[GOAL] How to manage APC waivers and discounts

[Peter Murray-Rust]

Thank you Chris,
I feel exactly as you do, maybe more. This is wrong on several counts.

(a) as you say it requires the underprivileged (the "scholarly poor") to
beg. Some journals give lower prices for World Bank LMIC countries - but
often Brasil and India are classified as high-income. Even reducing the
price to half is impossible for many countries.

(b) the APC is NOT cost-related (see another post form me about DEAL). DEAL
pays Springer the price of an article (2750 E) whereas the cost of
processing is ca 400 E (Grossman and Brembs, 2019)
Costs are almost never transparent, therefore cause prices to be whatever
the publisher can get away with. This adds another layer of injustice.

I am affected by the APCs. I am on the board of two journals and being
retired have to pay and APC myself. I feel diminished if I have to ask to
get a waiver, and in any case it looks very unethical to gve waivers to the
board. I therefore cannot publish in the journals that I give my time
freely to.

The system is now completely out of date. Many places and organizations CAN
run platinum journals (no fee open to all). It's more ethical equitable and
makes knowledge fully available.
70% of climate papers are behind paywalls. Making a no-fee publish system
is the only way to get the knowledge flowing. My software can read 10000
papers in a morning, but the broken societal system prevents that.

P.


On Sat, Aug 31, 2019 at 2:17 PM Chris Zielinski <chris at chriszielinski.com>
wrote:

> (Apologies for cross-posting)
>
> This is to raise a question about how editors of Open Access journals that
> demand an article processing charge (APC) should deal with discounts for
> non-institutional authors or those from poorer countries.
>
> The offering of substantial APC waivers to authors from specific countries
> or to researchers with financial constraints in specific cases is familiar.
> My question relates to the way in which such discounts are offered.
>
> Usually, a researcher needs to assert or demonstrate his/her inability to
> pay the APC before getting relief. The problem is that obliging researcher
> to request a lower or zero APC feels a bit like inviting them to beg – and
> the result often seems to depend on the benevolence and good humour of the
> editor, responding on an individual, case-by-case basis, rather than by
> applying some pre-established rule.
>
> This is surely not good enough. It can’t be correct and ethical scientific
> practice to require unsupported authors to face the embarrassment of having
> to turn out their pockets and demonstrate the holes in their socks before
> they get a discount.
>
> Any views on this? Should there be a norm among OA journals that each
> should adopt a standardized system to determine APC charges (ranging from 0
> to the full APC, depending on an explicit list of circumstances), avoiding
> the need for any negotiation?
>
> Best,
>
> Chris
>
> Chris Zielinski
> chris at chriszielinski.com
> Blogs: http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and
> http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com
> Research publications: http://www.researchgate.net
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-- 
"I always retain copyright in my papers, and nothing in any contract I sign
with any publisher will override that fact. You should do the same".

Peter Murray-Rust
Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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