For engineering, patenting is of course an option. Some universities/research centres are highly interested in getting a large number of patents to dmonstrate the success of the engineering program. Towards the other sciences, publications are clearly preferred. Concerning publications, there are some fields that have established a culture of conferences and conference proceedings as the "standard" way of distributing information, and many conference proceedings are available freely. One example for such a community is particle accelerator science. However, contributions are rarely refereed.
If one wants peer review and guaranteed long-term access to publications, this will not be available for free. The question is who pays. Both the concept of a publishing company (charging fees to readers) and open access (charging fees to authors) have a valid point. Why should an author - who did all the work - pay for the publication of his or her own success, why should the reader get it for free? On the other hand: Why should taxpayers - who usually fund all the basic research - pay for both the researcher and journal subscriptions? In the end, I think it will not make too much of a difference when it comes to the money society has to pay. So far, funding agencies are not always willing to support publication fees in open-access journals, while encouraging publications in these journals, and the core support from universities is usually not sufficient to pay for it, either. As there is no dramatic financial difference, the open-access solution is - in the long run - superior because more people have access to the material.
What probably worries most people is that subscriptions have gotten outrageously expensive, especially for journals from very specific commercial companies. So in some way it is already helpful to go with non-profit publishers (e.g., the professional societies, IEEE, American Physical Society, ...) because they do not feed some anonymous shareholder, but use their gains to feed programs supporting our fields.
One final point: Changing the mindset of researchers may be difficult enough. But evaluations are often based on publications in "renowned" journals. And most of them are provided by commercial publishers, some with not-for-profit organizations. Hence it must be made clear to all "peers" that a publication in an open-access journal may be as scientifically valid as a journal article of a commercial publisher. It's a long way getting there...
So personally: (1) I don't have the funds to publish open access, (2) I won't get more funds if I publish open access, so I need to continue with "regular" publications for the time being - although I would like to support this new idea.
We seldom publish papers in open access journals. Most of the well-known journals are subjected to a limited access, but authors can publish for free, while the open access journal normally charge the authors for publication fee. I believe most of universities have the database to researchers providing them the access to numerous journals. So, if we are in the universities, we don't care too much about limited access. Well, maybe in the future, when the open access had a better reputation and high impact factor, I think more and more people will publish there.
For engineering, patenting is of course an option. Some universities/research centres are highly interested in getting a large number of patents to dmonstrate the success of the engineering program. Towards the other sciences, publications are clearly preferred. Concerning publications, there are some fields that have established a culture of conferences and conference proceedings as the "standard" way of distributing information, and many conference proceedings are available freely. One example for such a community is particle accelerator science. However, contributions are rarely refereed.
If one wants peer review and guaranteed long-term access to publications, this will not be available for free. The question is who pays. Both the concept of a publishing company (charging fees to readers) and open access (charging fees to authors) have a valid point. Why should an author - who did all the work - pay for the publication of his or her own success, why should the reader get it for free? On the other hand: Why should taxpayers - who usually fund all the basic research - pay for both the researcher and journal subscriptions? In the end, I think it will not make too much of a difference when it comes to the money society has to pay. So far, funding agencies are not always willing to support publication fees in open-access journals, while encouraging publications in these journals, and the core support from universities is usually not sufficient to pay for it, either. As there is no dramatic financial difference, the open-access solution is - in the long run - superior because more people have access to the material.
What probably worries most people is that subscriptions have gotten outrageously expensive, especially for journals from very specific commercial companies. So in some way it is already helpful to go with non-profit publishers (e.g., the professional societies, IEEE, American Physical Society, ...) because they do not feed some anonymous shareholder, but use their gains to feed programs supporting our fields.
One final point: Changing the mindset of researchers may be difficult enough. But evaluations are often based on publications in "renowned" journals. And most of them are provided by commercial publishers, some with not-for-profit organizations. Hence it must be made clear to all "peers" that a publication in an open-access journal may be as scientifically valid as a journal article of a commercial publisher. It's a long way getting there...
So personally: (1) I don't have the funds to publish open access, (2) I won't get more funds if I publish open access, so I need to continue with "regular" publications for the time being - although I would like to support this new idea.
This generalized assumption described above is not borne out by the facts. There are journals with limited availability and low impact factor, and open access journals with acceptable impact factors. Not all open access journals demand payment form the authors. See e.g. http://www.expresspolymlett.com/ and compare with related journals on the same website.
This is a very good question! My opinion is that open access would be the most beneficial for the human kind as by being free, the ideas and concepts reach more people and the science flows a greater pace. For the other Joachim Enders as a point. I also straggled with the problem of not having enough funds to publish in the open access as the most interesting of these journals (at least for my area), with reasonable impact factors, the fees are too high...
Unfortunately science nowadays is too much about money and too little about benefiting the human kind so there is not a good available alternative for this problem.
@Silvia Lino: Please tell me one thing nowadays what is NOT about money! I think that (at least in our Western culture) almost everything revolves around money (see the Mesphisto rondo in Gunod's Faust) - with only minor and personal exceptions. Either one is prepared to stay in the background and deal with his or her limited personal goals or has to deal with money. Even Mother Theresa had to do so when she tried to help the needy in Calcutta ...
No patenting! Patenting makes duplication faster! Thank you China!
The best you can do is to establish your work. Publish your results in a limited access journal (Elsevier or IEEE or Springer..). If this doesn't work, open access! ArchiV for instance. In my view patenting is futile.
Patenting pays only if you have a well-defined business goal with it, otherwise you only lose money. Patenting is a subtle political means for larger companies or for startups with a really advanced idea. Others simply keep their knowledge hidden (if possible) and produce - hoping that the know-how kept in secret will protect their market share. (It works only if the key solutions can be really kept in secret and cannot be deduced from the product itself).
My own approach has been to upload as much as possible as a preprint to the arXiv server prior to submission. Publishers like the American Physical Society explicitly allow this form of sharing manuscripts in this form. Once the first review comments have come in and paper has been revised, we usually upload a new version of the manuscript to the preprint server.
Other forms of open access, I find currently too expensive to utilize on a sustained basis. The drawback of the above approach is that it breaks the official rules of many publishers.
Dear Tamás - I fully agree with you that it is not necessary to put money and material problems at the center of your life. Far form it. It is worh to live and die only for immaterial values. Nevertheless right now and here you can do it mostly alone or in small communities or together with close friends. Anyway, you wil swim against the mainstream. It is worth to do so, but tiresome and many give up sooner or later. I am sorry if I made the impression that I personally agree with the prevailing tendencies. You have to recognize them, however, and take them into account in your calculations, otherwise you will become a trampled down idealist.
Open access journal have a very low impact factor ; publishing there is a negative line on ur CV. They publish anything as long as the authors pay. To wit one such journal (APM) recently publish a gibberish ppaer produced by the software Mathgen...
Dear all,
I would like to bring your attention to a writing by a reviewer ( he is considered an expert in one field - sorry I forget his particulars and his field of expertise - the article also discussed present publication model). He was lamenting on the hard work put in by reviewers, and they got nothing, well may be a good CV entry. While the publishers hold the copyright to the article, and sold them at enormous prices for the publishers. He cited the income of the CEO of Elsevier.
What ever it is, researchers are still required to publish, mainly to disseminate the latest knowledge. But lately, there other requirements to publish - to increase ones standing, to get more research fund - non-published researcher would have little chance of getting funded, to increase an institution's eminence etc.
So, can we be truly altruistic? Is this still required? Now?
Wan - conscious of the issues, but not too pressure by them ...
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