Monthly Archives: March 2012

A comparison of open access publication charges

27th Mar 2012

Having covered submission fees and other charges, it is about time I covered the main event, isn't it? I'm talking about open access publication fees, also known as author publishing charges (APCs) and many other names. This is a fee for making your article free for readers to read, and usually for them to download, distribute and do whatever they like with as well. What do you get for your money? Before agreeing to pay a fee to make your article open access, make sure you check the licence. True... Read more

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Journal submission fees: why are they so rare?

21st Mar 2012

In a previous post I discussed fees that journals charge for colour printing, per page or for supplementary material. All those fees are charged only to authors whose papers are accepted. Here I'll look at fees that are charged to the authors of all submissions, included those that are rejected. In 2010 a report on submission fees by Mark Ware was published by the Knowledge Exchange, a collaboration of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) with similar organisations in Denmark, Germany... Read more

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Journals that charge authors (and not for open access publication)

8th Mar 2012

Among the discussion of open access recently, there have been a few comments about the level of charges for open access publication. But of course many journals charge authors even without making their articles freely available. I think these charges are worth highlighting so that you can make an informed choice of journal. Frequently these charges are to cover the cost of colour printing, which seems reasonable given that nowadays printed journal articles are a bonus not standard. But not all:... Read more

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