Only peer review Open Access publications

I’d like you to think about researchers who defend their data before publishing; think about how afraid they are that others will steal their discoveries. All of a sudden, when ready to publish, however, these researchers do a complete U-turn and hand over their data, images, figures, text, rights – all of it – to a commercial company who aims to generate income from it. Authors do this out of vanity, and that is not something I want to be a part of.

I publish Open Access as much as possible. That generates less impact in the Norwegian research assessment system, as many of the journals that are Open Access are not seen as equal to other more renowned journals. My publications are still read though. I believe that the Science Citation Index and similar commercial metric systems cannot be trusted – in many cases they are publisher-owned. Such systems do not measure whether or not your research has impact, or whether it is «valuable». It is all about which journal you publish in and about the number of citations you receive. Imagine publishing something that is completely incorrect; then citations would be high due to the arguments against you.

Therefore, when I consider journals to publish in, apart from choosing OA where I can, I study the author community and look at which other authors publish in that particular journal.

Only conduct peer reviews of Open Access publications

Peer review is a time-consuming process. I assume that hundreds of man-years have been spent on peer review at the University of Oslo every year. I know some researchers who spend 1-2 weeks on any one specific peer review for commercial journals, several times a year. We are talking about major hidden costs for universities. So I choose to refuse conducting peer review of an article that is not Open Access. That is the only way to short-circuit the publishing system. Publishers depend on us researchers to peer review articles for free. So if we all stopped doing that, the current system would collapse.

Peer reviewing Open Access articles involves work too. At least here, through OA, the article becomes open and accessible to all. By reviewing OA articles, you contribute to building the world’s knowledge base rather than to the bank account of the publishing houses.

When subject editors contact me to peer review, I respond that I am happy to peer review, as long as it is an Open Access article. This meets with some being rather perplexed. I then receive a long email explaining why the journal isn’t Open Access. But it’s quite simple: you’re either Open Access or you’re not. When I discuss this with other researchers, when they’ve run out of other reasons this is how the conversation often goes:

Researcher 1: It is better for the discipline to peer review.

Researcher 2 (my response): Do it for Open Access articles instead. That is even better for the discipline, rather than doing the commercial journals’ work for them.

Researcher 1: Yes, but this way I stay up-to-date within my subject.

Researcher 2: Yes, but look at what you are doing. You are supporting a system that earns more money than the music industry. And you have nothing to gain from it.

“Researchers in permanent posts can protest against the current Norwegian research assessment system bias towards traditional journals.”

I discuss Open Access with my students, and many of them are very aware of the issue. However, I will never force my students to publish in pure Open Access journals. Instead I attempt to acquire financing to pay for Open Access publishing in the “right” journals. So apart from what has already been mentioned above, researchers in permanent posts can protest against the current Norwegian research assessment system bias towards traditional journals.