Commentary: Open questions on transitioning to open access

“The business model issue in the scholarly publishing industry is quite complex and it will require that all key participants (publishers, academic institutions & researchers) truly work together towards a new model. There are quite a few concerns over the author pay model that the community has not fully addressed. If the UK's model of the author paying for the publishing of the articles, goes into effect, who is going to bear the tremendous transition cost that the publishers will bear? The scholarly publishing industry is a $27B dollar industry1 (at least in the science, technology and medical sector of it), and if the academic libraries canceled all of their subscriptions in anticipation of this new model it will create havoc on the whole industry. The industry as a whole really needs to give thought as to how the business model can be transitioned to achieve the objectives of all parties. It will require the publishing community to take reasonable risks, but not risks that are going to undermine the integrity of not only the publishing process but the peer review process as well. The UK report did not address how the institutions will manage the process of determining which researchers will be provided the necessary funds to publish their papers. Will this new process slow up the publishing process? Will they need to have a peer review process to determine which papers warrant the necessary institutional funding to support the page charges? If this new process were to be put in place would some researchers be on the outside, as their papers might not be considered for the institutions funds due to a host of reasons? This new process would create a double peer review process... As this industry has developed over the past few centuries, it is very important that we allow the natural forces of the marketplace to take hold and yield a new model. By allowing these natural forces to take hold, it will allow for innovation, good competition and a steady progression to a new model. What about the issues and concerns over the ethics of the author pay model? Some folks have questioned the validity of some of the articles published and have suggested that they would not have been published if they were submitted to a commercial publisher. What is the answer to this industry problem? We have seen new developments like elifesciences.org that is offering to publish submitted and peer-reviewed articles at no cost to anyone. While they have received funding from the Wellcome Trust, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Howard Hughes Medical Medical Institute to help them launch their initiative, this funding does have an expiration date. This type of initiative is going to allow the scholarly publishing industry to gain further experience over the next few years while maintaining the high level of peer review and integrity. We are also seeing the commercial publishers launch more open access journals as well. We really need to give the industry time to migrate towards a model that will allow all of the required quality inputs that are needed to publish quality scholarly literature... This new frontier is full of fresh opportunities. Fresh opportunities for the scholarly publishing industry to blend the time trusted best practices of scholarly publishing with the new and exciting technology and tools that are at our disposal to use. How will semantic technology, video coupled with SmartTV and other devices enhance the delivery of scientific research? ...”