As numerous posts on this blog have emphasised, the underlying idea of open access (OA) – allowing anyone to read and share published academic research for free – is great in principle, but in practice has failed in important ways. That’s because traditional academic publishers have subverted the open access model to such an extent that the costs for research institutions of publishing in […]

RE: https://mamot.fr/@amarois/116380027281867412

"[...] it argues that much of the growth in OA has occurred within hybrid journals – resulting in what it sees as “double payment” by the research community."
#APC #OA #GoldOA #HybridOA #costofknowledge

1/ I'm sympathetic to #NIH-funded authors who want to publish in certain #APC-based #OpenAccess journals and can't find the money to pay the APCs. But it's false to say that they must publish in those journals, in any other APC-based OA journals, or even in OA journals. Shame on _Inside Higher Ed_ for leaving this false impression..
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/12/05/nih-policy-holding-researchers-hostage

PS: I repeat: Compliance with the NIH OA policy is free of charge. Moreover, compliance is all about depositing in a certain repository, not publishing in a certain journal or kind of journal. The NIH has a #GreenOA policy, not a #GoldOA policy. The same is true for all the other federal agencies with OA policies, not just the NIH. When a journal charges NIH-funded authors an APC to publish, the fee is to publish in that particular journal, not to comply with the NIH policy. Don't be fooled by the widespread misunderstanding that compliance with these policies requires paying any kind of fee. Don't be fooled by journals and publishers that cynically spread this myth themselves or leave it uncorrected. You can help by correcting this falsehood wherever you see it. You can also help by working with hiring, promotion, tenure, and funding committees to care more about the quality of research than the journals in which it is published.

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#APCs #NelsonMemo #NIH #OpenAccess #OAintheUSA #PublicAccess #Repositories

My new paper on Ukrainian researchers’ publishing activity in Gold Open Access journals during the war has just been published. I focused on five major publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE):

 https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2025-0059

Ukrainian papers in fully Gold OA journals of these publishers grew by more than 50% in 2023, with further growth in 2024.

#OpenAccess #publishing #Ukraine #bibliometrics #GoldOA

The opening of the #NOSF2025 is what I'm here for in conferences nowadays - warnings against reliance on big tech and highlighting that #DiamondOA is the way forward instead of filling the pockets of publishers that charge wild prices for #GoldOA by Casper Albers.

(I'm attending online - there is a livestream available here: https://opensciencefestival.nl/news/watch-the-livestream-of-the-plenary-sessions-on-24-october)

A new preprint on Ukrainian publications in Gold Open Access has a very telling Figure 12. And you know what? It’s a total disaster.

👉 https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08850

It turns out that the largest shares of our APC spending go to MDPI and the Polish Aluna Publishing House. Even worse — the top list also includes “famous” players like WSEAS, Sciedu Press, and the Georgian Association of Business Press = dubious publishers.

#OpenAccess #PredatoryPublishing #Ukraine #Science #APC #GoldOA