Recently, the College Research and Libraries Journal published an article called “The Inevitability of Open Access,” in which it claimed that open access journals, which publish articles that are open to the public completely free of charge, will grow significantly in the scholarly realm in the next 10 to 15 years. In fact, David Lewis, the author of the article and dean of libraries at IUPUI, wrote that open access publishing “could account for 50% of the scholarly journal articles sometime between 2017 and 2021, and 90% of articles as soon as 2020 and more conservatively by 2025.”
With our recent announcements about our partnership with the University of North Carolina Greensboro and Simon Fraser University and our exciting announcement last week about expanding our open access options to include the fields of Medicine and Engineering, we hope it is clear that Open Access publishing is a priority for SAGE.
For those of you who may wonder how the content of SAGE Open Journals compares to the content of other SAGE Journals, we just want to remind you that all articles published in each of the four open access journals are rigorously peer-reviewed by leading experts in relevant fields. In fact, because our open access journals do not have content limits due to page budgets or specific themes, articles are accepted based solely on the scientific and methodological validity of the research. Once published, full texts of the articles are available free to the public, without subscription.
So while we recognize the undeniable value of our traditionally-published journals, we agree with David Lewis when he states, “We should do everything we can to encourage and support [open access] growth, because in the end it…will make our world better.”
To read more about Open Access Publishing and SAGE Open, click here
There are two problems with open access that have not received adequate discussion. Firstly, for all new journals, one needs rigorous peer-review to establish a high editorial standard. To date, discipline-specific professional organizations have been the guardians of editorial standards. Such organizations have the depth of knowledge to appoint appropriate editors. It remains to be seen how well commercial publishers can meet a long-term requirement for quality. Open access to poor science will not help anyone. Secondly, the open-publishing movement shifts the financial burden for publication from the University library to the author’s research grant. In today’s climate of reduced funding, the shift can hardly be expected to help produce better research.
Thank you for your comment Professor Mewhort; you make several good points. We agree that all journals, not just new ones, require rigorous peer-review. Manuscripts submitted to SAGE Open undergo independent and rigorous peer-review in a process very similar to that used by leading society journals. Article editors for SAGE Open manuscripts are vetted by SAGE staff and are credentialed and qualified peers, individuals thoroughly able to determine whether the research presented in a manuscript is methodologically or scientifically sound. This standard for acceptance is different than most traditional journals; the thematic significance or incremental contribution of a given paper is not taken into consideration. SAGE is very concerned about the quality of papers published in SAGE Open or any other proprietary titles. Indeed, we believe editorial quality is essential to our business and many of our proprietary titles are ranked and are highly regarded in their disciplines. SAGE Open will be no different. There are dozens of ranked and widely reputable open access journals, particularly in the biomedical sciences. PLoS One, another large multidisciplinary “mega journal,” is one such example. The long-term effects of shifting from a “subscriber pays” to an “author pays” model, the latter of which could include the author’s institution or a funding agency, remains to be seen. Many institutions and funding agencies have a stated preference for open access publishing and do so for a variety of reasons. As far as we know there is no data to suggest article processing charges, or the fees paid by authors to publish in gold open access journals, have been detrimental to research funding or quality.
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