Science for all - 360

"Scientists or their institutions must often pay high subscription fees to multiple journals to keep up with what’s happening in their field. In response to complaints about high and rising subscription fees, the publishing houses have brought in different forms of ‘open access’, or free-to-read journals. In order to pay for the cost of curating the journals, and vetting and editing the papers, the journals may charge an up-front fee to publish.

Prestigious journal Science explains that this “allow[s] their rigorous peer review shepherded by professional editors, careful editing, access to all relevant data, striking and informative visuals, and an engaging website. Importantly, we put substantial post-publication resources into preventing misinformation by informing accurate coverage of research through mainstream and social media.”

From January 1, Science will begin allowing authors to republish their papers on a university server for free. The shift comes hot on the heels of a new US government policy requiring taxpayer funded research to be freely available.

About 20 years after the internet first threatened to upset the scientific publishing world, it seems real change is coming. A plethora of different ways of sharing scientific findings are proliferating, from draft papers on ‘pre-print’ servers, to university-hosted repositories. As science faces global challenges, the need to quickly and equitably share information will only increase. The fledging publishing models being explored today may become the engine of world change in the near future...."