Editor’s Message: Pay to Publish, or Perish?

You are holding in your hands or viewing on a screen the chief product of today’s academic publishing industry, a scholarly science journal. Dissemination of knowledge from researchers to clinicians and society is a critical step in the advancement of both clinical practice and public health. While dissemination embodies a core academic value and is an original, prime purpose of publication, it is not the only objective. What the other objectives are will depend on who you ask and the manner in which that person is rewarded within the academic publication enterprise. Multiple stakeholders participate in this publication system, each with their own aims which are sometimes aligned with others and sometimes not. An increasing number of scholars are extremely concerned about serious conflicts between academic values, faculty workloads, and the financial motives of the for-profit academic publishing industry which have led to significant strain on the system.1,2 The stakeholders engaged in academic publishing include (1) researchers/authors and (2) editors/reviewers who are employed by (3) universities/institutions that compete for monies from (4) funding sources to pay for university library subscription fees and more recently for open access charges which are charged by (5) academic journals.3 Researchers want to share their work, but they are also heavily pressured by the “publish or perish” policies of universities that reward a higher number of publications and citations with job interviews, positive performance reviews, tenure and promotion.4 Funding sources also consider “expertise” which is typically demonstrated by … a higher number of publications and citations. In addition to quantity, researchers are also individually judged on the quality of their work which is often assessed by the Impact Factor (IF) of the journals in which they publish, a questionable and maligned metric. Despite the enormous proliferation in published journals offering tailored readerships most likely to be able to translate knowledge into practice, researchers feel compelled to submit to the “top tier” journals to achieve the prestige that their employers and potential funders will reward.2,3 Authors are typically not paid for their submissions; they provide valuable content to publishers for free. Increasingly, as the shift to open access accelerates, authors must pay to publish. Open access publication shifts the cost from the reader (subscriptions or pay per view) to the author (article processing fees, APFs).5 Open access papers reach a broader audience and are more likely to be cited, this benefits authors and raises journal IFs. Papers published in high IF journals are also more likely to be cited.6 The dollars to cover these APFs must come from funders or employers, leaving researchers who have no external funding and little university support at a great disadvantage. These underfunded authors are constrained to submit their manuscripts to traditional subscription or hybrid journals, where their papers are then “pay-walled,” limiting the dissemination of their work to subscribers or pay per viewers only.7 This does not mean their work is inferior, only that the dissemination of their work is hampered by the uneven field of the “pay to play” open access system. Authors from developing countries are especially disadvantaged.7 In addition to providing free content to publishers, researchers are peer-reviewers, providing a valuable professional service for which they receive no direct compensation. Because other research colleagues are also reading and reviewing their work, such mutual altruism benefits authors as a whole. Likewise, editors and associate editors play critical roles in the publication process for which they are typically paid small stipends (if anything at all) to accomplish a great deal of work. This willingness of reviewers and editors to essentially donate hours and expertise is considered a professional service, rewarded indirectly by prestige and an enhanced curriculum vitae rather than pay. This tradition of providing free content and professional service developed when most academic journals were published by scholarly societies or professional organizations themselves and accessed via institutional subscription from university libraries and individual subscriptions from members.2 Dissemination was the major aim, not profit, and any profit that accrued was returned to the society to permit increased member services. The world of academic publication began to change in the 1950s when for-profit publishers, recognizing the obligatory and competitive nature of research dissemination and highly current knowledge acquisition, began to purchase, or contract to provide, society and association journals.2 Since then, the academic publishing industry has seen exponential growth, with a rapidly increasing number of journals and articles without an equivalent increase in the quantity of high-quality published science.7 Concurrently, rising subscription fees and added APFs have yielded large profits which all go to these newer commercial partners. Today, the academic publishing industry generates revenues of over $19 billion annually, with eye-popping profit margins of 20–40%, topping those of Google and Apple.7 This is not to say that academic publishing is easy or cheap, it’s not, or that most publishers are unethical or predatory, they’re not. But valid criticisms of the publication system in which all these stakeholders play a part have been raised. Concerned scholars are sounding the alarm about the strain being placed on the system for those stakeholders who contribute to but do not directly financially profit from the increased number of published papers (researchers/authors, reviewers, editors, university libraries, and taxpayers whose contributions fill the public coffers from which grant funds are distributed).3 The number of researchers and the amount of grant funding have increased at a much lower rate than the number of published papers, meaning more papers per scholar each year. These additional papers increase workload but may not reflect an increase in knowledge dissemination, causing worries that knowledge acquisition is impeded as it becomes more difficult for readers to sift out the wheat from the chaff.8 All of these papers, now more than 1 million annually,7 have to be reviewed by editors at least, and many hundreds of thousands by peer-reviewers as well. A sense of inequity has developed as the workload for largely unpaid authors, editors, and reviewers grows heavier while the publishers reap great profit.3 This frustration has only deepened as authors are learning that their content, for which the publisher holds the copyright, is being sold by some publishers to AI learning companies to generate further monetary gains.9 In September of this year a highly published neuroscientist and several of her colleagues filed an anti-trust lawsuit against 6 large academic publishers, claiming that they are operating as a “cartel” colluding to set reviewer pay to zero, obtain exclusive rights to content, and divert billions of taxpayer dollars into private profits.6 Conversely, other scholars argue that the main culprits are the promotion and tenure policies at universities, and authors themselves, who perpetuate the system by chasing prestige through the pressure to publish more and more papers in high IF journals.3,7 In 2013, a group of scientists published the Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA), a statement of the need to reform the manner in which the performance and productivity of individual researchers is evaluated, accompanied by specific recommendations for funding agencies, institutions, publishers, and researchers.10 More recently, a vocal subset of scholars have begun to argue that the conflicts between academic values and publisher financial motives are irreconcilable, and that for-profit publishers should be abandoned altogether.3,7 They advocate for the use of funds [that would otherwise be paid to publishers] to support not-for-profit public open-access dissemination approaches. In the ideal scenario, data, submissions, reviews, and revisions would all be freely available. Authors, particularly reputable senior scientists, would forego for-profit journals and begin to populate these sites. While this would solve the access problem, it would not necessarily cut costs.11 And until a viable “prestige” alternative to the current system of researcher assessment is broadly adopted, journal IFs and publication counting will continue to influence researcher choices. Our publisher liaison and production coordinator are dedicated professionals who work hand in hand with editors and authors to produce our journal each quarter. They have never interfered with our editorial independence, leaving decisions about the number and quality of accepted papers entirely up to us. Our publisher liaison aims to help us understand the trends in academic publishing12,13 and explain our options as a hybrid journal supported primarily by membership subscription in a world where open access publication is ascendant. We all work together to provide readers with a high quality journal in an environment where journal name brand and IF considerations will continue to drive author choices until employers and funders drive changes to the research culture. —Leslie K. Allison, PT, PhD, Editor