B - No-fault peer review charges

Harnad S. No-fault peer review charges: the price of selectivity need not be access denied or delayed. D-Lib Magazine 2010;16(7/8)
(doi: 10.1045/july2010-harnad)

Funds to pay the costs of open access (OA) publishing are short and about 80% of journals are subscription-based. Paying to publish might inflate acceptance rates and lower quality standards. A solution could be that institutions, universities and funders mandate Green OA self-archiving of final peer-reviewed drafts by their authors. A "no-fault basis" peer review charge is also suggested: the author's institution or funder should pay for each round of referreing, regardless of outcome (acceptance, revision, or rejection). If the journal fee were not a publication fee but a referreing fee, the costs per accepted article would be much lower and it would discourage unrealistic submissions that take up the time of journals' referees.

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