We can shift academic culture through publishing choices

Abstract

Researchers give papers for free (and often actually pay) to exploitative publishers who make millions off of our articles by locking them behind paywalls. This discriminates not only against the public (who are usually the ones that paid for the research in the first place), but also against the academics from institutions that cannot afford to pay for journal subscriptions and the 'scholarly poor'. I explain exploitative and ethical publishing practices, highlighting choices researchers can make right now to stop exploiting ourselves and discriminating against others.

Keywords: academic culture; discrimination; ethical publishing; exploitative publishing.

Figure 1.. Two routes to the publication of a journal article.

( A) The exploitative route exploits researchers and academia and discriminates against who can read research because only individuals at those institutions that can afford journal subscriptions can read the research. ( B) The ethical route keeps profits inside academia and does not discriminate against who can read the research. OA=Open Access, APC=Article Processing Charge. Note: the APC range is taken from ethical examples in the field of animal behavior (see Table 1).