The technological revolution has changed the audiences’ expectations of the scientific journals; therefore, the publishers should consider this matter. The internet has provided scientific journals with many new opportunities and the ability to promote their work. Some of which are listed below:
Firstly, web-based journals are easily accessible. Providing subscription services for printed scientific journals demands powerful and constant management since the subscribers should pay their subscription price on time and the journal should be sent to them on schedule. However, the subscription of web-based journals is much easier since the only thing that needs to be done is to prepare the website of the scientific journal. Significant changes in the payment methods have also been helpful since the prices now can be paid online with a credit card. This is easily done in web-based scientific journals in developed countries; however, it has some disadvantages too. One of them is that the technology which is used in such journals might not be accessible for researchers all over the world.
Secondly, just those customers who pay the price can reach the complete texts of the scientific journals which are not available to everyone. Open access articles lack such limitations and everyone can access them without any restrictions. Consequently, there would be no financial connection between these readers and the scientific journals; therefore, researchers from all over the world can access these articles. The problem here is that such journals do not benefit from selling these articles, financially; which matters the most in the developing countries. Some of the journals compensate for this lack of income by charging the authors for publishing their articles or using the support of other government organizations.
Open access publication is prevalent among scientific journals and most of the publishers would rather publish their articles in this manner. Some journals always charge the reader for the complete text of an article, but there are other journals that after one or two years of the publication of an article, give free access to it.
Open access publication, means free access to some of the articles for everyone and without any limitations, while some others are accessible just for subscribers. An example is the BMJ journals group that gives free access to all of its articles, except review articles. Some of the biomedical journal publishers would give free access to everyone if the author agrees to pay a sum.
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