The Winnower :: Real Peer To Peer Review

pyoung's bookmarks 2013-09-19

Summary:

" ... Once your work is deemed acceptable by your peers (2-4 peers that is!) it’s published and you’re sent a bill.  The cost:  a few thousand dollars!  Your published paper is now available to be read by those willing to pay to see it.  Sadly, the public, who funds most of the scientific research through their tax dollars, must pay publishers ten to ninety dollars per paper to access it.  To emphasize this point, the public must not only pay for the initial research they must also pay to read it!  Can you imagine if we had to pay tolls on the roads our tax dollars went towards building?  Scientists, who are the most common readers of scientific literature, can generally read the work of other scientists at no cost to them but can often only do so because the universities or institutions they work at have paid thousands of dollars to publishers for access.   Science publishers must be providing something of value in order for scientists to pay thousands of dollars to have their work published, right?  They do, and that thing is prestige, but that’s about it ... There have been semi-successful attempts to change how scientific research is published with the rise of open-access publications.  Open-access publications are, as the name suggests, open for anyone to access/read for free. However, while open-access publishing has made research reports more accessible, it has only partially addressed the problems with science publishing.  For one, it’s done nothing to lower the cost of publishing.  In fact, open access articles typically cost more to publish than subscription based articles because of 'article processing fees'- a savvy ploy that allows publishers to simply maintain their bottom line while appealing to those concerned with open-access.  Additionally, publishing is still remarkably slow despite the use of Internet communication ... First, all science publications should be open-access and the cost of publishing should be reasonable.  Second, all steps in the publication process should be transparent and open. Accordingly, The Winnower will employ post-publication peer review (i.e. peer review by everyone and anyone after publication).  Lastly, to incentivize the efforts of scientists reviewing papers, the best reviewers, as judged by the scientific community, should be able to publish their work for free.  Based on these principles, The Winnower will be an open-access online science publisher that will charge a flat rate of $100 per publication utilizing transparent post-publication peer review.  This means that once one’s work is ready for publication it can be uploaded to The Winnower’s website for immediate publication where it’s then available to be read and reviewed by all ... "

Link:

http://thewinnower.com/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » pyoung's bookmarks
Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.peer_review oa. business_models oa.gold oa.publishers oa.comment oa.costs oa.prestige oa.prices oa.fees oa.journals

Date tagged:

09/19/2013, 09:51

Date published:

09/19/2013, 03:41