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Two facets of academic publishing pose significant challenges. One relates to the relative ease of online publishing compared to the traditional difficulties faced when establishing print-based journals in the pre-internet era. On the other front, the trend in publishing is shifting towards "open-access," driven by user expectations and the preferences of funding bodies. Both of these developments are facilitated by the information revolution, which has enabled a substantial and continually expanding segment of the global population to access an extensive network of internet-connected resources and to share their own ideas with the world, a concept that might have seemed fantastical just a few decades ago. Neither of these developments should be viewed as inherently negative.
Accessibility to research databases has increased significantly over the past two decades, thanks to the infrastructure development of information technology tools and procedures. This progress has also accelerated the publication of newly developed research and methodologies. With journals transitioning from the conventional practice of print publications to web platforms, researchers now have numerous opportunities to select and publish their research in reputable periodicals more expeditiously.
The shift to digital publication has had a profoundly positive impact on scholars worldwide, making scholarly publications more accessible and of higher quality on a global scale. The availability of additional creative online and digital content expands the possibilities for the comprehensive accessibility and usability of all research components, including processes, resources, and data.
Our journey into the realm of online publishing, with one foot grounded in established norms and protocols and the other stepping into the experimental and exhilarating world of previously unimaginable possibilities, especially with the advent of the internet and the web, has been characterized by a blend of vigilance and courageous innovation. We not only dare to dream but also take action by integrating software, text, images, video, and sound to create dynamic representations of our ideas and knowledge, striving to express our ideas as vividly as possible.
In today’s world, researchers frequently collaborate across institutional and geographical boundaries. Online publication offers the advantage of information sharing, enabling works to be discussed, revised, and reissued. Knowledge progresses as a result of the sharing of new ideas, theories, and discoveries.
The possibilities in the new realm of information exchange are intriguing, notwithstanding their complexity. To comprehend the future of publishing, one must consider not only the current environment that defines the roles of authors, readers, publishers, and third-party institutions in the publication process but also the potential ramifications of innovative technologies that allow for the unprecedented exchange of knowledge and information.
There is a widely shared consensus that scientific knowledge should be accessible to everyone. However, accessing articles from many reputable journals can be costly, limiting the benefits to numerous academics and institutions. The traditional route to making a lasting impact on scientific literature is no longer solely through subscription-based print publications. Instead, various opportunities are emerging for optometric educators, physicians, vision scientists, healthcare practitioners, and even our students to share their work within an open access environment.
Open access, in simple terms, refers to the immediate, online, and free availability of scholarly works, ensuring accessibility for all. While the open access publication model is seen as a potential means to make scientific knowledge available to a broader audience, it comes with its own set of challenges.
In 1998, several universities came together to establish the Public Knowledge Project with the aim of promoting open access. They developed the open-source journal publishing system called Open Journal Systems, among other scholarly software projects. As of 2010, this system was adopted by approximately 5,000 journals worldwide. The Figure 1 illustrates the exponential growth in the adoption of open access.
Figure 1: Comparison of the development of Open access publications (marked with an open pad lock) and Subscription-based publications (Akterian, Stepan, 2018)
Peer review, one of the essential steps in publishing, is preserved and unaffected even if the focus switches to online publication. Both open access and traditional print journals include the peer-review process, which offers essential feedback for enhancing the papers that are appropriate for publication and rejecting those that are not. Because of this, the journals’ caliber is maintained, and readers have access to a wide range of scientific, academic, and clinical knowledge that can be applied.
Our outstanding vision science libraries certainly provide us with enviable access to electronic journals and databases, but the old journal publication strategy is antiquated in the digital era. A manuscript must be changed for weeks or months before it can pass peer review and be released to the general audience. Even while it takes time to conduct good research and write well, waiting so long for journals to be published in the 21st century seems out of place, especially for those who have little access to the knowledge they contain. Under the open-access concept, it is hoped that new knowledge will be discovered more quickly.
Students, who frequently lack the funds to pay for access, stand to benefit greatly from free access to knowledge. They can read full articles on their own thanks to this, which aids in their retention of the data supporting what they are being taught. Under this strategy, they can even contribute to the knowledge base more easily (Kundart James OD, 2013).
With traditional publishing, the publishers have acted as trustworthy middlemen between writers who want to share their opinions, insights, and information, and the recipients of such works (readers, students, or other interested individuals in general). The universities, associations, businesses, research facilities, and organizations to which the authors are connected are considered third-party entities.
Even if the majority of research readers are also authors throughout time, the needs of authors and readers of research information are different and may collide. However, as readers outnumber writers in the majority of publications, it is critical for publishers to comprehend each group’s interests when developing a cohesive online strategy. No matter how well-formed, authors want all of their ideas to be fully published and acknowledged as such. This goal is made more feasible by online publishing, and as a result pre-print servers flourish in some disciplines but not all, and research papers are increasingly placed on individual websites prior to or during submission to a journal. Initiatives for open archiving encourage writers to use common standards and wide open access. The only difference is that everything is now simpler and more accessible online.
An open system with little or no financial restrictions on their access is desirable to both; users and authors. This does not imply that all information must be free, but rather that obtaining it should be as straightforward and hassle-free as is practical. Therefore, what we observe is the already speedy shift away from print to internet as the preferred method of rapidly and effectively finding information. Here, the huge databases of journal articles have been especially effective.
More online content is downloaded when it is made available to users (than it was in print), even though downloading an item does not equate to reading it. Greater online information accessibility will eventually have an effect on citation patterns and will put pressure on smaller publishers to be found through more popular gateways.
Everyone is trying to give away information online so where does that leave publishers? If pre-prints and research reports are free to the reader on major websites or on the author’s website, then the value of that information for a publisher of research who is interested in selling the information falls, no question. This issue is particularly pressing as technologies enable smart searching for all free sources of an article. The trend also is speeding up under pressure and action from the author market and it forces publishers to review their fundamental strategy, and purpose.
Where does that leave publishers when everyone is seeking to share content online? Pre-prints and research reports lose value for a publisher of research who wants to charge for the information if they are freely available to readers on well-known websites or the author’s website. Given that technology makes it possible to intelligently search for all free sources of an item, this problem is very urgent. Publishers are being forced to rethink their core goals and strategies as the trend accelerates in response to author market pressure and activity (Waltham Mary 2003).
The relationships that these interested parties had before the Internet’s development as a substitute method of knowledge dissemination are now under threat. With the Web, authors may publish their findings instantly, and peers can quickly comment on the validity of the new information.
Publishers have kept in their e-publications all the characteristics of conventional print publications in order to provide the level of legitimacy sought by consumers and third party institutions. Making papers accessible online is merely the beginning of exploring the opportunities provided by the Internet. The open interchange of ideas benefits both readers and authors, especially in terms of the intellectual satisfaction of having a speedy impact on the development of enlightenment.
For as long as there has been copyright, publishing has faced difficulties. The majority of copyright assignments made by authors to publishers for publications do not permit the author of the in question work to share the work widely online. When material distribution was solely dependent on print, the publisher used to be totally accountable. However, the ease of uploading an article online and authors’ desire for their work to be visible wherever it may garner attention has changed perspectives on copyright.
Ownership implies that writers have the authority to decide how their works will be used. Publishers and third-party organizations are concerned about this since it makes it difficult for them to guarantee financial and authoritative credits. Publishers and third-party institutions alike currently require that authors hand over their copyright, preventing original authors from spreading their works as freely and broadly as they may wish in order to protect their investments and credibility.
Laws make an effort to give authors a definition of ownership and rights for managing their works, but those who have read it can attest that it is not always obvious in its meanings.
"It is the responsibility of the grant recipient to determine which publishers allow authors to retain copyright and/or allow authors to archive journal publications in accordance with funding agency policies" (Siler Kyle, 2017).
For the majority of journal publishers, copyright is a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have." As it is for newspapers and magazines, an exclusive license for the initial publication, followed by a non-exclusive right, is a good alternative. It is possible to craft copyright assignments to meet the needs and preferences of both authors and publishers.
A collection of machine-readable licenses with acceptable rights for both writers and consumers have been developed by the international nonprofit organization i.e. Creative Commons. Currently, authors can designate under Creative Commons licenses whether they want credit given for their work when it is used, whether it can be used for profit, and under what conditions it may be modified. One of 11 machine-readable licenses will be provided to the author to affix to a work so that others will know what they are or are not authorized to do with it, depending on the decisions an author makes in each of these three categories. In addition, Creative Commons gives writers a way to add their works to the public domain. There is no license when the copyright is donated to the general public.
Any conversation on publishing models must eventually turn to the very real, very important question of who will pay. There are expenses independent of the medium, the licensing, the interactiveness of the information, or whether it is static or interactive. There is no free publication model. To maintain an infrastructure of hardware, software, and essential services as well as to guarantee that intellectual resources will be accessible for a very long time to come, online publications need financial resources. The conventional publication models are in direct competition with the new techniques because they have solved the cost problem. The fast changing behavior of persons hoping to enhance knowledge and learning by openly sharing their information, despite these obstacles, must be noted.
Broadly, three markets exist for scholarly published information online:
Sharing scientific information required the use of print media and periodicals, which came with related costs, before the internet was invented. The model of subscription-based access resulted from this.
Each of the markets stated above has an effect on the others depending on their price. Readers are more interested in smaller units, such as individual articles, whereas libraries have traditionally opted to purchase huge packages of information, such as journal subscriptions, books, and currently the full publisher database which is now considered as ’The Big Deal’.
In exchange for granting access to students and employees, universities typically cover the expenses of journal subscriptions. It was anticipated that these expenses would decrease as online access grew. Unfortunately, the bulk of publishing houses have hiked their subscription fees dramatically over time. Academic publishing is an industry currently worth $10 USD billion annually. Profitable publishers enjoy significant oligopoly or monopoly power over esteemed academic journals. Due to this leverage, publishers make substantial profits while institutions are forced to bear hefty expenditures. Currently, for-profit publishers have better profit margins than the majority of other businesses. As per an article by Taira Meadowcroft posted on 8th October 2020 in University of Missouri Libraries website, journal subscription charges have been increasing much more than the rate of inflation.
Most universities and institutions around the world are frequently discouraged by exorbitant subscription fees. The majority of the major worldwide publishing conglomerates have seen an increase in profit margins every year.
A scientific publishing house finds it extremely challenging to defend such a margin, especially in light of the fact that a sizable portion of the globe continues to be ignorant of the scientific information they are concealing that may significantly improve the lives of countless individuals. Unsurprisingly, these profit margins have recently raised a lot of controversy among academics.
Researchers from undeveloped and developing nations sometimes cannot afford the hefty open access prices for the majority of prestigious publications. Even while the majority of publishing companies grant waivers or partial waivers to authors from low- and middle-income nations and occasionally to those without access to research funding, the efforts seem unfair and constrictive. Many scientists who favor open access and open science in general are opposed to the idea of pay-to-publish.
Many "predatory" periodicals have taken advantage of the possibility presented by open access publication. Such journals frequently publish subpar manuscripts with minimal scientific worth in exchange for publishing fees while disregarding all rules about adequate peer review.
However, in the big picture, this financial and legal strategy appears to be ineffective because these legal proceedings fuel more hostility with academic institutions and professors and because no publisher is able to constantly police the entire Internet. A published manuscript can frequently be obtained in a number of ways without a library subscription or by paying a publisher to download an article. Though it is illegal, copies of published manuscripts are frequently available online.
Publisher pricing methods now in use show no signs of stability since numerous experimental strategies are tested and change yearly.
Users are finding it easier to pay-per-view content online, and some publishers have lowered their pay-per-view prices to more properly reflect per-article prices. With these modifications, article sales can and will develop into a more consistent revenue stream, allowing publishers to connect with a wide spectrum of irregular users who are willing to pay for individual articles but not whole journal subscriptions.
The possibilities in the new world of information interchange are intriguing despite its complexity. Understanding the future of publishing requires taking into account not only the current environment that defines the roles of authors, readers, publishers, and third-party institutions in the publication process, but also the potential outcomes of new technologies that allow for the unprecedented exchange of knowledge and information. Knowing about these options can help us better understand the challenges we face when we completely rely on to rapidly emergent publication methods. What impact are they having on people, organizations, communities, and society at large? What adjustments to laws and policies are necessary? Which of the abilities of today will be outdated? How will the new publishing paradigms be protected and maintained? Will there be a universal code of publication ethics for authors and publishers? Above all, we must keep in mind the primary question that underlies this discussion: What is the most effective method of managing intellectual capital, independent of the medium or degree of complexity of publication?
