Dear Editor,
Jocalyn Clark has presented data about medical scientific literature during the last pandemic and described “how covid-19 bolstered an already preserved publishing system” excellently.[1] I want to raise additional concerns regarding this system.
Today, thousands of exclusively medical open access (OA) journals have been set up. Journals with only subscription (OS) fees are dead, while a minority of the medical journals are hybrid (OS and OA). In most cases, the cost has been shifted from the reader to researcher, from the society (e.g. institutions or librarians) to the atom (researchers-consumers). The same attitude has been adopted not only from dedicated published companies, but also from all major non-academic medical societies that (under the roof of companies) they released many new “satellite” OA journals.
Τhe main and very important advantage of OA is that it made publication freely available. Open access constructs an “open educational resource”. However, any coin has two sides. A decade ago, an editor justified the conversion of a medical journal into hybrid form and guaranteed the impartiality of the (new) journal with the following words: “The Editorial Office should not be informed of the decision to publish Online Open until the manuscript has been accepted. All papers go through the journal’s standard peer-review process and are accepted or rejected based on their own merit”.[2] It seemed logical. Nowadays, the same journal is been published exclusively in an OA manner! In the same editorial, another reason to support OA was stated: “the publishing industry is a major employer and contributor to the economy”. Indeed tens of billion dollars are the annual revenue from companies publish scientific journals worldwide. Only few companies release the vast majority of the scientific papers globally. We have learnt from history that many times the accumulation of power (“the ability to decide”) in few people or organizations or companies is not good for any society. Recently, the entire academic editorial board of a neurological journal resigned in protest at what they describe as the “greed” of publishing.[3] Apparently, the Editors have not the power to decide beyond their roles and have less freedom than they believe.
The last pandemic mega-crisis has damaged the reliability and credibility of medical societies and we need to improve them. For medical journals, one of the main problem is the “greed” of publishing for OA. It is this greed that give into the owners the impudence to cost the reviewer’s job as one of forty (or less) of the fees in a “future published article” in an OA journal. It is the audacity with many OA journals do not show basic statistics. Unfortunately, this is not the only major issue regarding medical publishing. Another problem is the absence of triple-blind peer review in both OS and OA journals (authors/reviewers, reviewers/authors, editor who decides/authors) or the absence of any external quality assessment. Many editors publish many research papers or editorials in their journal (who was the reviewer for it?). On the other hand, editors’ independence needs also further defining.[4] I think it is time to amend these problems. Of course, the first step is to recognize them.
Within the next few years, everything in this area will be changed by the use of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT, and we have to be prepared about it. Big data technologies will definitely, drastically, and unpredictably, change the way of knowledge production and dispersion. By that time, we should have seen at least a fundamental reappraisal of the way OA (and OS) medical journals operate. This will also test if organized communities have the strength to influence their future on medical publishing.
References
1. Clark J. How covid-19 bolstered an already perverse publishing system. BMJ. 2023;380:689. doi: 10.1136/bmj.p689. PMID: 36977517.
2. Watson R. Ethics and open access. Nurs Open 2015; 2: 47-48. doi: 10.1002/nop2.21. PMID: 27708800; PMCID: PMC5047317.
3. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-…
4. Davis RM, Müllner M. Editorial independence at medical journals owned by professional associations: a survey of editors. Sci Eng Ethics. 2002; 8: 513-28. doi: 10.1007/s11948-002-0004-7. PMID: 12501720.
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