Open Access Research + "Ecology & Society"

Figure: Art designer at PLoS / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Prior to my research ethics class last semester, I had heard of open access research journals. However, I hadn't honestly given much thought to my positioning on the issue of open access publishing. For class, we read the following article: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60. It describes an open access sting operation executed by John Bohannon. Under various pseudonyms and with a made-up medical research institution name, Bohannon sent his spoof paper on the supposed anticancer properties of a lichen-derived chemical to 304 open access journals. He states, "Any reviewer with more than a high-school knowledge of chemistry and the ability to understand a basic data plot should have spotted the paper's short-comings immediately. Its experiments are so hopelessly flawed that the results are meaningless" (Bohannon, 2013, p. 60). I was honestly appalled to learn that of the 304 submissions of the paper, 157 journals accepted the paper, while only 98 rejected it; the remaining journals either were derelict or took too long to respond.

This left me with a horrible taste in my mouth regarding the rigor of open access journals. Especially as an early-career academic, why would I want to jeopardize my professional reputation by publishing my work in publications that accept even ill-concealed fake papers?! However, during class discussions, I was teamed with some folks who were still very passionate about the importance of open access. Their strong backing of open access led me to do a little more research into the subject.

I found the following video, which I thought did a really nice job summing up the benefits of and need for open access research journals: https://youtu.be/L5rVH1KGBCY. I definitely understand the frustration of many with the typical paid access models. I experienced my fair share of paywalls when I worked for a nonprofit after completing my master's degree. Coming from a research university, it was so frustrating to feel like a had my hands tied in my efforts to bring scientific research to bear in developing programmatic recommendations. One of the narrators in the video above describes an instance when his wife was in the hospital. He was trying to research different treatment options, but could not do without paying article-by-article, with only abstracts to guide his purchases and no return policy. I don't even like to imagine what it must have been like for him.

And, it would be one thing if the people making the money were the people writing the articles, their universities, or even the peer-reviewers. But, it's not! Scholarly publishing has gotten to the point where it's become an oligopoly, with five large publishers making money hand-over-fist: Elsevier, Springer Nature Group, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and Sage. I learned in a presentation last night from several of Virginia Tech's esteemed librarians, that scholarly publishing is a $26 billion business, with academic libraries spending more than $8 billion a year for their scholarly content.

So, where does this leave me in relation to open access... I'm definitely in favor, and I believe caution is still essential. That being said, as more and more well-known scholarly authors begin to publish in open access journals, it becomes easier to see which open access journals they trust with their work. For instance, one of the seminal papers in my line of work (Rockström et al., 2009; the first publication of the planetary boundaries framework) was published in Ecology and Society. Despite being open access and independent (the Big 5 publishers now have open access journals too), Ecology and Society has an impact factor of 4.14 and ranks 18 of 116 journals in the field of environmental studies. For reference, Annual Review of Environment and Resources has an impact factor of 8.62 and is rank 3 of 166 environmental studies journals. Ecology and Society, does not specifically position itself in relation to the open access movement on its website. However, the articles it seeks are very much aligned with the accessibility goals of open access: "The journal seeks papers that are novel, integrative and written in a way that is accessible to a wide audience that includes an array of disciplines from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities concerned with the relationship between society and the life-supporting ecosystems on which human wellbeing ultimately depends" (https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/about/policies.php#focus). Since delving back into research since starting my doctoral education last fall, I've found numerous other immensely useful papers in Ecology and Society. I greatly appreciate the top-notch scholarship and simple prose. I, for one, would be honored to publish in Ecology and Society.