Have you noticed that everything seems to cost more and more money these days? A loaded question, I know. The increased price of fuel, groceries, utility bills, etc, the cost of living certainly seems to be on the rise. To save a bit of money, just this week I decided to cancel my landline telephone. The only calls I receive on my landline are from telemarketers trying to sell me something, and my Mom. I really only use my mobile phone, and I think I am the last person that still has a landline. Not anymore, I have trained my Mom to call my mobile phone and my landline is officially disconnected. Welcome to 2019, Terri! But that is not really what I wanted to talk about. Rather, I want to talk about another rising cost of living, the cost of publishing in academic journals. In the academic world the number of published papers is a common measure of productivity, which makes the topic of publication fees an important one. You have probably heard the phrase “publish or perish.” The more papers published, the more productive the academic is considered. Publications are “academic currency” so to speak. There is no single common model for publication fees used by journals, and they range from affordable, to special rates for members only, to increased page costs for color, all the way to Open Access fees. Many Open Access journals promise a quick (ie, 2 week) peer-review process followed by immediate online publication upon acceptance. For journals to be able to do this quick turn-around and rapid publication, it comes with a price tag and this is passed on to the authors. Many journals are about making money.
I have discussed in previous messages the decision-making process that occurs when authors choose where to submit a paper. Issues like journal impact factor,1 time to publication,2 and journal readership, or the target audience, for the type of information. Another important factor considered, probably more than ever before, is the publication cost. If a journal has the ideal readership, a valued impact factor, and quick turn-around time to publication but the publication fees are high, the challenge then becomes how often can an author afford to publish in that journal. This probably also depends on the funding source(s) for the work the paper is presenting. Many different funding agencies also have budgets from which to work within. If publication fees are very high, then that funding agency technically has less money to fund applications or less money to go around.
We are very fortunate here at the Journal of Swine Health and Production (JSHAP) that we currently do not charge authors a publication fee. We have sufficient funding through our AASV Industry Support Council members. The ability to not charge a publication fee allows JSHAP to remain competitive in attracting manuscript submissions, and it also allows us to do a thorough job with our peer-review process. We are very aware of turn-around times that are required to peer-review manuscripts, but without the high pressure associated with high publication fees we also do not promise short peer-review times and subsequent immediate online access upon acceptance. I do not think all readers appreciate that there is a cost associated with submitting a manuscript to many journals and that publication costs are not immune to rising prices, which greatly influence the cost of living for academics.
Thank you to our journal supporters as well as all the editorial board members, reviewers, and staff that work hard to put each JSHAP issue together. We are very fortunate!
Terri O’Sullivan, DVM, PhD
Executive Editor
References
*1. O’Sullivan T. Impact! [editorial]. J Swine Health Prod. 2013;21:239.
*2. O’Sullivan T. The peer-review process [editorial]. J Swine Health Prod. 2013;21:299.
* Non-refereed references.