Szalay, Elizabeth

English

University of New Mexico

99Reflection
In 2008, the National Institutes of Health implemented 
a policy stating that “all investigators funded by the NIH 
submit . . . an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed 
manuscripts . . . to be made publicly available.” 1 Since that 
time, there has been an explosion of “open access” (OA) 
journals, about half of which require the author to pay a 
publishing or page fee or article processing charge, usually 
ranging from $1000 per article to $1000 per page. Such 
journals often boast rapid turnaround, with “peer review” in 
7-10 days and publication within months. For comparison, 
the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics takes 2-3 months for 
peer review, and often 8-10 months for actual publication.
Does this make it possible for a person of means to “buy” 
academic prestige and a long curriculum vita? Does this 
exclude excellent non-funded studies from publication? 
Do article processing fees exclude authors from developing 
countries or less well-funded research facilities and 
universities?
Advantages to the OA model include lower costs to 
libraries and free access to scientific journals for medical 
professionals and patients, especially those in developing 
countries. A major disadvantage is potential damage to the 
peer-review system: the medical community carries out 
peer review for free, yet publishers gain billions of dollars 
for physicians to read the final product. Given that income 
is dependent on the number of papers an OA journal 
publishes, an impetus to accept substandard articles exists. 
A graduate student at Cornell University produced a 
paper using software that generates grammatically correct 
but nonsensical text and submitted it to an OA journal under 
pseudonym. He decided to submit the fake after receiving 
several unsolicited invitations by email to submit under 
the “author-pays-for-publication” model. He wanted to test 
if the publisher would “accept a completely nonsensical 
manuscript if the authors were willing to pay.” The article 
was accepted for publication.2 This “experiment” has been 
repeated with similar outcome, although critics cite “lack 
of control group.”
 New OA journals generally lack the reputation of 
subscription journals. However, Bjork and Solomon 
studied OA publishing compared to subscription journals, 
using average number of citation as a proxy for impact 
factor. They concluded that “OA journals indexed in Web of 
Science and/or Scopus are approaching the same scientific 
impact and quality as subscription journals, particularly in 
biomedicine and for journals funded by article processing 
charges.” 3 Does this suggest quality in OA publishing, or 
simply ease of citation given that Google and other search 
engines supply “data” regardless of validity or accuracy?
Established subscription journals are also reacting to the 
financial crunch of publishing: the Journal of Bone and Joint 
Surgery has established a $250 fee, not for publication, but 
for merely reviewing a manuscript submitted to the journal.
The European Union sponsored “Study of Open Access 
Publishing” surveyed 50,000 researchers regarding 
their thoughts on OA publishing. Eighty nine percent of 
respondents felt that OA was helpful to their field, and 53% 
said they had published at least one OA manuscript. But 
40% felt that author fees were a deterrent, and 30% felt that 
high-quality open access journals in their field were limited.4
The “open access” fee-for-publication model is 
undoubtedly here to stay. No fewer than 5 to 10 emails daily 
solicit manuscripts for such journals. Given that academic 
medicine has always placed a premium on publication, will 
“deep pockets” be the new guarantee to academic success?
1. NIH Public Access Policy Details. National Institutes of 
Health Web site. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm. 
Accessed February 25, 2014.
2. Gilbert N. Computer-generated manuscript accepted for 
publication in open-access journal. Nature.
3. Bjork B, Solomon D. Open access versus subscription 
journals: a comparison of scientific impact. BMC Medicine. 
2012;10(73).
4. Vogel G. Quandary: Scientists prefer reading over 
publishing “Open Access” papers. Science Insider. January 
2011.
What Cost to “Buy” Academic 
Accomplishments?
Elizabeth	Szalay	MD†
†UNM	Department	of	Orthopaedics	and	Rehabilitation


What Cost to “Buy” Academic Accomplishments?

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1308&amp;context=unm_jor

What Cost to “Buy” Academic Accomplishments?

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