Dr. Jensen,

You ask who will pay for publication of journals under the open access model.

Closed access journals are supported primarily by university libraries which pay subscription fees to publishers. Very rarely do the publishers pay anything to the editors and reviewers who produce the journals, but they pocket a continuously increasing profit margin, which has been increasing at about 1% per year, and currently stands at about 27%, per http://www.reedelsevier.com/mediacentre/pressreleases/2012/Pages/reed-elsevi... In order to achieve such continually increasing profit margins, publishers have been forcing price increases through bundling, which is an abuse of their monopolistic market power which lack of competition from alternative publishing models has allowed them to attain.

Under the open access model, universities pay to support the publication and printing of the journals, but do not pay subscription fees. Because there is no profit margin charged, these costs are less to the university than commercial subscription fees, and the resulting readership is not limited to a tiny fraction of the population. (Because costs to the universities are less, they can keep more of the money for university official perks and salaries, tax deductible junkets for the faculty, and athletic salaries. Sadly, universities hardly ever pass any savings on to tuition payers. Every subsidy and loan guarantee supporting tuition in the postwar era has been matched by tuition increases above the cost of living, sadly, while university administrative official salaries have kept pace with CEO salaries generally, exacerbating income inequality, and increases in faculty salaries, perks, and expenses have also exceeded the inflation rate.) As you point out, this situation often results in greater charges to graduate students, unless their sponsors and grant investigators are kind enough to include the journal production fees in their department budget. How often does that happen?

Your example of journals charging per-paper open access fees is an example of subtle extortion in order to cause professors such as yourself and other authors to take the position that you have, opposed to open access. Are there any reasons to the contrary? Are there any reasons that participation in such market manipulation schemes could be seen as ethical?

Sincere regards, James Salsman