Cognitive Neuroscience Journal Publication Costs
The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience have just invoiced me $985 for a paper they agreed to publish earlier this year. This wasn't unexpected - not only did we sign away our copyright, allowing MIT Press to make money from our work, but we did so knowing that we would pay a hefty sum to allow them to do this. It still came as a bit of a shock though.
Paying the invoice will curtail some of my research activities next year, like going to conferences to present data. I put this to the journal, asking if they'd hear my case for a reduction or a waiver. Here's their response:
JOCN does not provide fee waivers. Page costs are stated on the submission guidelines page, as well as on the last page of the online manuscript submission so that all authors are aware of the financial obligation required if your paper is accepted for publication. These fees pay for the website, submission software, and other costs associated with running the journal. If you are unable to pay the page fees, please let us know so that we can remove your manuscript from the publication schedule.
Regards,
Editorial Staff
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
What did I expect though? We willingly submitted to this journal knowing that they would charge us $60 per page. And the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience certainly isn't alone in doing this. Most cognitive neuroscience journals are pretty good at making money out of authors (see table below - I haven't included OA megajournals in the table). Imagers tend to have money and junior imagers, like all junior academics, still need to publish journals that have a reputation.
For what it's worth, Elsevier journals keep their noses pretty clean. Cerebral Cortex's publishing house Oxford Journals though... pretty much every stage of that process is monetised. Just. Wow.
| Journal Name | Journal of Neuroscience | Cerebral Cortex | Neuroimage / Cortex / Neuropsychologia | Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience | Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience | Cognitive Neuroscience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Society for Neuroscience | Oxford Journals | Elsevier | MIT Press | Springer | Taylor & Francis |
| IF (2013) | 6.74 | 8.37 | 6.13 / 6.04 / 3.45 | 4.69 | 3.21 | 2.38 |
| Costs ($) | ||||||
| Submission | 130 | 75 | - | - | - | - |
| Figures (Colour) | - | 720 | - | - | 1100* | 474 |
| Pages | - | 72 | - | 60 | - | - |
| Admin | 1720 | - | - | 25 | - | - |
| Open Access Supplement | 2820 | 3400 | 2200 / 2200 / 1800 | (unknown) | 3000 | 2950 |
| Our Paper | 1850 | 3387 | 0 | 985 | 1100 | 1422 |
Originally published 15 June 2015 at akiraoconnor.org/2015/06/15/cognitive-neuroscience-journal-publication-costs/
1 comment
Comments are closed. They're kept here as they appeared on the original blog.
Just say no :)
Seriously, IF is flawed and it has less and less significance in at least the english speaking world, though it does make the difference between job or no job in other parts of the world.
As for reputation, you would be in excellent company if you published elsewhere at a fraction of the price.
There are plenty of Open Access options if you don't want to go to a mega journal, some published by organisations with a somewhat longer science track record than the above (perhaps even longer than the sum), such as Open Science published by the Royal Society.
It is also worth considering the effect on your career of publishing in a closed access journal: only a fraction of the world's scientists can read your article. A competitor publishing open access will get read far more and in the longer term will garner more influence.
Finally, in the UK, there is quite rightly a strong push to Open Access, from funders and government including through the REF.