The Guardian reports that The Royal Society is urging against freely publishing research on the internet.
The Royal Society fears it could lead to the demise of journals published by not-for-profit societies, which put out about a third of all journals. “Funders should remember that the primary aims should be to improve the exchange of knowledge between researchers and wider society.”
Open access proponents said the Royal Society position statement confuses open access publishing, in which authors pay for their research to be published on the web, with author self-archiving. The latter, which has already been carried out in some disciplines for years, relies on academics publishing on the internet articles that have been accepted by journals.
Slashdot weighs in on the issue.
Tags: science
