Europe is pushing for a faster route for scientific papers to be made public for free

[Robert Zwilling]

Europe is pushing for a faster route for scientific papers to be made public for free and not everyone is happy about. It appears to be a new kind of publishing model where the papers created out of public grants will have to be available for free to anyone as soon as they are published. Publications are requiring that the papers they publish have to wait 6 to 12 months before they can be distributed in open access digital format. The papers covered under these rules can not be published in subscription journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, or The Lancet, and many more. These publications will have to change their business model. In a way, it's making some forms of non fiction cheaper than fiction. The basic format of the internet was never friendly to exclusivity, it was made to distribute useful information by any means possible.

A new business model is being forced on academic journals whether they like it or not

 

[awesomesauce]

I think it's probably for the good. It seems completely reasonable to me that work paid for with public funds is accessible to the public. At least the discussion has highlighted a lot of the problems with academic publishing.

 

[tinkerdan]

This sounds promising as long as peer review remains intact; and it might take care of the proliferation of not so professional articles being foisted on the public through various types of subscription services. It would be great to know that if you have to pay for it then it probably isn't legit.