Don't Believe the Publishers' Hype: Support Open Access. Once again, we are seeing entrenched interests try to fight the future with scare tactics and misinformation. This time, it's major journal publishers, and their target is open access to taxpayer-funded research. First things first: The reason the publishers are on the warpath is that state and federal legislators are looking to expand open access. One of the leading bills is California's open access bill (AB 609). This legislation is being discussed in the Assembly's Appropriations Committee tomorrow. If you're a California resident, now is the time to contact your Assembly member and ask that they support public access to taxpayer-funded research. Now for a dose of reality.
But they aren't happy about it and they certainly don't want expansion. Most recently, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) sent a letter to the California Assembly's Appropriations Committee full of numbers and allegations that would scare anyone—if only they were based in fact. Making the case for open access books | Simon Chaplin | Science. A policy requiring open access to academic books? Surely that's asking for trouble? After all, it was only a few months ago that many humanities researchers were up in arms when Research Councils UK (RCUK) implemented its new policy on open access to journal articles.
Although such measures are broadly accepted in the sciences, the RCUK policy was criticised by the Royal Historical Society, among others, for being a blunt instrument, insensitive to the differences that mark out historians from histologists. Given the anguish that RCUK's policy caused, the announcement last week that the Wellcome Trust – a major funder of biomedical research – has now extended its open access policy to include books and book chapters might seem a little, well, insensitive. After all, the Trust's long-standing policy on open access to journal articles was seen by many as having beaten the path for RCUK's approach. These types of books reach the audiences they are designed for. The dark side of open access journals? The New York Times has an article on the rise of predatory, fake science journals — these are journals put out by commercial interests with titles that sound vaguely like the real thing, but are not legitimate in any sense of the word.
They exist only for the resource that open access publishing also uses, the dreaded page charge. PLoS (a good science journal), for instance, covers their publishing costs by charging authors $1350; these parasitic publishers see that as easy money, and put up cheap web-based “journals”, draw in contributors, and then charge the scientists for publishing, often without announcing the page charges up front, and often charging much, much more than PLoS. Nature has also weighed in on problematic journals, again emphasizing that it’s a bad side of open access. One really useful resource, though, is this list of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals. Ha ha ha ha. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Scientist humor. Open access journals. All articles published in Elsevier open access journals are peer reviewed and upon acceptance will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download.
Permitted reuse is defined by your choice of user license. Published articles: Are fully peer reviewed Are immediately free to access and download from ScienceDirect Permitted re-use defined by the author's choice of Creative Commons user licenses Published with CrossMark® to maintain the publication record Open access publication fee In open access journals a fee is payable by the author, institution or research funder to cover the costs associated with publication. Fees range from $500-$5000USD. Funding body agreements Elsevier has established agreements with funding bodies, including the Wellcome Trust and Research Councils UK.
A-Z Directory of Open Access Journals Find more journals which support open access. Public Knowledge Project. Open-Access Journals Break Barriers to Academic Freedom - Faculty. By Peter Schmidt He seems genial, but John Willinsky is a dangerous man. As a leader in the development and spread of "open access" scholarly journals, which are published online and offered free, the Stanford University education professor is not just helping to transform academic publishing. He is also equipping scholars around the world with a tool to foment revolution. "This is a strong vehicle for academic freedom," says Mr. Willinsky, whose Public Knowledge Project offers free journal-publishing software to academics. In a world where subscriptions to some medical journals can cost more than $10,000 a year, and many colleges in developing countries cannot afford more than a handful of scholarly publications, publishing enabled by this kind of tool is plugging many academics into research and discourse as never before.
For instance, a new journal based in Uganda recently published an article on a pressing problem in that country: post-traumatic stress disorder in child soldiers. Mr.