As Academic Journals Move Toward Open Access, Some in the Industry Take Action to Reduce Inequity

"For example, on the path to open access, one of the many models that publishers have used is called the hybrid model, making papers pay-to-read unless authors cover an additional processing fee to publish their work under open access. Inequity arises when the additional costs prevent those who cannot afford them from sharing their scientific work with a broader audience beyond the circle of journal subscribers.

Cognizant of this issue, some players in the publishing industry have moved to course-correct. Recently, the American Physical Society (APS) announced that it will cover all article costs for publishing in its journals for scientists at nonprofit institutions in over 115 countries and territories, as well as refugee camps, this year onward. Under the new policy, eligible authors from lower- and middle-income countries will automatically qualify for a waiver of any article publishing fees when they publish in the APS journal collection. APS has also partnered with the organization Research4Life to give free subscriptions to its journal collection to researchers from these communities....

While fee waivers are a laudable start, researchers say more needs to be done to hasten the inexorable rise of open access and make sure its rollout is equitable.

Some countries are exploring open access options beyond the hybrid model. The Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) network is a coalition that includes over a dozen countries, such as South Africa and several Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations across Latin America and Europe, that publishes research from member countries under the diamond open access model, in which both publishing and reader access come at no cost. The goal is to publish research by local researchers for local researchers and on locally relevant topics. As another example, one of APS’s own journals, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams (PRAB), operates under the diamond open access model, with no charges for authors and no subscription fees for readers....