University College London launches open access megajournal to help solve the world’s biggest challenges

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
UCL Press is launching a new open access megajournal that will provide academics and students with ground-breaking research free of charge in a move that challenges traditional commercial publishing models.

The megajournal aims to revolutionise academic publishing by slashing publication times, providing research for free to anyone with an internet connection and publishing online what peer reviewers have to say about the studies to improve transparency.

UCL Press’s new model represents a significant break with the current model for scholarly publishing which relies heavily on subscription journals and which means only those institutions that can afford these subs can access the content.

“The current situation is not the best starting point for researchers who want to tackle the great challenges which face society – hunger, disease, global warming, equality and diversity,” said Dr Paul Ayris, CEO of UCL Press and Pro-Vice-Provost (UCL Library Services), who came up with the idea.
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https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0118/ucl-launches-open-access-megajournal
 
Hang on a minute, does anyone remember me suggesting exactly this on S4ME about a month ago?
My own College have pinched my idea - I should have patented it.

At the time it seemed so bl**ding obvious once I had thought of it I wondered why nobody had done it - seems they had, and round the back of the building. Bravo UCL. My condolences to employees of Elsevier.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Hang on a minute, does anyone remember me suggesting exactly this on S4ME about a month ago?
My own College have pinched my idea - I should have patented it.

At the time it seemed so bl**ding obvious once I had thought of it I wondered why nobody had done it - seems they had, and round the back of the building. Bravo UCL. My condolences to employees of Elsevier.
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I was about to comment what a fortunate coincidence that is. Maybe someone has been listening to you :).
 
Barry said:
This should put the cat amongst the pigeons I imagine :). Presumably UCL are talking only about publishing work of their own researchers?
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I suspect not in fact. If they have any sense they will offer to publish anybody but delegate the peer review process in some way. I have not looked to see what has been announced. Presumably very rapidly other universities will follow suit so I guess it will end up with each publishing their own stuff. Let's see.
 
Sasha said:
I wonder what this means for patients who want to publish in the scientific literature but who aren't attached to universities.
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One solution is to find a friendly academic at your university of choice and co-author. But there is also the model of the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. PNAS, like the Royal Society, has in effect been doing this for years. It is just that they are not universities, but societies. If you want to publish in PNAS all you have to do is find a member in your field and ask them if they will recommend your paper for peer review. By and large if the paper is sensible the members will agree.
 
This is not a new idea but when information can be transmitted for (essentially) free thats its new marginal rate. Artificial constructs to create markup won't hold forever. Sci hub is a great example of this. That said fully open access will take a while, this won't bring those subscriptions screeching to a halt but its one step along the way that could.
Lets hope this effort also includes better peer review, open data and strong ethics in research. If not perhaps yet another open journal is the answer, one that advertises its beyond open access, its also research integrity.
 
Alvin said:
This is not a new idea but when information can be transmitted for (essentially) free thats its new marginal rate. Artificial constructs to create markup won't hold forever. Sci hub is a great example of this. That said fully open access will take a while, this won't bring those subscriptions screeching to a halt but its one step along the way that could.
Lets hope this effort also includes better peer review, open data and strong ethics in research. If not perhaps yet another open journal is the answer, one that advertises its beyond open access, its also research integrity.
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I think there is a difference with sci-hub - which is simply providing transmission. UCL is providing something much more than that - a guarantee of some form of quality control. That remains costly but strangely the tradition has been that it was never charged for by the people who provided it (peer reviewers). Journals were originally organs of learned societies that were groups of people who agreed to provide each other with quality control free of charge. The recent journal model was a con trick. UCL can reclaim the old model overnight and unhook it from production costs - which are now zero.

My guess would be that this is very likely to roll out within the year. It certainly could do. Then commercial journals will collapse just like the tape recorder industry did when CDs came out.
 
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