Ok folks I need to get something off my chest.

I think I have a solution to the Open vs. Closed publishing war.

It would require a *lot* of change, but I think it would fix most legitimate problems with current models.

Strap in because this will be a bit of a thread.

For the uninitiated: There are basically two ways to publish science:

1. Open access. The user pays a fee to publish.

2. Closed access. People pay to read the journal (usually through institutional subscriptions)

(there are hybrids too)

#2 is bad because it makes papers hard to read. Paywalls everywhere for the unaffiliated. Massive and ever-growing subscription costs for libraries.

Most of this money goes to private publishers that make a killing

Some goes to scientific societies that do need it

Objection: "Paywalls don't matter because:"
- You can call up the author!

not if they're dead or if their affiliation has changed

- You can use sci-hub!

ok but that's quasi-legal

- You can get a job where you have journal access!

ok but the "rising costs" thing seems bad

Open access, on its face, is way better. ANYONE can read the paper with just a click. This solves many problems and is why Mandates to publish open access have become a thing

But it introduces a new one: The money must come from somewhere, and that's generally the authors.

Some reaction to this is pretty intense. e.g. calling it academic imperialism

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cobi.13248

And so proponents of closed vs. open are doomed to go back and forth for all time arguing the relative importance of each of the points above.

But, in my view, many of those arguments treat certain aspects of the scientific enterprise as immutable without question.

For example: People talk about how open access fees are thousands and thousands of dollars.

Okay... that's true ONLY IF you're talking about paying for open access in a normally-closed journal. That's where the exorbitant fees are.

If you go to pure open access journals like Plos One, PeerJ, and FACETS there are often really strong waivers and alternate funding models that drastically reduce the cost, or even eliminate it.

"But the journal *I* want to publish in doesn't have these!"

Aha - so here's a point that I think ACTUALLY underpins the concern.

It's not that OA publishing is INHERENTLY too costly (that is disproved by PeerJ). It's that OA publishing *in specific places* is too costly.

In academia, we have not been able to shake Journal Identity as a proxy for article quality. To advance your career you have to publish in a Big Journal.

Imagine someone who only publishes in PeerJ. Their science could be amazing but they'd certainly get side-eye when reviewed

Let's set convention aside for a sec and remind ourselves: What is the point of journal?

1. Provide an organized structure for peer review
2. Format articles for publication
3. Curate based on subject matter
4. Gatekeep
5. Make articles available to be read

If we go back to these fundamentals, I think we can agree that #1 and #2 are done equally well by open and closed journals.

#3 has traditionally been done by the fact that you have lots of different journals for different things

#4 is how we've ended up with journal = "quality"

..And #5 is OBJECTIVELY better done by open access by a longshot.

Remember - in a world where journal ID was not a proxy for quality, you could publish all papers in OA journals with fee reductions or waivers. Cost would not be nearly as much of a problem

So, what's my Big Idea?

1. All papers get published on open access platforms with strong fee waiver programs.

Ultimate goal: Publishing in OA is entirely funded by the savings from journal subscriptions

2. Journals are no longer gatekeepers. They assess on technical merit and provide editorial systems for peer review.

There's no more "is this headline worthy? Is this novel enough?" it's "is this sound science"

3. We REPLACE the gatekeeper/curation function with an ENTIRELY NEW construct:

Lists of papers, curated by experts in sub-fields, and distributed regularly.

Imagine this:

An "editorial board" of 20 fisheries scientists curates the "Fisheries Management" newsletter.

How do you get into the newsletter? You submit your OA paper for consideration with MS + cover letter.

This allows for gatekeeping. You can still have a "General Science" list that would be super exclusive - it's just that the papers you list might be published across a few OA journals.

You can then have lists that are increasingly specific.

Want to start a list of papers about birds? About a specific bird species? The infrastructure is all there - get the experts together and you're off to the races.

On your CV, you list your papers, and then list which lists they're on. Then reviewers can go ooh, ahh

"But Brett, how will people pay to publish!?"

Go look at PeerJ's rates right now. They're already quite low, and they have options like institutional subscriptions that make it *much* cheaper.

OA is not *inherently* expensive. Unlocking your Elsevier paper is.

"But we need those Elsevier papers to get grants or reviewers won't fund them"

I feel like this is a problem with the way we assess quality - not an open vs. closed issue. In any case, my idea provides a structure to retain that - it will just look different.

"You can't expect junior scientists to follow this plan!"

I don't. But the status quo is bad, and a poorly executed transition to OA mandates is also bad.

And my view is requiring people to unlock closed papers is among the worst solutions. We need to try something different

Even if you think my idea is bad, I encourage you to think more deeply about *why* we're doing things the way we are, and try to move past the basic open vs. closed arguments.

We need science to be open. The question is how - not whether to.

Disclaimer: I'm an editorial board member at FACETS. I receive no compensation for this. These views are mine personally only.

(also: I noted earlier that scientific societies need $ that they sometimes get from journals and if my plan was magically executed they'd lose it.

I don't have an answer for that)