Other ideas under discussion include journals that charge for submissions rather than for publications; direct government funding for all publications; and research funders setting up their own publication infrastructure (much as some do with biology databases), says Cameron Neylon, recently appointed director of advocacy at the Public Library of Science in San Francisco, which publishes PLoS ONE.

No one knows what will work. But many say that the experiments now under way will help to reveal the true costs of sustainably publishing articles and research data. “PeerJ is part of the assertion that this can be done cheaper — and for that alone it will be interesting to watch,” says Neylon.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on June 12, 2012.

2 Comments

1. 1. Jim Lacey 04:48 PM 6/12/12

   As most scholars know, journals began charging libraries absurdly high prices for journals that published articles judged to be of significance even though the authors and reviewers were paid nothing for their work. The obvious solution is for the various professional organizations, through a publishing committee of their membership, to publish reviewed articles online and forget about publication in print.

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2. 2. Adolphe FABER 06:13 AM 6/19/12

   I consider PeerJ an excellent initiative and would be interested to participate.

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