What Is the Price of Science?

James C Alwine; Lynn W Enquist; Terence S Dermody; Felicia Goodrum

doi:10.1128/mBio.00117-21

What Is the Price of Science?

mBio. 2021 Mar 2;12(2):e00117-21. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00117-21.

Authors

James C Alwine^{1

2}, Lynn W Enquist³, Terence S Dermody^{4

5

6}, Felicia Goodrum^{2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cancer Biology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
² Department of Immunobiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.
³ Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA lenquist@princeton.edu.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
⁵ Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
⁶ Institute of Infection, Inflammation, and Immunity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
⁷ BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Abstract

The peer-reviewed scientific literature is the bedrock of science. However, scientific publishing is undergoing dramatic changes, which include the expansion of open access, an increased number of for-profit publication houses, and ready availability of preprint manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed. In this opinion article, we discuss the inequities and concerns that these changes have wrought.

Keywords: for-profit journals; impact factor; open access; preprint servers.

MeSH terms

Humans
Information Dissemination
Peer Review, Research / ethics
Peer Review, Research / standards*
Publishing / ethics
Publishing / standards*