Controversial: Cost to “produce” a science article

By the Guardian: simplistic but radical

“For Elsevier, the biggest of the barrier-based publishers, we can calculate the total cost per article as £1,605m subscription revenue divided by 240,000 articles per year = £6,689 per article.

By contrast, the cost of publishing an article with a flagship open access journal such as PLoS ONE is $1,350 (£850), about one eighth as much.

No one expects open access to eliminate costs. But we can expect it to dramatically reduce them, as well as making research universally and freely available”

Taylor, Mike. Persistent myths about open access scientific publishing. The Guardian, 17th of April 2012. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/apr/17/persistent-myths-open-access-scientific-publishing [Accessed 24th April 2012]

See also:

Taylor, Michael P. Opinion: Academic Publishing Is Broken. The Scientist, 19th of March 2012. Available from:

http://the-scientist.com/2012/03/19/opinion-academic-publishing-is-broken/ [Accessed 24th April 2012]