Author processing fees

A couple of pointers to come interesting discussions this week on the move to author processing fees by open access journals.

The first is from mathematician, Tim Gowers, who defends the use of such fees. He points out, correctly, that the journal he is involved with will not disadvantage any authors as a result of this. The only thing I take issue with is that he neglects to emphasise that peer review also benefits Universities in terms of saving them on costly performance evaluation which surely puts more weight on cost recovery from Universities one way or another — through author fees or subscription fees. In a follow-up post, he then discusses the new ‘overlay journal’ he is involved with that will actually publish nothing but still provide editing and peer review.

The second pointer is to a so-called ‘revolt’ by academics against open access journals. This seems to be centered around author processing fees but the revolt is being led by academic societies — exclusively in the humanities and social sciences.