So, what do you think?

August 26, 2006 9:16 PM

Some online journals, such as Ecology and Society, operate independently. Others are hosted collectively by interests like Copernicus Publications. Online peer review is becoming popular.
posted by owhydididoit (7 comments total)

Having been involved once (long ago) in this area, there is a lot of turbulance in this field. The main issue is publishing and ownership. Big scientific publishers (like Elsevier) can charge up to $17,444 per year for journals that are basically free to create, a movement has started (open access) to create free journals. Online peer review is a seperate issue, and deals more with changes in when and how articles are reviewed vs. published.

This is an awesome link comparing the prices of journals and cars: Sticker Shock


Some links that might be of interest to add to owhy's:
The cost of journals
News from the Open Access movement blog
A directory of all open access journals
posted by blahblahblah at 9:29 PM on August 26, 2006

What a fantastic post.

Even though I'm only an undergrad, I can't tell you how many times I've found the perfect journal article, only to realize it's under the stewardship of a service that my school doesn't subscribe to. Even at humanities prices, it's far out of my reach.
posted by anjamu at 11:48 PM on August 26, 2006

Nature has a series of articles and discussion on peer review and Wired recently had a great article about Harold Varmus the guy behind the Public Library of Science.

It's about time for a revolution in scholarly publishing.
posted by formless at 9:30 AM on August 27, 2006

Related recent news: the entire editorial board of the esteemed mathematics journal Topology has resigned in protest of Elsevier's pricing policy.
posted by escabeche at 9:59 AM on August 27, 2006

Wow, escabeche. That's amazing. Maybe they'll show back up in an open access journal with a different title.
posted by owhydididoit at 11:41 AM on August 27, 2006

Even worse, most journals have draconian copyright policies that screw people over by preventing you from finding the scholarly work in a useful form anyplace else, or making it available to others under a friendly license.

ACM even requires that you transfer the copyright to your work to them, instead of just licensing it from you. Assholes.
posted by blasdelf at 11:10 PM on August 27, 2006

blasdelf: Yes, the journals have copyright policies that can legally prevent you from putting the work elsewhere but in reality this is not carried into practice. They don't stop you putting stuff on your personal website for example.
posted by biffa at 2:21 AM on August 29, 2006