The Science Peer Review "Sting": Pre-Green Fee-Based Fool's Gold vs. Post-Green No-Fault Fair-Gold
Amsciforum 2013-10-04
Summary:
The natural way to charge for the service of peer review once universal Green OA self-archiving mandates have prevailed will be on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying post-Green Fair-Gold OA journals for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality standards. To pay for Gold OA today, rather than to provide cost-free Green OA is to pay inflated Fool's Gold prices in exchange for uncertainty about peer-review quality standards.