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Open Science in publishing and spreading knowledge

07/05/2025

SciLifeLab Training Hub

Ineke Luijten, PhD

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How to implement Open Science

The Open Science workflow

Plan &

Design

Collect &

Analyse

Publish &

Spread

Access &

Reuse

Evaluate &

Build

Communicate & Involve

Reuse data from data repositories

Use open-source software for method documentation & data analysis

Publish preprints

Publish Open Access

Publish all research outputs

Practice Open peer review

Deposit all outputs in open repositories

Use open licensing

Attach persistent identifiers

Add rich metadata

Use responsible research metrics

Adopt qualitative research assessment

Track Open Science contributions

Share key insights through (social) media

Encourage Citizen Science

Turn research into MOOCs or OERs

Preregister hypotheses, study protocols, analysis

workflows

Create a data management plan

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How to implement Open Science

The Open Science workflow

Plan &

Design

Collect &

Analyse

Publish &

Spread

Access &

Reuse

Evaluate &

Build

Communicate & Involve

Reuse data from data repositories

Use open-source software for method documentation & data analysis

Publish preprints

Publish Open Access

Publish all research outputs

Practice Open peer review

Deposit all outputs in open repositories

Use open licensing

Attach persistent identifiers

Add rich metadata

Use responsible research metrics

Adopt qualitative research assessment

Track Open Science contributions

Share key insights through (social) media

Encourage Citizen Science

Turn research into MOOCs or OERs

Preregister hypotheses, study protocols, analysis

workflows

Create a data management plan

Publish & spread:

Write collaboratively on open, version-controlled platforms like Overleaf (LaTeX), Google Docs, or Manubot.
Manage references and bibliographies openly with tools like Zotero and OpenCitations.
Post early manuscript versions on preprint servers (e.g., bioRxiv, arXiv, PsyArXiv) to get feedback before peer review.
Openly share all outputs:

avoid publication bias by publishing negative/null results
supplementary materials: include extended datasets, protocols, and additional figures in repositories like Zenodo or OSF.
publish scripts/code/computational workflows in repositories like Zenodo, GitHub, or Software Heritage with clear documentation.

Publish in fully open-access journals (e.g., PLOS, eLife) or use institutional agreements for APC-free publishing and deposit accepted manuscripts in institutional or subject repositories (e.g., Europe PMC, arXiv, HAL).
Opt for open peer review: choose journals that allow reviews to be published alongside articles (e.g., PeerJ, F1000Research, eLife).
Engage in post-publication review by using platforms like PubPeer.
Cite and credit open peer reviewers when reviews are public.

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Academic publishing: the facts

Publish &

Spread

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Academic publishing: the facts

Publish &

Spread

MentiMeter:

How many scholarly journals are there globally?

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Academic publishing: the facts

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MentiMeter:

How many articles are published per year?

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Academic publishing: the facts

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MentiMeter:

What is the estimated annual value of the academic publishing industry?

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

“Serials crisis”

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

Scientific communication hasn't always looked the way it does today.�Before the 17th century, knowledge-sharing was mainly:

Through private correspondence (letters between scholars),
Books, which were expensive and slow to produce,
Personal meetings or scientific societies where findings were discussed but not widely disseminated.
Often, discoveries were kept secret — especially by natural philosophers, alchemists, and craft guilds — because knowledge meant power and profit (early forms of intellectual property protection).

From the beginning of the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, beginning in 1543 after the publications of two books by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) about the nature of the heavens and the human body, communication of scientific discoveries was done by two forms:

(1) Self-published books and pamphlets

(2) personal letters to other scientists.

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

“Serials crisis”

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

With time, letters took on a more communal form and often were shared between many scientists, providing the base for today’s professional societies. By the end of the 18th century, books, in large part, were replaced by journals, and publication in a scientific journal became routine in the early 19th century.

In the mid-1600s, a big shift happened:�With the rise of the scientific revolution — a push for systematic inquiry and public verification — scholars realized that sharing results could advance collective knowledge faster than hoarding secrets.

1665 marks a turning point:

In England, the Royal Society began publishing the Philosophical Transactions.

Edited by Henry Oldenburg, it aimed to record discoveries for priority claims ("I discovered it first!") and allow others to scrutinize them.

In France, Journal des Sçavans launched, blending scientific news with literature and philosophy.

Early scientific journals had two major goals:

Credit: Allow researchers to establish priority for discoveries.
Verification: Let others reproduce or build on work — the early seeds of today's peer review (although peer review was much less formal at the time).

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

“Serials crisis”

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, scientific journals slowly multiplied as specialized fields (physics, chemistry, biology) matured.

Authors usually retained some rights initially, especially when publishing through learned societies.

Learned societies (e.g., the Royal Society in England, the Académie des Sciences in France) were the main publishers early on.
They often did not claim full ownership over authors' works — the focus was on disseminating knowledge rather than profit.
Authors contributed for reputation and prestige, not money.
Many societies printed the articles in their journals but did not buy or license the copyright outright.

Functions of a scientific journal include registration (i.e., establishing the precedence of an idea for authors), dissemination (i.e., providing access for the intended audience), certification (i.e., ensuring quality control by peer review), and archiving (i.e., maintaining the scientific record)

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

“Serials crisis”

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

By the mid-19th century, scientific publishing became increasingly professionalized and commercialized:

Printing technology improved (e.g., steam-powered presses, cheaper paper), making it easier and cheaper to produce journals and books at scale.
Scientific societies like the Royal Society (UK), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, US), and others expanded their publishing efforts — but they often struggled financially.
To manage growing costs, societies began partnering with commercial publishers or outsourcing printing and distribution entirely.
Publishers such as Elsevier (founded 1880) and Springer (founded 1842) were established and grew rapidly in this period.

As a result:

Scientists were increasingly required to transfer copyright to either the society (acting like a publisher) or to a commercial publisher.
Authors received no payment — their reward was academic prestige.
Publishers controlled reproduction and access rights — setting prices for subscriptions or copies, and limiting public access to research.

During this period:

Major journals such as Nature (1869) and Science (1880) were founded.
Specialized journals proliferated to serve growing scientific sub-disciplines (e.g., chemistry, physics, biology).
Journals started acting more like gatekeepers: deciding what counted as credible science and what did not.

Impact on rights:

Publishing in a prestigious journal became essential for career advancement, giving publishers more bargaining power over authors.
Authors had little leverage to negotiate copyright terms — usually full transfer of rights was required.
Some authors self-published monographs or books to maintain control, but journal articles became the dominant form of scientific communication.

From https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science

‘Top British scientists – from Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, to the physicist Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of Charles Darwin – were concerned that while British science was world-class, its publishing arm was dismal. Science publishers were mainly known for being inefficient and constantly broke. Journals, which often appeared on cheap, thin paper, were produced almost as an afterthought by scientific societies. The British Chemical Society had a months-long backlog of articles for publication, and relied on cash handouts from the Royal Society to run its printing operations.”

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

“Serials crisis”

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

Speaker notes:

By 1900, there were already about 10,000 journals in existence — and growing. But the real turning point came after World War II. With governments — especially in the U.S. and Europe — pouring money into research, the number of scientists exploded. And with more researchers came more results, and more journals to publish them.

At first, scientific societies like the Royal Society and the American Chemical Society tried to manage this growth in a non-profit way. But they couldn’t keep up. That’s when commercial publishers stepped in. Enter Pergamon Press, led by Robert Maxwell, and competitors like Elsevier. Pergamon moved fast — publishing dozens, then hundreds of journals. Maxwell’s model was simple:

Find a new research niche.
Recruit a prominent academic to edit a new journal.
Give it a grand title like “International Journal of…”
Sell subscriptions to university libraries, flush with public funding.

By 1959, Pergamon had 40 journals. Six years later, it had 150 — triple what Elsevier had at the time. This was a business, and a very successful one. Publishers didn’t pay authors or peer reviewers. Scientists handed over copyright for free, often without a second thought. And publishers sold expensive subscriptions — mostly to libraries. During the 1950s–70s, publishers were mainly service providers. They handled logistics: typesetting, printing, mailing. They didn’t meddle in scientific content. But the seeds of today’s problems were already being sown:

Research, often publicly funded, was locked behind paywalls.
Libraries started noticing — by the late 1960s, journal prices were climbing faster than inflation.
This growing burden on libraries would later be known as the Serials Crisis.

Background information:

- rapid founding of new journals (10000 in 1900)

- first journal to institute peer review (Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1733)

- publication becomes routine (early 1800s)

1930s–1950s: The number of scientists grew steadily — but after World War II, it exploded.
Huge state investments (especially from the U.S. and Europe) fueled research.
More researchers → more results → more journals needed.
Scientific societies (e.g., American Chemical Society, Royal Society) initially tried to keep publishing non-profit.
However, commercial publishers (e.g., Pergamon Press, Elsevier) moved in aggressively.
Key feature:

Scientists gave copyright to publishers for free.
Publishers profited by selling expensive subscriptions to libraries.

During this time (1930–1970), publishers were primarily service providers.�They managed peer review, printed journals, and distributed them — but they did not interfere with scientific content, priorities, or practices.

Authors transferred copyright routinely; it was seen as a minor technicality.

Research, largely publicly funded, became locked behind paywalls — but there was little public awareness or protest yet.

Libraries bore the brunt of growing subscription costs.

Serials Crisis beginnings:

By the late 1960s, libraries started noticing that journal costs were rising faster than inflation, laying the seeds for dissatisfaction.

From https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science

The government’s solution was to pair the venerable British publishing house Butterworths (now owned by Elsevier) with the renowned German publisher Springer, to draw on the latter’s expertise. Butterworths would learn to turn a profit on journals, and British science would get its work out at a faster pace.

As science expanded, he realised that it would need new journals to cover new areas of study. The scientific societies that had traditionally created journals were unwieldy institutions that tended to move slowly, hampered by internal debates between members about the boundaries of their field. Rosbaud had none of these constraints. All he needed to do was to convince a prominent academic that their particular field required a new journal to showcase it properly, and install that person at the helm of it. Pergamon would then begin selling subscriptions to university libraries, which suddenly had a lot of government money to spend.

By 1959, Pergamon was publishing 40 journals; six years later it would publish 150. This put Maxwell well ahead of the competition. (In 1959, Pergamon’s rival, Elsevier, had just 10 English-language journals, and it would take the company another decade to reach 50.)

Maxwell insisted on grand titles – “International Journal of” was a favourite prefix. Peter Ashby, a former vice president at Pergamon, described this to me as a “PR trick”, but it also reflected a deep understanding of how science, and society’s attitude to science, had changed. Collaborating and getting your work seen on the international stage was becoming a new form of prestige for researchers, and in many cases Maxwell had the market cornered before anyone else realised it existed.

If a serious new journal appeared, scientists would simply request that their university library subscribe to that one as well. If Maxwell was creating three times as many journals as his competition, he would make three times more money.

The only potential limit was a slow-down in government funding, but there was little sign of that happening. In the 1960s, Kennedy bankrolled the space programme, and at the outset of the 1970s Nixon declared a “war on cancer”, while at the same time the British government developed its own nuclear programme with American aid. No matter the political climate, science was buoyed by great swells of government money.

But by the end of the 1960s, commercial publishing was considered the status quo, and publishers were seen as a necessary partner in the advancement of science. Pergamon helped turbocharge the field’s great expansion by speeding up the publication process and presenting it in a more stylish package. Scientists’ concerns about signing away their copyright were overwhelmed by the convenience of dealing with Pergamon, the shine it gave their work

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Current academic publishing practices -

How did we get here?

Publish &

Spread

Letters were shared between many scientists

Birth of the academic journal (1665)

Journals in specialized fields appeared

Publishing mainly through learned societies

Focus on disseminating knowledge rather than profit

1850-1930

Professionalization

Printing technology improved

Scientific societies struggled financially

1842 - Springer founded

1869 - Nature founded

1880 - Elsevier founded

1880 - Science founded

Commercialization

1930-1970

Scientific boom

1951 - Pergamon Press founded. Managed peer review, printing, distribution.

Profited by selling subscriptions to libraries, took copyright of work

Journal proliferation

1700-1850

1600-1700

Slow & informal

Scientific communication via self-published books/pamphlets or personal letters.

Pre-1600s

Commercialization

1970-1990

Scientists begin to share

Gatekeeping

1974 - Cell founded. Introduced editorial selectivity.

Impact factor widely adopted

1991 - Pergamon sold to Elsevier

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2100

Year

Speaker notes:

We’ve now arrived at a major shift in scientific publishing — not just in volume or access, but in how power started to be concentrated in the hands of journal editors and publishers.

In the 1970s, Benjamin Lewin founded the journal Cell, originally under MIT Press. And this wasn’t just another new journal — Cell changed the game. Unlike traditional journals, which mostly published peer-reviewed submissions without much interference, Cell took an editorial, curatorial role. Lewin chose papers based not just on quality, but on how exciting and impactful the discoveries were. This was new: Journals stopped being passive vessels for communicating science. They became gatekeepers of prestige.

Suddenly:

Only certain kinds of research — flashy, big-result studies — were welcomed.
Scientists began tailoring their experiments to impress top journals.
Publishing in high-impact journals became a ticket to hiring, tenure, and funding.

Lewin, for example, would reject far more papers than he published, favoring long, rigorous studies that answered big questions. This model was quickly copied by other editors. Around the same time, a new tool appeared: the Impact Factor, developed in the 1960s by Eugene Garfield. Originally meant to help libraries choose journals, it was quickly adopted by publishers as a marketing tool — and by institutions as a proxy for quality. As a result, journals and their impact factor began to shape science itself:

Which topics got explored
What kinds of methods were favored
Who got jobs and funding

Meanwhile, the business side accelerated. In 1991, Robert Maxwell sold Pergamon Press — with its 400 journals — to Elsevier for £440 million.

Elsevier, now with over 1,000 journals, became the largest scientific publisher in the world. And by 1994, it had raised prices by 50%.

Background information:

Foundation of the journal Cell by Benjamin Lewin, originally within MIT Press:

Cell changed the game:

It directly curated which discoveries were deemed most "exciting" and "high impact."
Journals started to shape scientific practice, not just report it.�Until about 1970, journals simply published what was submitted and peer-reviewed.�After journals like Cell appeared, they started to act as gatekeepers of prestige, influencing:

Which types of experiments were done (flashy results preferred)
Career progression (hiring and tenure based on publishing in top journals)
Funding decisions (funders looked at where researchers published)

This editorial selectivity did not exist before 1970 in the same way — it is a very modern phenomenon.

Important: during this time, scientists generally did not pay journals to have their work published, this came later.

From https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science

Lewin (founder of Cel) prized long, rigorous papers that answered big questions – often representing years of research that would have yielded multiple papers in other venues – and, breaking with the idea that journals were passive instruments to communicate science, he rejected far more papers than he published.

Suddenly, where you published became immensely important. Other editors took a similarly activist approach in the hopes of replicating Cell’s success. Publishers also adopted a metric called “impact factor,” invented in the 1960s by Eugene Garfield, a librarian and linguist, as a rough calculation of how often papers in a given journal are cited in other papers. For publishers, it became a way to rank and advertise the scientific reach of their products. The new-look journals, with their emphasis on big results, shot to the top of these new rankings, and scientists who published in “high-impact” journals were rewarded with jobs and funding. Almost overnight, a new currency of prestige had been created in the scientific world. (Garfield later referred to his creation as “like nuclear energy … a mixed blessing”.)

It is difficult to overstate how much power a journal editor now had to shape a scientist’s career and the direction of science itself

In 1991, to finance his impending purchase of the New York Daily News, Maxwell sold Pergamon to its quiet Dutch competitor Elsevier for £440m (£919m today).

If Maxwell’s genius was in expansion, Elsevier’s was in consolidation. With the purchase of Pergamon’s 400-strong catalogue, Elsevier now controlled more than 1,000 scientific journals, making it by far the largest scientific publisher in the world. By 1994, three years after acquiring Pergamon, Elsevier had raised its prices by 50%.

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Subscription-fee based publishing

Publish &

Spread

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

2

3

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

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Subscription-fee based publishing

Publish &

Spread

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

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Subscription-fee based publishing

Publish &

Spread

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher has copyright

7

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

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Subscription-fee based publishing

Publish &

Spread

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher has copyright

7

Scientist pays for access

8

Libraries pay for access

8

Taxpayer pays for access

8

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

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Subscription-fee based publishing

Publish &

Spread

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher has copyright

7

Scientist pays for access

8

Libraries pay for access

8

Taxpayer pays for access

8

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

>799M SEK in 2023

In Sweden, The Bibsam Consortium is a national coordination body, managed by the National Library, that negotiates agreements with academic publishers on behalf of Swedish universities, research institutes, and government agencies. Their goal is to secure access to journals while also promoting the transition to open access—often through transformative agreements that combine subscription access with open publishing rights. Bibsam plays a key role in controlling costs, increasing transparency, and ensuring Swedish research is widely accessible.

For example, in 2018 they famously ended their deal with Elsevier when the publisher wouldn’t meet their open access demands—a move that gained international attention

The National Library started drafting the total cost of scholarly publishing in 2017. In 2023 the total cost of publishing for Swedish HEIs was at least 799 million Swedish kronor (SEK).

https://www.kb.se/samverkan-och-utveckling/oppen-tillgang-och-bibsamkonsortiet/open-access-and-bibsam-consortium/cost-of-scholarly-publishing.html

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Subscription-fee based publishing:

Pros and cons

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What are some pros and cons associated with

subscription-fee based publishing?

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Pros

Publish &

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High-impact journals have established quality control and prestige

Financial stability for publishers

No direct cost for the researcher, therefore accessible to underfunded researchers

Libraries can benefit from bundled deals

Can keep specialized, niche journals afloat

Professional production services

1. Established quality control and prestige

Many high-impact journals (e.g., Nature, Science, Cell) are subscription-based and are seen as prestigious.
Their long-standing peer-review processes and editorial boards are trusted by many in academia.

2. Financial stability (for publishers)

Predictable revenue from subscriptions allows publishers to invest in:

Editorial services
Copyediting and typesetting
Digital infrastructure (e.g., archiving, search tools)
Marketing and distribution

3. No direct cost to authors

Unlike Gold OA models, subscription journals typically don’t charge authors (unless for extras like color figures).
This can be beneficial for researchers without funding for APCs (Article Processing Charges).

4. Bundled access for institutions

Libraries often get bulk deals or journal packages, offering broad access across disciplines.
Efficient for large institutions that want a wide range of content for students and researchers.

5. Sustainable for niche or low-volume fields

In areas with low publication volumes, APC-based OA may not be financially viable.
Subscriptions allow journals in niche or specialized fields to operate without charging authors.

6. Professional production services

Established publishers offer well-designed platforms, discoverability tools, and long-term digital preservation (e.g., via CrossRef, CLOCKSS).

7. Controlled access can fund scholarly societies

Many subscription journals are run by scholarly societies, which use subscription income to fund conferences, fellowships, and educational programs.

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Cons

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Publicly funded research is not publicly accessible

Unsustainable subscription costs (‘serials crisis’)

Barriers to knowledge sharing and global inequity

Exploitation of academic labor

Delays and bottlenecks in knowledge dissemination

Restrictive licensing and reuse barriers

7. Lack of transparency in peer review�

1. Publicly funded research was not publicly accessible

“Taxpayers fund research, but must pay again to read it.”

This became a rallying cry. Governments, through public institutions and research councils, fund a vast portion of academic research. However, the resulting publications were:

Locked behind expensive paywalls
Only accessible to those at wealthy institutions
Entirely inaccessible to the public, journalists, educators, or practitioners (e.g., doctors, teachers, NGOs)

Example: During public health emergencies (e.g., SARS, HIV, later COVID-19), doctors and researchers in poorer countries couldn’t access critical knowledge.

2. Unsustainable subscription costs ("The Serials Crisis")

Academic journal prices rose much faster than inflation:

Between the 1980s and 2000s, journal subscription prices increased over 250%.
Libraries, especially in public universities, couldn't keep up.
Journals from commercial publishers were often bundled in large packages (“Big Deals”), forcing libraries to pay for titles they didn’t need.
High subscription charges for accessing published papers that impose financial pressures on stakeholders of the publishing market, i.e., institutions and individuals such as clinicians and scientists

Librarians and faculty protested this oligopoly of large publishers (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature), who were reaping 30–40% profit margins — more than tech giants like Apple or Google.

Serials crisis:

The serials crisis is generally considered to have started in the 1970s and became fully visible by the 1980s and 1990s.

Early warning signs:

Late 1960s: Libraries already noticed that the prices of scientific journals were rising much faster than inflation.
They struggled to afford all the new journals emerging from post-WWII research expansion.

Crisis emerges:

1970s: The problem became more serious as commercial publishers (e.g., Elsevier, Pergamon Press) aggressively raised subscription prices.
New specialized journals were created, splitting fields into more niches — increasing costs further.
Between 1975 and 1985, the average price of a journal doubled. The New York Times reported that in 1984 it cost $2,500 to subscribe to the journal Brain Research; in 1988, it cost more than $5,000. That same year, Harvard Library overran its research journal budget by half a million dollars.

Crisis fully recognized:

1980s–1990s: Libraries formally coined the term "serials crisis."
By the 1990s, libraries were canceling subscriptions because they could no longer afford them.
Publisher mergers (e.g., Elsevier acquiring Pergamon in 1991) made the problem even worse by concentrating market power.

3. Barriers to knowledge sharing and global inequity

Scholars and librarians from the Global South or underfunded institutions:

Had little to no access to cutting-edge research.
Were locked out of participating fully in the scholarly conversation.
This created a two-tier system where well-funded Western institutions advanced, while others were marginalized.

Equity concern: In a digital world, knowledge could be shared instantly and freely—yet systemic paywalls preserved artificial scarcity.

4. Exploitation of academic labor

The system relied on:

Unpaid author labor (writing, revising, formatting)
Unpaid peer reviewers (a crucial part of quality control)
Editors who often volunteered their time

Meanwhile, publishers monetized this free labor and restricted access to the outputs. Many scholars began questioning:

Why am I giving my labor to a system that then sells my work?
Who is benefiting from my time, knowledge, and expertise?

5. Delays and bottlenecks in dissemination

The peer review and publishing process in traditional journals was slow—sometimes taking months or years.
During fast-moving crises (like pandemics), this lag had real-world consequences.
Scholars sought faster, open ways to share preprints, data, and findings.
Publication delay, the time gap between finishing data collection and publication, has increased over time from ~1.4 ± 0.2 years in 1912 to 2.6 ± 0.1 years in 2020 and 3.2 ± 0.1 in 2021

6. Restrictive licensing and reuse barriers

Even if you had access, traditional journals:

Often prohibited text and data mining
Didn’t allow readers to reuse figures, content, or data
Retained copyright, so authors couldn’t share or remix their own work freely

Researchers wanted Creative Commons licensing, which would allow:

Legal reuse
Translation
Educational redistribution
Integration into Wikipedia, teaching materials, or policy documents

7. Lack of transparency in peer review and publishing costs

Peer review is often a black box, with unclear standards or decision-making. Peer review biased towards papers that have positive results.
Article processing charges (APCs) in some open access models (e.g., hybrid journals) were opaque and inflated.
Critics demanded:

Open peer review for accountability and learning
Transparent, cost-efficient publishing models

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The birth of Open Access

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Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002):

By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

Budapest Open Access Initiative. 2002. Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative. February 14, 2002. https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read

This tension set the stage for the Open Access movement to emerge in the '90s when access to the Internet became widely available and online publishing became the norm. Calls for reform intensified

Scholars began advocating for alternative publishing models where research could be accessed freely.
Early preprint servers (like arXiv in 1991) were part of this push — providing free access without formal journal barriers.
1994: The Subversive Proposal published (Stevan Harnad), encouraging authors to self-archive their work online (“green open access”)
2001: Creative Commons founded
2000s: Formal statements like the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) made OA a coordinated global effort. Now 7571 Signatures of individuals, 1959 signatures of organizations. From BOAI: any scientific publication, such as peer-reviewed, journal, articles and books, research reports, conference papers are accessible to anyone anywhere. This means no paywalls from the publishers. Secondly, that every publication that is made publicly available has the permissive license, which means that the text, images, tables, methodologies, etc, can be re-used by anyone. Our recent BOAI20 Recommendations emphasize that OA is not an end in itself, but a means to other ends – above all, to the equity, quality, usability, and sustainability of research. As a result, the BOAI offers a unique platform for discussions on OA strategies and their implementation.
2003: Bethesda and Berlin Declarations. Further clarify OA principles.

The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing is a 2003 statement which defines the concept of open access and then supports that concept. On 11 April 2003, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute held a meeting for 24 people to discuss better access to scholarly literature. The group made a definition of an open access publication as one which grants a "free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit, and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship" and from which every article is "deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository". The Bethesda Statement builds on the BOAI by saying how users will enact open access. Specifically, open access practitioners will put content online with a license granting rights for reuse including the right to make derivative works. The BOAI does not mention derivative works.
The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in particular is adopted by major European institutions and funders. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities is an international statement on open access and access to knowledge. It emerged from a conference on open access hosted in the Harnack House in Berlin by the Max Planck Society in 2003. the Berlin Declaration was a third influential event in the establishment of the open access movement. Peter Suber has referred to the three events combined as the "BBB definition" of open access as the three overlap with and inform one another

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Green Open Access

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Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher usually has copyright

7

Scientist publishes pre-typeset version in public repository

7

Libraries free access after embargo-period

8

Taxpayer free access after embargo period

8

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

arXiv

SSRN

DiVA

SwePub

Green Open Access is a model of open access publishing where authors self-archive a version of their research article—typically in a publicly accessible repository—without paying a fee to the publisher.

What Does Green Open Access Involve?

Authors publish their article in a traditional (often subscription-based) journal.
They then deposit a version of the manuscript (usually the peer-reviewed, accepted version without final typesetting) into:

An institutional repository (e.g., Harvard DASH, arXiv@MIT)
A disciplinary repository (e.g., arXiv, bioRxiv, PubMed Central, SSRN)
A general-purpose repository (e.g., Zenodo, OSF)

Embargo Periods

Many publishers allow green OA only after an embargo period (e.g., 6–12 months after official publication).
During the embargo, the manuscript may be deposited but not made openly available.

What Version Can Be Shared?

Usually, the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is allowed:

This is the version after peer review, but before journal formatting and typesetting.
The final published PDF is often not allowed to be archived.

Pros of Green OA

Free for authors (no APCs)
Increases visibility and accessibility of work
Complies with many funder open access mandates (e.g., NIH, Horizon Europe)
Builds institutional infrastructure and control over scholarship

Limitations of Green OA

Embargoes can delay access
Allowed versions may differ from the final published one
Discoverability may be lower compared to journal-hosted articles
Licensing is often unclear or restrictive (not always CC BY)

Examples of Green OA Repositories

arXiv.org – physics, math, computer science
bioRxiv.org – life sciences
PubMed Central – biomedical and NIH-funded research
SSRN – social sciences and law
Institutional repositories like:

DASH (Harvard)
Apollo (Cambridge)
DSpace@MIT

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Publishers respond:

Gold open access

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Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Author usually has copyright

8

Scientist pays APCs for publication and OA

7

Libraries free access

9

Taxpayer free access

9

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Publishers responded to BOAI and Green OA by creating Open Access publishing models — but someone had to pay for the editorial work, hosting, archiving, etc. The solution? → Article Processing Charges (APCs): the author (or their funder/institution) pays upfront so the paper is free to read. This is when the now-familiar model of "pay to publish, free to read" was really born.

APCs are fees paid by authors (or their funders/institutions) to cover the cost of publishing an article in an open-access journal. In contrast to the subscription model (where readers or libraries pay), APCs shift the financial burden to the publication stage so that access is free for all readers.

First major Open Access journals charging APCs:

BioMed Central (founded 2000)
Public Library of Science: PLOS — founded early 2000s, first journal PLOS Biology launched 2003, PLOS medicine in 2004

As fully open-access journals like PLOS Biology (2003) and PLOS Medicine (2004) were launched, they needed sustainable revenue to cover:

Editorial services
Peer review coordination
Copyediting and typesetting
Web hosting and archiving
Infrastructure and staff

PLOS helped legitimize the APC model, showing that high-quality, peer-reviewed OA journals could thrive.

These APCs were often covered by research grants or built into institutional publishing support.

Gold Open access can also be in a hybrid journal (subscription-based but offers OA for a fee)

Concerns about APCs

Could APCs create inequities for researchers without funding?
Might APCs incentivize volume over quality?
Would commercial publishers co-opt the APC model with hybrid OA or inflated fees?

These concerns intensified in later years, leading to new experiments with APC-free models (like diamond OA or consortial funding).

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Publishers respond:

Hybrid ‘open access’

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)

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher has copyright

8

Scientist pays for access OR APCs for OA

7

Libraries pay for access if no OA

9

Taxpayer pays for access if no OA

9

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

(

)

26 of 39

Publishers respond:

Bronze ‘open access’

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)

Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

(

)

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published, temporarily free on publishers’ website. No clear open license attached

7

Scientist may pay for access

8

Libraries may pay for access

8

Taxpayer may pay for access

8

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

(

)

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University and funder mandates

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2008: Harvard’s Open Access mandate

post-peer-review, pre-publication scholarly articles written by Harvard researchers will automatically be licensed to the university and published on the university’s institutional repository, unless researchers opt out. �

2012: Governments and funders begin to require OA�Wellcome Trust: all funded research be OA within 6 months

NIH: all funded research deposited in PubMed Central

European Commission: Horizon 2020 includes mandatory open access for research outputs

VR & Formas: encouraging/requiring OA for funded research

2012: Start of ‘academic spring’�Rising rebellion among researchers fed up with exploitative publishing systems

Cost of Knowledge campaign to boycott Elsevier

By the late 2000s, the momentum for Open Access began to take off in a more organized, institutional way.

In 2008, Harvard made headlines with a bold move: its Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to mandate open access. This meant that scholarly articles—after peer review but before journal formatting—would be automatically deposited in Harvard’s institutional repository, unless researchers explicitly opted out. This was a big shift in policy from a top-tier institution.

Then by 2012, major research funders and governments began requiring Open Access:

The Wellcome Trust mandated that all research it funds be made OA within 6 months.
The NIH required deposits in PubMed Central.
And the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program included strong OA provisions.
In Sweden, funders like Vetenskapsrådet (VR) and Formas started pushing for OA as a condition for grants.

At the same time, frustration was building among researchers. This boiled over into what became known as the ‘Academic Spring’.

Scholars protested high subscription costs and publisher profits.
The Cost of Knowledge campaign—sparked by mathematician Tim Gowers—called for a boycott of Elsevier, and thousands of researchers signed on.

This was a turning point: Open Access wasn’t just a technical policy anymore—it was a movement.

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Public protests:

Black open access

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Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Publisher may have copyright

7

Scientist free access

8

Libraries free access

8

Taxpayer publishes pirated version in public repository

7

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

Sci-Hub

LibGen

Black OA arised as a response to barriers in the traditional scholarly publishing model:

High subscription costs limit access—especially in the Global South or underfunded institutions.
Many publicly funded articles remain locked behind expensive paywalls.
Delays or embargoes in green OA reduce timely access to knowledge.

It refers to the unauthorized sharing of paywalled scholarly publications, usually through pirate platforms like Sci-Hub or LibGen (Library Genesis). It’s called “black” to distinguish it from legal forms of open access (green, gold, diamond, etc.), though the term is informal and sometimes controversial.

What does it involve?

Bypassing publisher paywalls by accessing or downloading articles without a subscription or payment.
Platforms like:

Sci-Hub: founded 2011 (Alexandra Elbakyan from Kazakhstan). offers direct access to millions of scholarly articles by using credentials (often leaked or donated) from subscribing institutions.
LibGen: hosts a vast mirror of downloaded academic books and papers.

These services operate in legal gray areas (or outright violation of copyright laws), depending on jurisdiction.

Legal and ethical tensions

Illegal under most copyright laws, and aggressively targeted by publishers like Elsevier.
Seen by some as a form of civil disobedience or digital activism.
Others argue it undermines legitimate open access efforts and threatens sustainable publishing.

Scholarly and policy reactions

Black OA has exposed the demand for universal, immediate access to scholarship.
It fueled policy debates and increased support for legal OA reforms, including:

Plan S
Funder mandates
National negotiations for open access agreements

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Plan S

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From Plan S (2018):

With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.”

What is allowed:

Fully Open Access Journals or Platforms (Gold OA with CC BY license) - APCs capped and supported by funders

Repositories (Green OA) – accepted manuscripts must be deposited immediately with no embargo.

Transformative Agreements or Journals – subscription journals transitioning to OA under formal agreements.

In 2018, we saw a major development: the launch of Plan S by cOAlition S, a group of European research funders supported by the European Commission and Science Europe. Plan S laid out a bold mandate: by 2021, all research funded by these bodies had to be published in fully open access venues—no embargoes, no hybrid paywalls. This move shook the publishing world and pushed even the largest commercial publishers to adapt more open strategies.

In the 2020s, we began to see the shift toward mainstream OA:

Publishers like Springer Nature, Elsevier, and Wiley began signing transformative agreements—hybrid deals where institutions pay for both subscription access and open publishing rights.
At the same time, models like Diamond Open Access—which charge neither authors nor readers—started gaining more attention, alongside growing acceptance of preprints across disciplines.
In 2021, UNESCO issued its Recommendation on Open Science, officially endorsing open access and data sharing principles worldwide.

But there’s been criticism, especially of the Gold OA model with article processing charges (APCs).

Many scholars raised equity concerns: What happens to researchers who can’t afford APCs?
Would this create a two-tier system, where well-funded scientists publish and others get left behind?

In response, Plan S funders and partners began backing Diamond OA more actively.�In 2022, they launched the Action Plan for Diamond OA, aiming to:

Strengthen technical infrastructure,
Support the sustainability of these free journals,
And develop ways to directly fund Diamond journals through grants and public support.

This signals a growing commitment to equitable and community-led publishing models going forward.

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Diamant open access

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Adjusted from: Wikimedia Commons contributors, 'File:Scholarly Publishing - Gold Open Access chart.png', Wikimedia Commons, 6 April 2023. CC BY 4.0

Funder finances research

Scientist writes article

Scientist sends article to publisher

Publisher may reject article

2

3

4

5

Publisher may forward article for peer review

5

Accepted/rejected/revision

6

Article published. Author has copyright

7

Scientist free access

Libraries free access

8

Taxpayer free access

8

Taxpayer pays taxes

1

8

Besides Plan S, other forces pushed Diamond OA forward:

UNESCO Open Science Recommendation (2021): Advocates for inclusive, non-commercial OA models.
Library consortia and coalitions (e.g., SCOSS, OPERAS): Promote shared infrastructure for Diamond journals.
Academic resistance to APCs: Especially in SSH and countries with limited research budgets.

What is diamond Open Access?

Free for readers and free for authors
No article processing charges (APCs)
Usually funded by institutions, scholarly societies, public bodies, or volunteers
Often community-led and mission-driven (rather than profit-driven)

Origins of Diamond OA

Diamond OA has roots in scholarly-led publishing movements, especially in:

Social sciences and humanities (SSH), where APCs are often unsustainable
Global South, where both subscription and APC costs are major barriers
Non-profit publishers and academic societies, many of which have operated OA journals for decades without APCs

Examples include:

SciELO (Latin America, launched in 1998)
Érudit (Canada)
Many university press journals (e.g., in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe)

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Quiz time!

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Guess the OA model!

MentiMeter:

Q1: A researcher uploads the accepted manuscript of their article to their university's repository, even though it was published in a subscription-based journal. There's a link to the PDF, but it's not the final formatted version.

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Quiz time!

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Guess the OA model!

MentiMeter:

Q2: A journal article is free to read on the publisher’s website, but there’s no open license, and it's unclear whether it will stay openly available over time.

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Quiz time!

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Guess the OA model!

MentiMeter:

Q3: A research article is published in a fully open access journal that charges authors a publication fee. It’s available under a CC BY license and hosted on the publisher's website.

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How to implement Open Science

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35 of 39

How to implement Open Science

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The Open Science workflow

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Write collaboratively

Use group libraries for reference management

Publish preprints

Publish Open Access

Publish all research outputs

Practice Open peer review

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Openness in writing

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Collaborative Writing�What: Multiple researchers jointly developing scientific documents

Why: Enables co-authorship transparency and version control

How: Google Docs (ubiquitous, reference management plugins)

Overleaf (collaborative online LaTeX editing, Github integration)

Manubot (write in markdown, Github integration, automated citation management)

Authorea (rich text or LaTex, version control) �

Reference Management�What: Open organization and handling of bibliographic information

Why: Ensures traceable, sharable bibliographies

How: Zotero (Open source, free, group libraries)

OpenCitations (makes citation data machine-readable, enabling analysis and reuse)

Image Chat Citation by Katarina Ilic Noun Project CC-BY 3.0

First, we’ll look at collaborative writing tools. Platforms like Overleaf for LaTeX or Google Docs for general writing make it easier to work together, track changes, and ensure everyone has access. Manubot even automates citation management and integrates directly with version control systems like GitHub—useful for living documents or papers developed alongside code.

Next is reference management. Tools like Zotero help you collect and share citations collaboratively, while OpenCitations supports open bibliographic metadata, which allows others to reuse and analyze citation data freely—key for transparency.

Open Citations: It collects citation data from sources like Crossref and others that make references openly available. Makes citation data machine-readable using standards like RDF and JSON, enabling analysis and reuse. Breaks monopoly on citation data previously held by proprietary databases like Web of Science or Scopus. Query open citation networks (e.g., using the OpenCitations API), Visualize citation relationships (who cites whom), Power alternative metrics or tools (like open citation indices), Link it with reference managers like Zotero (via open plugins or exported BibTeX/CSL data)

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Openness in publishing

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Publishing preprints�What: Posting manuscript drafts publicly before peer-review

Why: Enables early feedback and visibility

How: bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, PsyArXiv, SocArXiv, EarthArXiv

OSF Preprints

PrePubMed, Europe PMC

Publishing Open Access�What: Making peer-reviewed publications freely accessible under permissive licenses

Why: Ensures accessibility and reusability

How: Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (for vetted OA journals)

Think. Check. Submit. (assess journal transparency and trustworthiness)

Image by Visual Haven Noun Project CC-BY 3.0

Image by Maria AG Noun Project CC-BY 3.0

Once you’ve got a solid draft of your manuscript, one of the most powerful open practices is to post it as a preprint.

A preprint is simply a version of your paper that you share publicly before it’s peer-reviewed—usually on a disciplinary preprint server like bioRxiv, arXiv, or OSF Preprints.

So why do this?

First, it gets your research out immediately—often months or even years before journal publication.
It allows others to read, cite, and build on your work without delay.
You can receive early feedback from peers, sometimes improving the final version before submission.
And preprints can help you establish priority—which is especially important in fast-moving fields.

Posting a preprint is also increasingly accepted, even encouraged, by funders and journals. Most publishers now allow it—even big names like Nature, Science, and PNAS.

To post one, you simply upload your manuscript to a relevant preprint server—pick the one that fits your field—and fill in basic metadata like authors, title, abstract, and keywords. Some platforms offer DOIs right away, which means your preprint is citable and trackable.

It’s a simple step, but a powerful one—it helps shift research from being locked behind paywalls to being part of a more accessible, global conversation.

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Openness in peer review

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Practicing open peer review

What: Disclosing reviewer identities, publishing review reports, or allowing public participation in the review

Why: Increases transparency, accountability, and recognition

Open identities, Open reports, Open participation, Open interaction

How: PREreview (collaborative preprint reviews)

F1000Research, PeerJ, eLife, Open Research Europe (offer open peer review)

Review Commons (journal-agnostic peer reviews)

PubPeer (post-publication discussion and critique)

Publons (record and get credit for your reviews)

Image Peer review by Ragil Heru Fitriyan Noun Project CC-BY 3.0

Open peer review refers to a set of practices that increase transparency in the peer review process. There’s no single definition—it's more of a spectrum—but common elements include:

Open identities�Reviewers and authors know each other’s names (not anonymous).
Open reports�The content of the reviews is published alongside the article.
Open participation�The wider community can comment or review (e.g., post-publication review).
Open interaction�Authors and reviewers can publicly discuss the manuscript and revisions.

Pros:

Transparency: Readers can see how the paper was shaped through peer review.
Accountability: Knowing reviews will be public can encourage constructive, high-quality feedback.
Recognition: Reviewers can get credit for their intellectual contributions (e.g., with DOIs or ORCID-linked reviews).
Education: Published reviews help early-career researchers learn how peer review works.
Trust: Makes the decision-making process more open and trustworthy, especially in high-stakes or controversial areas.

Cons:

Reviewer reluctance: Not everyone is comfortable signing reviews—some fear backlash.
Bias risks: Named identities might reinforce power imbalances or discourage honest critique.
Editorial workload: Managing open discussions can take more time and care.

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How to implement Open Science

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The Open Science workflow

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Does this mean that I should always publish everything open? Is openness always possible? What about sensitive data?