Editorials: The impact of digital dissemination for research and scholarship

" ... While it is no longer necessary to charge subscription fees, funding high quality journals by other means can be difficult and can potentially create its own set of problems. In the scientific disciplines, particularly in North America and Europe, article processing charges (APCs) paid by the authors, their funding agency or institution are becoming the predominant means of funding OA journals [2]. The APC model seems to be working reasonably well in fields such as cancer medicine that are heavily supported by grant funding but it is far from perfect. Researchers from countries with the least resources are the ones that are most likely to end up paying APCs out of their pocket [3]. Fortunately many reputable journals like ecancermedicalscience offer waivers for authors who do not have grants or other sources of funding for publication fees. Granting waivers however makes it even more challenging to fund journals despite the efficiencies gained through digital publication. Most funding agencies will pay APCs either from separate funds or as an allowable cost on grants they provide. When funding agencies are willing to pay the full price of an APC no matter what a publisher charges, it becomes difficult to maintain an efficient APC publishing market where authors consider the price of an APC when choosing where to publish [4]. The APC model has also spawned low quality pseudo-journals that are seeking to make money by publishing what is largely junk science. These issues are starting to be addressed but remain real challenges for broadly implementing the APC funded OA model. What is often overlooked is that there is a variety of mechanisms for making scholarly articles freely available. Most OA journals and about half the OA articles are not funded by APCs. Latin American universities for example have a long tradition of supporting scholarly journals that was in place well before digital dissemination. These universities have traditionally funded the full cost of publishing journals including making copies freely available to other libraries upon request. With the advent of digital dissemination this tradition has been extended through nationally and internationally funded web-based portals. The Scientific Library Online (SciELO) alone has made over eleven hundred journals and nearly a half a million articles available on the Internet while Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y El Caribe, España y Portugal (Redalyc) disseminates over 900 journals that have published approximately 350,000 articles. A growing number of universities in North America and Europe are also expanding their OA scholarly publishing capabilities and a new professional organization, the Library Publishing Coalition, has recently been formed in support of scholarly publishing offices and the OA journals they maintain ..."