Copyrights, quality assurance and the distribution of costs:
Who will pay for open access publishing?
Openness is not what worries those who are sceptical about introducing open Internet publication now. They are concerned about the lack of answers to fundamental questions surrounding copyrights, quality assurance and the distribution of costs.
Lack of foundation and clarification
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"Not until the issues of rights and quality assurance are settled will scientific authors feel secure enough to publish in open Internet solutions," asserts Mads Liland, Director of LINO, an independent organisation that manages authors' intellectual property rights in accordance with the Norwegian Copyright Act.
In general, Mr Liland welcomes open access publishing, but he believes a number of issues need to be clarified before this form of publication can be widely implemented.
"Many scientists employed at universities and university colleges are sceptical about making their work freely accessible on the Internet because they are unsure of the economic and copyright ramifications involved. Some believe this entails forfeiting both the copyrights to their work and the right to apply for grants or research funding," notes Mr Liland, who adds that language policy will have to be clarified if articles no longer undergo an editorial phase.
Costs of publication
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Svein Skarheim is Managing Director of Universitetsforlaget, Norway's largest academic publishing house. He is enthusiastic about the idea of making research accessible on the Internet.
"For many years we have been parallel publishing our paper-based journals on idunn.no. In practice, through agreements with institutions, our publication archive is freely accessible to the entire research community. Other interested parties can gain access to our publications for a small fee or read them free-of-charge at the library," he explains.
Mr Skarheim believes that the open access debate also needs to take the situation in Norway into account. "Norwegian publishing houses are small, and there is a good, respectful climate of cooperation between authors and the publishing houses. Most Norwegian scientific journals are targeted at the humanities and social sciences. So the conditions here are completely different compared to where this debate originated, namely in the English-speaking countries. In those countries, the large STM [scientific, technical, medical] publishing houses charge extremely high prices for their products."
He adds that it is important to highlight the costs involved in publication. "Continuous editorial work, language adaptation, server rental, and marketing are just some of the costs of publishing a journal. Today these costs are covered by paid subscriptions. So who is going to foot the bill now?"
Radical push for open access in Norway
Roland Jonsson is a professor and laboratory head at the Gade Institute in Bergen, and a journal editor. He feels that Norwegian proponents of open access publishing are racing ahead too quickly.
"I am surprised at the radical push for open access in Norway. This is not the case in the other Nordic countries or the rest of the world. Everyone is still striving to publish their articles in the most prestigious journals, so the traditional publication system is going to survive well into the future," he believes.
Professor Jonsson is also worried about quality and costs. "I am concerned that the quality of scientific publications remains high. The most radical open access proponents have thus far not properly documented how this would be done. Transferring all the costs of publication from subscribers to authors is not something that happens overnight either."
- Published:
- 04.12.2008
- Last updated:
- 05.12.2008
