UPDATE [3/9/2007] – How To Make the Move To Open Access Journals
UPDATE [3/8/2007] – I just thought of Pro #12 this morning. See below.
UPDATE [3/8/2007] – I just thought of Pro #13 this afternoon. See below.
UPDATE [3/8/2007] – I’m also addressing – Con #6. See below.

In a previous post, I claimed that philosophy journals should push to open access publishers and eliminate the publisher middle-man. Philosophy editors work for free. Reviewers work for free. Philosophers have their articles published without getting paid. Why in the age of internet and computers do we have publishers play the role of circulation middle-man?

It used to be that there were no other means of circulation, type-setting, or binding. There were many very expensive processes that publishers provided, but now with computers and the internet – anyone can create a professional looking journal that is widely-circulated. So why don’t we push away from publishers?

In addition, there are so many good reasons to have the top philosophy journals be open-access journals. Below is a list of those pros. After that, I address a a list of potential cons.

I imagine many of these pros and cons are obvious. It’s just so striking to see them laid out side-by-side that I thought it was worth posting about.

Note: I intend to update this list when new pros or cons come to mind. Let me know if you think of any I should add.

Pros
1. Free

This is obvious. Free philosophy for everyone (with internet access).

2. Wide-Circulation

Anyone with internet could access the journals. You can’t get much wider than that.

3. Tracking

The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy allows authors to track can track how many times their article is downloaded. If the top philosophy journals were online with this feature, we would have a new powerful instrument for measuring impact of professors and departments. Professors could track their impact which they could use to make tenure and promotion cases stronger. We could also assess the impact of an entire department. I have my worries about factoring impact into tenure decisions (or ranking philosophy departments), but if we’re going to do it – this would be great data to have.

4. Professors and Students At Low-Budget Schools Can Research With the Big Dogs

There are a lot of small colleges out there with good, serious philosophers doing good, serious research. However, these colleges don’t have the budgets that larger research institutions have. This would make it easier for everyone to stay current and informed.

5. Independent Scholars Can Research With the Big Dogs

There are good, serious philosophers who don’t have teaching positions, and they don’t have access to even a meager selection of philosophy journals.

6. Professors Can Post Their Actual Articles!

When philosophers post articles to their published material, they often post penultimate drafts to avoid crossing the publishers. If we want to write responses to these papers, we have to track down the article to get the pagination. Open Access would eliminate this silly dance. (Also, wouldn’t it be great if you could go to your favorite contemporary philosophers’ website and read ALL of his or her actual journal articles)

7. More Specialty Journals

Start-up costs for journals are, I suspect, prohibitively expensive. I suspect that if the norm were open access online journals we could expect to see more specialized journals (e.g., Lewisian Studies, Chisholmian Studies, the Journal of Contemporary Analytic Epistemology, The Journal for Metaethics, The Journal of Experimental Philosophy, or LEMMings: The Journal for LEMMings)

8. Lower Student Costs

If the highest quality philosophy were being published in Open Access journals, most philosophy classes could be taught using cheaper resources. Even if you were to require your students to print all of them out, or get them bound via some PDF-binding service – it would still be remarkably cheaper.

Note: This one might take awhile. We’d need a lot of high quality, accessible research to build up. But over time we would start to see this benefit.

Also note: There is certainly no getting around the fact that we need our students to read some of the really good philosophy that has already been published in proprietary formats. But the sooner we can get the really good philosophy in non-proprietary formats the better.

9. Research From Anywhere

Think about it. If most of the high-quality philosophy research is available for free online you’ve got access to high quality philosophy – anywhere you have internet!

10. Take Strain Off Library Budgets

It is REALLY expensive for libraries to pay for journal subscriptions. This would free up already strained library budgets for other resources.

11. Philosophy For the Masses

Part of the reason philosophy doesn’t impact everyday life as much as some philosophers would like has to do with the difficult, abstract nature of some of the puzzles. But part of the problem is that even the accessible stuff is largely in formats that the masses simply don’t have access to. For those of you who wish what we did had more impact on non-philosophers – open access journals would be a huge step in that direction.

12. Data-Mining and Article Recommendation

You know how when you browse Amazon.com, they always give you a list of recommendations that is magically geared toward your interests. A non-proprietary version of that data-mining software could be put to good use to find journal articles you didn’t even know were out there. The software would recognize that people who download articles A, B, and C also tend to download articles X, Y, and Z. When you download A, B, and C, it could recommend X, Y, and Z.

13. More Money For Philosophers

It is certainly a rare occasion, but every now and then a philosopher who publishes a book might actually make some money. Open Access Journals might make this a bit less rare. If Open Access Journals would make philosophy more accessible and widely read, we could expect to see increase market demand for the kinds of publications that actually might actually earn a philosopher some money. Some may think this is unlikely, but it is certainly a possibility worth considering. If the masses have regular access to high quality, accessible philosophy – there are going to be more lay persons who are into reading philosophy on a regular basis. It seems that would broaden the market for philosophy books.

Potential Cons (with responses)
1. Legitimacy and Prestige

Con: Some might argue that when a journal comes packaged by an established publisher you’ve got some guarantee that this journal is quality. On the internet, any hack can put together a journal. This tarnishes electronic journals. Electronic journals lack the seal of legitimacy that a publisher would give it, and they are less prestigious.

Response: Regarding the claim about legitimacy, universities are also well-established institutions. As long as the journals were being housed by established good Universities and Colleges they could have the same seal of legitimate scholarship that publishers might give a journal (if publishers even can do that at all).

Regarding the concerns about prestige: I already think this is a concern that some are starting to shed. Whether a journal is prestigious or not is a function of how good the editorial staff is, the quality of the material they publish, and the selectivity. The transition from print to open access will be gradual, and this will be less and less of a concern. (I intend to post an entry with recommendations for how to push philosophy into an open access format – some of those recommendations would help address this concern even more)

2. Risk Losing Our Best Philosophy

Con: Some will argue that it’s easier to lose something on a computer server than it is to lose something that’s printed thousands of times and circulated all over the world. If there were one con that I think seriously has the potential to stall open access – this is it.

Response: I think we can alleviate this worry with proper backups. A good open access journal should indicate precisely what it’s doing to ensure proper backup. They should secure more server space, and perhaps even contract with an outside proprietary backup company.

A better option, would be for journals to partner up with other Universities and have several mirror sites. A journal could be updated by a single university, but hosted by several hundred.

Keep in mind that server space is so cheap (See #5 below) that it would be so easy for a university to foot the bill for a journal, especially if doing so kept the subscription costs down. In fact, most Universities probably pay enough for server space and bandwidth that most universities already could house at least one journal without incurring any additional costs.

Also note, I think publishing companies are already trying to push content online to maximize profits. The content may well be moving online, whether we like it or not. Why allow publishers to continue to charge for it?

[UPDATE: The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy has a clause in the Editorial Policy that explains their backup procedures and that they are supported for the indefinite future.]

4. I like the LOOK and FEEL of paper journals.

Con: Some people simply like the look and feel of a paper journal, and don’t want to give that up for aesthetic reasons.

Response: Regarding the LOOK…
It’s easy to have an electonic journal that look just as clean and professional as a PDF of a print journal. Philosophers’ Imprint and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy have nice PDF layouts of all articles that formatted to look just like a print journal.

Response: Regarding the FEEL…
If by FEEL you mean simply have a paper copy to make notes on, then print the article.

If by FEEL you mean having a bound copy of the recent issue…there are several PDF-binding services that will mail you nice paperback bound volumes of whatever you PDF give them at super-low costs. Journals could even put together a custom volume with these services and you could have an automatic arrangment to have this sent to you.

BONUS: You could give your students custom readers for your classes via these services.

SUPER BONUS: Philosophers could easily put together a BEST OF THE YEAR volume with these PDF-binding services. Imagine at the end of the spring semester, a volume delivered to your door chock-full of the best philosophy articles for the previous academic year. You wouldn’t be limited to a single journal. You could select from all of the top journals a la carte.

5. There’s Still a Cost

Con: Online journals take up bandwidth and server space. This costs money.

Response: This is true, but it’s a cost that universities already absorb. Chances are Universities already pay for enough server space and bandwidth to house a journal. Even if they don’t, buying the extra space is CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP compared to journal subscription fees. It really is a drop in the bucket. Example – (At bluehost.com you can get 1,500 GB of server space and 15,000 GB of transfer for 6.95/mo.)

6. No Stable Citations

Con: Online URLs are always subject to change. Given standard citations styles for online content, this would make citation a messy affair. What if you cite an online journal and the URL changes?

Response: This is why journals like Philosophers’ Imprint and JESP continue to publish their journals in PDF format so that they look like an online copy of a traditional print journal. They even adhere to the traditional method of indexing their journals with Volume Numbers. To cite Philosophers’ Imprint, you need not cite the URL – you can simpy cite the volume # and page# like you would any traditional print journal. Even if those PDFs are housed under a different URL 100 or 200 years from now – the Volume # and Page # will always remain the same.

So there’s the case, as I see it. All things considered, I just can’t see why we don’t start pushing in this direction. Hopefully, Philosophers’ Imprint and JESP are a sign of good things to come. I’ve got some ideas about how we could push in this direction, and I’ll probably post about that soon.