Open Access Publishing Trends in the Forest Sciences

Open access models for academic publishing offer an alternative to traditional subscription-based journals. In the open access model, the author generally retains the copyright and the published articles are available free on the internet. Publication costs are either borne by the author as article processing charges, or are free for some journals published by societies or institutions. Traditional subscription-based journals are funded by subscription costs to libraries and individuals, the publisher retains the copyright, and these journals are generally not freely available to the public. This traditional model has created two problems: (1) many for-profit publishers control access in a form of oligopoly and impose high costs to subscribers; and (2) it limits access of scientific information to the public which disproportionately affects poorly funded research institutions and developing countries. Other subscription-based journals are published by scientific and professional societies but are not "for-profit". In the forest sciences, several open access journals emerged in the last 10-15 years. These open access journals are published by for-profit publishing companies, research institutions, and professional societies. Some of these journals have been successful at attracting manuscript submissions, becoming indexed by various indexation services, and have seen metrics representing their importance increase over time. This paper documents these trends and assesses the viability of the open access model in the forest sciences and compares them to other types of journals.