As the world evolves from the print medium to digital medium in the internet of things, the relevance of printed journals has been losing relevance. Traditional academic publishers like Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley followed the traditional business model of printed journals for decades. However, with the evolution of computer and internet, things seem to be changing at a dynamic speed. Researchers bypassed academic journals and stocks of printed academic publishers seemed to have doomed down in the 1990s.
Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, and Nature evolved rapidly due to the changing dynamics of this industry. These traditional publishers have overcome the changing dynamics of research industry. Currently, Elsevier’s annual revenue has increased to $25.2 billion. As the academic publishing market evolves from the print to the digital medium, the business model is perfect for making lot of profits. In academic publishing, the consumer and producer are researchers. They need to publish their work in their high impact factor journals where they receive maximum viewership. Elsevier is the most prestigious journal that has overcome all barriers of the changing dynamics of academic publishing.
DISRUPTION OF SCI PUBLISHING
Open access is the answer to the disruption of academic publishing market. Given the capitalist, aggressive, and unrealistic approach of traditional publishers like Elsevier, Springer, and Nature, open access model provides a fertile ground for dissemination of research information. The fate of a researcher is not dominated by prestige of deans and committees. Currently, there are more than 10 thousand open access journals enlisted in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). University authorities in Netherlands have pressed for Open Access journals over Subscription journals at the headquarters of Elsevier in Netherlands. They have threatened to boycott Elsevier journals if they do not shift to Open Access model. Education and knowledge are fundamental human rights, and the open access movement of academic publishing means free dissemination of knowledge. With the current business model of SCI journals, high subscription fees prevent dissemination of knowledge to everyone.
Currently, capitalist equity investors are trying hard to sustain their capitalistic, commercial values. To get tenure and promotion, researchers are forced to publish in SCI journals of traditional publishers: Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, and Taylor & Francis. With the demand of open access movement growing presently, SCI model of publishers will no longer have access to assessment. To bring about a balance between the power struggle of these two evolving and changing dynamics, Fair Access to Science and Technology (FASTR) bill has been drafted recently by the US Congress.