Top-shelf, taxpayer-published open access journals (like EHP)
Recently I was asked in a blog post comment whether taxpayer-sponsored research combined with paying an additional out-of-pocket open access fee to an OA publisher amounts to a double-burden on taxpayers.
Good question. Here’s how I would reply. There is already funding support precedent for either:
- Using part of the original NIH grant for page charges or open access fee (part of the first taxpayer subsidy)
- Seeking an institutional subsidy for non-NIH open access author fees.
Perhaps a public university’s institutional subsidy could be seen as a second taxpayer burden; For a university such as UC Berkeley, it really seems a deliberate decision to adopt the value of making the research immediately and perpetually open and accessible.
There is an alternative. It already exists. There is a top-ranked, NIH-published scientific journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, that presents the government as an open access publisher in the immediate and open distribution of public health information. As part of its mission, EHP seeks to disseminate critical environmental health information as broadly as possible.
In 2003, EHP became a peer-reviewed research and news open-access journal. All news and research articles published in EHP since 1972 are available free online. EHP is committed to promoting the discussion and exchange of information internationally and even publishes a Chinese language edition. EHP also is committed to its Science Education Program.
With a 2009 JCR Science Edition impact factor of 6.191, EHP is in the top five journals in two categories: public, environmental, and occupational health, and environmental sciences.
The open existence of Environmental Health Perspectives demonstrates the importance of widely distributing critical health information for research and public consumption as soon as possible. IMHO,money well spent, even if some of my fellow taxpayers perceive that they are funding both the federal research and publishing program.
