It's almost New Year so I'll soon get e-mails from journals saying how much they appreciate my reviews. I might even get advertisement material thinly disguised as a calendar.
I've decided I want something more. Well, different - they can keep the calendar and they can keep the emails. I wan't a partial APC voucher that I can use to publish open access in the journal. And I mean "CC-license open access", not your "pay-us-but-we-own-your-work-anyway" license.
How big a voucher, you ask? I would say 5-10% of the CC-BY APC is reasonable. Certainly, if I have reviewed 20 papers for a journal, I should be able to publish an accepted paper as OA free of charge there.
Obviously, it will take time to implement such a scheme. I'll give them a year. In 2018 I'll start saying "no" to journals that don't offer some kind of scheme like this. Or give them another year, I dunno.
And just as obviously, this won't happen by itself. Here's an example of my reply to the usual post review thank you email:
Dear Gus
You’re very welcome. As you know reviewing takes a lot of time. Would it be possible for JCTC to reward reviewers with a partial APC voucher along the lines described here: http://proteinsandwavefunctions.blogspot.dk/2016/12/the-open-access-reviewer-rewards.html? This would be a tangible demonstration of how much you value your reviewers and increase open access publication, which is good for science. If you like the idea perhaps you could pass this suggestion along to the ACS.
Best regards, Jan
2017.01.01 Update
Journal/publishers who do something similar (may not be current)
Announcing a New Benefit for PeerJ Peer Reviewers (HT @chanin_nanta)
Reviewing for MDPI Just Became More Rewarding (HT @chanin_nanta)
Reviewer Discount for BMC journals (HT @chanin_nanta)
To the extent possible under law, the person who associated CC0 with this work has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to this work.
I've decided I want something more. Well, different - they can keep the calendar and they can keep the emails. I wan't a partial APC voucher that I can use to publish open access in the journal. And I mean "CC-license open access", not your "pay-us-but-we-own-your-work-anyway" license.
How big a voucher, you ask? I would say 5-10% of the CC-BY APC is reasonable. Certainly, if I have reviewed 20 papers for a journal, I should be able to publish an accepted paper as OA free of charge there.
Obviously, it will take time to implement such a scheme. I'll give them a year. In 2018 I'll start saying "no" to journals that don't offer some kind of scheme like this. Or give them another year, I dunno.
And just as obviously, this won't happen by itself. Here's an example of my reply to the usual post review thank you email:
Dear Gus
You’re very welcome. As you know reviewing takes a lot of time. Would it be possible for JCTC to reward reviewers with a partial APC voucher along the lines described here: http://proteinsandwavefunctions.blogspot.dk/2016/12/the-open-access-reviewer-rewards.html? This would be a tangible demonstration of how much you value your reviewers and increase open access publication, which is good for science. If you like the idea perhaps you could pass this suggestion along to the ACS.
Best regards, Jan
2017.01.01 Update
Journal/publishers who do something similar (may not be current)
Announcing a New Benefit for PeerJ Peer Reviewers (HT @chanin_nanta)
Reviewing for MDPI Just Became More Rewarding (HT @chanin_nanta)
Reviewer Discount for BMC journals (HT @chanin_nanta)
To the extent possible under law, the person who associated CC0 with this work has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to this work.
