Regarding the open access issue recently covered in Ecolog-L, let's go back to
square one.
Consider a tenure-track field-oriented research scientist in the USA.
How many times does he/she pay for the paper published in a peer-review journal?
Let's follow the basic steps.Assuming the federal research grant/s were
written, submitted, and against all odds (considering the current funding
situation) funded. Out of the research grant monies, you have to:
1) pay your own salary, so you can do the research and submit the
publications.2) pay salary/ies to postdocs/grad students to do fieldwork, and
part of research and publications3) pay fieldwork expenses (including
instruments, equipment, etc)4) pay overhead to university, so among other
things, university can afford institutional subscription to scientific journals
and provide journal access to faculty and students5) pay submission costs to
journals if printing in color, for open access availability (for those journals
that are not open access) or pay for submission in open access journal that
requires fee.6) in many cases, pay additional fee so you can have your own pdf
of your own publication
Of course, this is just an example of many possible alternatives. However,
there is an interesting trend. From conceptual research idea to final
publication in peer-review journal, tax dollars pay the process many times
over...Perhaps we should re-think the whole process.Am I the only one who
thinks we can do better than this?
Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. Marine Conservation Biologist
