US-based higher learning institutions - Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley – have announced their joint commitment to a compact for open access (OA) publication. A full account of the motivation for the compact can be found in the article ‘Equity for Open-Access Journal Publishing’ published in the OA journal Public Library of Science Biology.
OA scholarly journals have arisen as an alternative to traditional publications that are founded on subscription and/or licensing fees. The economic downturn is observed to underscore the significance of OA publications. With library resources strained by budget cuts, subscription and licensing fees for journals have come under increasing scrutiny, and alternative means for providing access to vital intellectual content are identified. OA journals are seen to provide a natural alternative.
Since these journals do not charge subscription or other access fees, they must cover their operating expenses through other sources. These include subventions, in-kind support, or, in a sizeable minority of cases, processing fees paid by or on behalf of authors for submission to or publication in the journal. While academic research institutions support traditional journals by paying their subscription fees, no analogous means of support has existed to underwrite the growing roster of fee-based open-access journals.
The latest compact supports equity of the business models. This is done by committing each university to the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication fees for OA journal articles written by its faculty for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds. Additional universities are encouraged to visit the compact website and sign on.
Search for more such partnership programs / consortiums in K-Store
Discuss this NEWS
