The discussion about what will be the role of the Internet within the academic context is getting interesting. Up to now, most of the working papers of certain relevance are being published in journals, which are divided into disciplines. The problem with these publications is that its cost can get a little bit too high, even for american universities -imagine, then, the cost for latinamerican faculties…

At Academia’s information sharing future, Grant Buckler wonders how to overcome the problem that the constant raise of subscription fees implies to the academic community. For this matter, he analyzes the case of Public Library of Science (PloS), an organisation that proposes an open access to the contents of publications. In strictly academic terms, his proposal makes sense. The authors of the papers published in academic revues usually get no monetary payment, they publish for other reasons: to improve resumé and to show the results of their researchs to colleagues. A broader difussion of these works would allow for more quotes and cites, which is one of the most usual indicators to stablish the relevance of an article.

For now, PloS has only one publication, PloS Biology. Despite there are no printing and distribution costs, they have to keep paying journal’s editors, who have to read the contents, shape it, suggest changes and finally descide the contents of the publication. For this, PloS Biology gets financial support through payments made by some authors of the articles -approximately, $1500, although some don’t pay- plus contributions made by some foundations.

The article can be found at e-content institute (originally seen at Open Access News).