The Open-Access Model of Journal Publishing – Association for Psychological Science – APS

"There is no dispute that the idea of OA is supreme. It’s like a dream. However, many dreams are pulled back by economic reality, and OA is not immune to this reality check. The publication of scholarly articles entails substantial costs, including editorial staff, peer-review and typesetting technology, and the systems needed to archive articles for future generations. Traditionally, these costs have been passed on to subscribers, including university libraries.

The idealistic prospect of OA makes it easy to forget that someone must still cover the cost. In the early years of OA, especially in Western Europe, the OA model was heavily subsidized by public institutions and private foundations. OA journals without such generous funding must look for other means to recover costs. That is where the article processing charge (APC) comes in. It is sometimes called the publication fee, and it is charged to authors...."