[Irtalk] Open Access 2014: A Year that Data Cracked Through Secrecy and Myth | Absolutely Maybe

[Hilton Gibson]

Scientists created a rod for their backs when they allowed the journals in
which their work is published to become the arbiters of its scientific
merit.

A small tier of journals locked behind expensive paywalls became the elite
of the elite, rejecting almost all the manuscripts received. That sends
scientists on a time-consuming cascade of submission and re-submission to
multiple journals. It delays access to research results and discussion for
many months – and costs other scientists millions of hours of
often-redundant review time.

This editorial peer review hasn’t been shown to reliably improve quality –
and high impact factor journals, inevitably, fail to ensure quality.

What’s more, by not publishing open access, scientists lose out on the very
things they really want: to be read, to be cited by other scientists, and
to have access to as much funding as possible. The cost of scientific
publishing keeps draining resources:

*“It turns out that scholarly publishing does not operate like a classic
market. For a number of reasons, no effective mechanisms for restraining
prices have emerged.”*

http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/open-access-2014-a-year-that-data-cracked-through-secrecy-and-myth/
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