The future of equitable science publishing | Nightingale | Journal of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa

"This is where journals such as Journal of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (JCMSA) are different. The JCMSA articles are published open access with no APCs, with costs absorbed by the journal using funds raised separately. Not only does this render the system affordable to researchers in low-resource settings but it also has the interesting side effect of creating a functioning marketplace. The JCMSA pays a publisher a fee per article for typesetting and formatting and coordinating peer review. If next year a different publisher comes along offering the same service for $100.00 less per article, JCMSA can change provider to reduce cost. If the following year another publisher offers a higher quality or faster service for the same price, JCMSA could change provider to improve quality. Indeed, if an innovative tech entrepreneur finds a way to offer the same quality of service for a fraction of the cost using open-source publishing software and post-publication peer review,⁴ then JCMSA could consider it. Market forces drive innovation such that price approaches cost and quality is maximised.

Some free services such as this already exist, notably Wellcome Open Research and Open Research Africa who waive APCs for members of affiliated institutions. However, to date some researchers have been reluctant to publish their best research in these journals, fearing they will lose the prestige and the career benefits associated with a publication in high-impact journals.

In my opinion, the only way to create behaviour change among researchers towards the widespread adoption of an equitable publishing system is to remove the prestige associated with publishing in higher-impact journals. Systems for hiring, promotion and grant funding should be changed such that the quality and impact of a researcher’s output is not judged by the journals they have published in. This is not a novel or controversial assertion; the DORA declaration – which has been signed by many of the world’s major institutions including UCT – expressly states that we should move away from journal impact factors towards article-level metrics.⁵ However, no such alternative system has been widely adopted and we continue to use the journal as a surrogate measure of quality. If we can move away from this towards a better system of validation, then open access platforms without APCs, such as JCMSA, will be adopted for all levels of research output. This represents an exciting opportunity for change towards a genuinely equitable system of science dissemination."