Should privately published research be open-access to all? - The Reflector: Opinion

"Scientists in America often get their research funds from government institutions like the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  While these institutions pull their funds from federal taxes, often the federally-funded scientists do not publish their work at all, or they only publish in private journals that have subscription fees.  Therefore an interesting debate exists over whether or not scientists should all publish their work mandatorily on the Internet for everyone, from taxpayer to scientist, to see.    In February, the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) mandated that if federal funds funded the research, then any ensuing scientific journal papers must be made publicly available.  This could be a problem, as the only way journals distribute to the general public effectively is through online publication.  According to Marcia McNutt’s editorial in the Oct. 4 edition of 'Science' online, open-access journals that often have much lower standards of scientific rigor have increased recently.   'Much of the growth in journals has been in open-access titles, a trend that has improved access to scientific information,' McNutt said. 'But the open-access business model depends on a high volume of published papers for financial viability, leaving little time for the deliberative process of traditional peer review.'  Michael Lucibella describes in the October issue of 'American Physical Society News' the sheer logistical problem that the federal mandate to publish everything open-access will pose.   'Many of the details of how and where this data will be stored are still unclear, and the timeframe is still uncertain,' Lucibella said.   Attempts to compile entire fields of research together into single online databases will require promethean efforts and will likely meet serious challenges as many fields cross over each other.  Scientific publications face a crisis if all federally-funded scientists have to publish open-access.  The reason open-access journals have lower standards is because of their source of income. According to Richard Stone and Barbara Jasny’s special section in the Oct. 4 issue of 'Science,' open-access journals require a higher volume to get the same profit margins as a traditional print journal ... Whenever anyone wants to publish his or her research online, his or she has to pay the journal since editors and Internet servers are not free.  Similarly, we are even less likely to ever see a printed journal publish without a subscription fee, as printing costs are simply too high for print journals to publish in large quantities while pushing all cost to the scientists.  This logistics question then arises: how do we publish a large volume of scientific papers without sacrificing the quality filter of peer review and without prohibitively large publication fees?  I would suggest passing the costs of publishing to the funding agencies.  Continue to require the scientists to publish their research and pay their publication fee, but with a small change.  Since the funds for the research come from some federal agency, simply have that agency provide an extra item in those funds, this one explicitly for publication fees.  This will allow and even encourage scientists to publish their research.    Additionally, if the funding agencies and the online journals can work together and ultimately agree to have higher publication fees in exchange for lower volume and higher academic rigor then most of the problems with open-access should resolve themselves.    Some agencies have already made steps to do just this.  According to publicaccess.nih.gov, the NIH has already begun to reimburse the publication fees for its researchers ..."