Scholarly Communication Commons^™

The Rent’S Too High: Self-Archive For Fair Online Publication Costs, Robert T. Thibault, Amanda Macpherson, Stevan Harnad, Amir Raz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The main contributors of scientific knowledge—researchers—generally aim to disseminate their findings far and wide. And yet, publishing companies have largely kept these findings behind a paywall. With digital publication technology markedly reducing cost, this enduring wall seems disproportionate and unjustified; moreover, it has sparked a topical exchange concerning how to modernize academic publishing. This discussion, however, seems to focus on how to compensate major publishers for providing open access through a pay-to-publish model, in turn transferring financial burdens from libraries to authors and their funders. Large publishing companies, including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, PLoS, and Frontiers, continue to earn exorbitant …