- EDITORIAL
The cost of publishing in today’s scientific e-world
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25241/stomaeduj.2020.7(1).edit.1
Author: Constantinus Politis
Dear readers,
Dear authors,
According to Stephen Buranyi, scientific writer with the Guardian, scientific publishing is a vast business, with revenues varying between the music recording and film industries, but far more profitable. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why the scientific publishing business is so profitable. After all, researchers need publications to advance in their career. The majority of scientific journals offer article submissions using online manuscript manager platforms, which resulted in a transition from editorial staff to contributing authors to complete the submission process and to comply with a whole series of journal guidelines.
If research teams want to access their own publications, they often have to pay subscription fees to the journal in which the publication appeared. Although these licensing contracts are often arranged centrally, where universities conclude contracts with major publishing companies. It becomes even better if the authors want to publish their articles open access. A few thousand euros per accepted manuscript is no exception.
Would you like your figures to be published in color? No problem, but extra fees are charged. No manuscript in proper English without the aid of a specialized editing and proofreading company: a costly companion. Not difficult to understand why the editorial world is contaminated with questionable and predatory journals that keep young scientists lurking from decent journals. The business model is further fuelled by the universities longing for rankings. Rankings are necessary to attract investors and for international prestige.
A high ranking requires a high number of publications numbers, citations and h-indexes, which only increases the pressure on researchers. The only way out is an inter-university platform of open access journals with thorough peer review and statistical assistance that even further improve the manuscripts and contributions quality. This, however, requires changing grant approval criteria by national, European and international funding bodies. When a career evaluation is conducted by the universities, these open-access publication metrics should be included in the evaluation criteria. Within this traditional scientific world of profit-making organizations there is room for simple-hearted journals with broad access, a wide range of interest and free contributions with a swift peer review process, still flexible for entry-level contributions. As soon as an
impact factor is assigned to a journal, the number and quality of the submissions increases and an upward swing begins. In the meantime, the Editorial Board of the Stomatology Edu Journal responds meticulously to all requirements to meet the compliance standards of global citation databases and free full-text archives on biomedical and life sciences journals.