Now most of journals are taking money under the name of a manuscript handling processing fee. In a country like India, it is creating extra burdens on researchers. Is it only the responsibility of authors to make their research open access so that any scientist in the world can take advantage? Any research paper can be equally considered as a normal paper without a processing fee or is it creating any differences?
Actually I have very good experience from that standpoint; earlier when I was in Pakistan, the journals mostly waived the publication fees and their process did not appear biased. The open access platforms mostly waive if not decrease the actual cost. Some of the newer open access journals initially do not charge at all.
its a good question, recently one of my paper in BMC Public Health first they told not possible without processing fee later they give fee waive but after few days they reject paper im thinkg bcz they didnt get any money so reject my paper n if i agree to pay so they defntly consider for publication.........
Publishing is an industry and to obtain a product someone has to invest money. Some journals and editors obtain money from selling the journal (so you have to pay to read papers), some require the author to pay some money but allow they paper to be read for free. An intermediate situation is when you have an "open access option" (i.e. you have to pay only if you want to make your paper open access).
At the end of the day, either you pay for reading papers or for publishing them. I think in the second option you can modulate the amount of money according to the country of origin of the authors. Still anyone should understand that doing research costs, since it's an industry producing scientific results.
Kamran,
Be encouraged. Basically, getting credible reviewers of articles is not easy. Getting their time for free is not easier. Indeed many OA do ask for authors submitting manuscripts to suggest reviewers to them. A manuscript handling processing fee/ publication fee may help offset some of these inconveniences by paying reviewers a token fee for their time and effort. Being in a pool of reviewers is something I hope to do one day, and you bet its a high calling, money would be the least of consideration.
Some university libraries run OA funds based on merits giving priority to articles sent to OA journals while other journals will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Many eligible journals for open access can be found at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=20&uiLanguage=en. A fully Open Access journal is “…free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Peter Suber, Open Access Overview http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm ). PLoS or BMC journal submissions will automatically qualify for the OA Fund.
Simon
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