It is all about the so-called APC – the Article Processing Charge, also referred to as publication fee. This was 3,450 dollar per article, says Sonja Kotz, professor of Neuropsychology and Translational Neurosciences at Maastricht University and senior editor of the former NeuroImage and now Imaging Neuroscience. “Since the emergence of Open Access, we have urged Elsevier to measure their costs for Open Access. At the time, they asked 3,000 dollar per article, and this amount has gradually increased.”
Tax payers' money
According to an independent study, it costs a publisher between 200 and 1,000 dollar to publish an article. “So, why does the price have to be so high,” Kotz wonders. “In the Netherlands, we are fortunate that universities have reached a deal with Elsevier (scientists receive a reduction of the publication fee or don’t have to pay it at all for Open Access articles, ed.), but a lot of money is nevertheless being paid. That is public money – for how long more will tax payers accept it being used to publish articles that subsequently are not available for everyone to read?”
Ultimately, it will be a loss for science, says Kotz; after all, a university can only spend its money once. “In addition, we feel that a journal loses importance when not all scientists have access to it.”
Unanimous decision
When Elsevier still didn’t want to give in at the beginning of the year, editors warned that they would all leave if the APC was not adapted. That is what has now happened. “It was a unanimous decision,” says Kotz. The editors have joined forces with sister journal NeuroImage:Reports and set up the new journal. “At the moment, we are negotiating with MIT Press, where the publication fee will be only half of what it is at Elsevier’s and they are much more positive about lower cost Open Access.”
Kotz is hopeful that the new journal can be set up quickly. “That is the advantage of the all the editors having left. We have received a lot of very positive reactions from our community. Authors have already said that they will now send us their work. We anticipate that people can submit their articles from mid-July and we are hoping to publish the first articles after the summer.”