealthy universities<\/a> in low-income countries<\/a> \u2014 often rely on precarious, short-term<\/a> grant funding to carry out their research. Their career<\/a> depends on putting out an impressive publication record<\/a>, which is already an uphill battle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The established journals are reluctant to commit to open access, since submission fees may deter potential researchers from sending in their work. And if journals don\u2019t charge submission fees or reader subscriptions, they\u2019ll have to turn to other sources of income, which may be unsustainable in the long run.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2022\/9\/18\/23356630\/open-science-academic-research-paywall-biden<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Right now, the majority of published scientific findings \u2014 and the vast majority of prestigious new research \u2014 is hidden behind paywalls. Most of the top scientific publications charge readers high fees for access, with prices that are rising faster than inflation. An annual membership with Nature costs $199, Science starts at $79 per year, and The Lancet charges $227. And these are only a few of the hundreds of journals where new research appears.<\/p>\n

This money goes to publishers, not to the academics who actually write scientific papers.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“in a bid to tear down the paywall and make science more accessible to all, the White House last month announced new guidelines requiring that all taxpayer-funded research, including data used for a study, be made public at no cost by the end of 2025.
\nThe Biden plan is one of the biggest wins yet for the \u201copen science\u201d movement. In practice, it often refers to publishing the papers that describe new scientific findings immediately and without paywalls. It can also include publicly sharing full datasets and code used for analysis.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Freeing research largely paid for by taxpayer money can seem like a no-brainer, but over time, the potential downsides of open science efforts like the Plan S mandate have become more apparent. While pay-to-publish but free-to-read platforms bring more research to the public, they can add barriers for researchers and worsen some existing inequalities in academia. Scientific publishing will remain a for-profit industry and a highly lucrative one for publishers. Shifting the fees onto authors doesn\u2019t change this.<\/p>\n

Many of the newly founded open-access journals drop the fees entirely, but even if they\u2019re not trying to make a profit, they still need to cover their operating costs. They fall back on ad revenue, individual donations or philanthropic grants, corporate sponsorship, and even crowdfunding.<\/p>\n

But open-access platforms often lack the prestige of well-known top journals like Nature. Scientists early in their careers \u2014 as well as those at less wealthy universities in low-income countries \u2014 often rely on precarious, short-term grant funding to carry out their research. Their career depends on putting out an impressive publication record, which is already an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

The established journals are reluctant to commit to open access, since submission fees may deter potential researchers from sending in their work. And if journals don\u2019t charge submission fees or reader subscriptions, they\u2019ll have to turn to other sources of income, which may be unsustainable in the long run.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[94,870,1767],"class_list":["post-9402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-colleges","tag-research","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9403,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions\/9403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}