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The system is changing, but keeping the momentum going will require both individual and collective action. The following list has been compiled from a variety of sources, including a number of public statements that have accompanied recent campus actions around journal cancellations.
Actions Faculty Can Take
As Authors
- Modify any contract you sign with a publisher to ensure that you retain the rights to use your work as you see fit, including posting it to a public archive or institutional repository.
- Become aware of the pricing policies of journals (including commercial electronic journals) in your field.
- Submit papers to quality journals that have reasonable pricing practices. Where possible publish in Open Access journals, which employ funding models that do not charge readers or their institutions for access. Notify unreasonably expensive journals of your decision to submit elsewhere. To find peer-reviewed OA journals in your field, see the Directory of Open Access Journals.
- When applying for research grants, ask the foundation for funds to pay the processing fees charged by OA journals. Many foundations are already on the record as willing to do this.
- Deposit preprints and/or post-prints in disciplinary or institutional repositories. There is currently no official or complete list of repositories or archives, but for more information see http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#archives
As Reviewers
- Consider declining offers to review for unreasonably expensive journals. Notify the journal of the reason for your refusal.
- When asked to referee a paper for an Open Access journal, accept the invitation.
As Editors
- If you are an editor or on the editorial board of a subscription journal examine the pricing practices of that journal. If appropriate, start an in-house discussion on pricing.
- Consider relinquishing editorial posts with unreasonably expensive journals. Notify the journal of the reason for your refusal.
- When asked to serve on the editorial board for an Open Access journal, accept the invitation. • Include your librarian when meeting with a publisher's representative.
As Professionals
- Encourage your professional associations to maintain (or adopt!) reasonable prices and user-friendly access terms.
- Encourage your professional associations to explore alternatives to contracting or selling their publications to a commercial publisher.
- Encourage your professional associations to consider creating enhanced competitors to expensive commercial titles.
- Encourage your professional associations to consider launching an open access journal or creating a disciplinary repository in your field.
As Faculty
- Encourage discussion of scholarly communication issues and proposals for change in your department, college, or campus. Invite library participation in these discussions.
- Volunteer to serve on your university's committee to evaluate faculty for promotion and tenure. Make sure the committee is using criteria that include electronic publications in promotion and funding discussions, and support authors who choose to publish in peer-reviewed alternative journals.
- Investigate your campus intellectual property policies and participate in their development.
- Encourage your institution or its local or regional consortium to set up an institutional repository to permanently archive the intellectual wealth of your institution.
- Work with librarians to determine if bundled (aggregated) license agreements are in the best interest of the institution. Decline these agreements and purchase individual titles when appropriate.
- Work with librarians to determine which journals should be cancelled, and support strategies such as those that target the unreasonably expensive titles.
- Consider becoming an individual member of the Public Library of Science.
- Help educate the next generation of scientists and scholars about scholarly communication issues.
More Information
These sources were used as the basis for the above list of actions:
- Peter Suber has compiled and summarized a list of college and university actions against high journal prices. The list includes many links to policy statements.
- Create Change, developed by the Association of Research Libraries and SPARC and supported by the Association of College and Research Libraries, asks "Shouldn't the way we share research be as advanced as the Internet?" It includes actions you can take.
- Suber's site also contains a list of actions to further the cause of Open Access.
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