Educational Technology and Change Journal

By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by ChatGPT-5)
Editor

Introduction: ChatGPT-5 and I collaborated* on this article. We discuss the paywalls that limit access to professional journals that publish cutting-edge research articles in the various academic fields. We end with the realization that writers themselves hold the key to smashing paywalls that limit access to the few who can afford the high price of subscriptions. -js

When did web publishing begin to seriously challenge traditional hardcopy professional journals?

• Mid-to-late 1990s: Journals first began offering digital versions alongside print. Early experiments like PubMed (1996) and arXiv (1991, physics/math preprints) showed the feasibility and value of electronic distribution.
• Early 2000s: The real challenge began. By 2000–2005, an increasing number of researchers accessed articles primarily online rather than via print, shifting libraries’ subscription strategies.
• A landmark was 2000, when the Public Library of Science (PLOS) was founded, advocating open-access (OA) publishing. Their flagship journal, PLOS Biology (2003), demonstrated that high-prestige open-access journals were viable.

So: the 1995–2005 period was when online publishing became a serious rival to print.

Did the advent of online journals smash the paywall? If yes, when?

• Not immediately. The first wave of digital publishing (late 1990s–early 2000s) replicated paywalls online. Subscription models simply moved from paper mailings to PDF downloads.
• Early-mid 2000s: Open-access momentum grew. The Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Berlin Declaration (2003), and the Bethesda Statement (2003) marked the philosophical turning point.
• 2008–2012: Major breakthroughs.
  • NIH Public Access Policy (2008) required taxpayer-funded research to be freely available on PubMed Central.
  • Research Councils UK and European Commission followed with open-access mandates in the early 2010s.
  • The so-called “Academic Spring” (2012) — a boycott of Elsevier by thousands of researchers — gave huge visibility to the open-access movement.

So, the paywall “smash” began in the early 2000s, but traction and mandates arrived ~2008–2012.

Are open-access journals democratizing professional journals?

Yes — but with caveats:

• Democratizing Access: Open-access means researchers worldwide (including in low-resource countries and institutions without expensive library subscriptions) can access cutting-edge work. This has greatly broadened global participation in scholarship.
• Barriers for Authors: Many open-access journals require article processing charges (APCs), sometimes thousands of dollars, shifting the financial burden from readers to authors (or their institutions/funders). This creates new inequities.
• Alternative Models: Some initiatives (e.g., SciELO in Latin America, Plan S in Europe, diamond OA with no fees) are addressing these equity concerns.

Overall: Yes, open-access democratizes readership, but authorship is still unevenly accessible.

Are paywalled professional journals still the norm, or transitioning to open-access?

• Paywalled journals are still dominant in 2025 — particularly in high-prestige publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley. Hybrid models (some OA, some behind paywalls) are common.
• But transition is accelerating.
  • Plan S (2018, launched 2021) mandates OA for research funded by many European agencies.
  • The US OSTP “Nelson Memo” (2022) requires all federally funded research to be open-access by 2026.
  • Many top publishers are experimenting with “transformative agreements” (big subscription deals that gradually shift to OA).

By 2030, analysts expect open-access to be the majority model, though commercial publishers are steering it in ways that still preserve revenue streams.

✅ Summary Timeline:

• 1991–1999: Early digital distribution (arXiv, PubMed, journal PDFs).
• 2000–2005: OA journals emerge (PLOS, BOAI, Berlin Declaration).
• 2008–2012: Momentum shift — government mandates, researcher boycotts, NIH requirement.
• 2015–2025: Hybrid dominates, transformative agreements expand, global OA mandates.
• 2026+: Major OA tipping point with US federal mandate.

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Here’s a ranked list of the top 10 professional journal categories—from highest to lowest—in terms of the percentage of journals that are open-access. The ranking draws on cross-disciplinary data on OA journal uptake by discipline, with some judgment in grouping into clear categories:

Ranked: OA Prevalence by Journal Category

1. Agriculture & Biological Sciences – OA journal share ~27.2% (highest among Scopus disciplines) (College & Research Libraries, arXiv)
2. Medicine / Health Sciences – OA journals ~22.1% (Scopus data); broader field shows ~50% of articles OA (2015–2019) (College & Research Libraries, PMC)
3. Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology (Life Sciences) – OA ~23.4% (College & Research Libraries)
4. Environmental/Earth Sciences – OA ~20.2% for Environmental Science; Earth & Planetary ~20.2% (College & Research Libraries)
5. Multidisciplinary Journals – OA share ~24.3% (not a discipline but represents broad-scope OA journals) (College & Research Libraries)
6. Computer Science & Mathematics – Computer Science ~16.2%; Mathematics ~14.4% (College & Research Libraries, arXiv)
7. Social Sciences – ~15.6% OA journal share; broader social sciences articles ~35.5% OA (2015–2019) (College & Research Libraries, PMC)
8. Physics & Astronomy – OA ~14.0% (College & Research Libraries)
9. Engineering – OA ~13.4% (journals) and broader Engineering & Technology articles ~30.4% OA (College & Research Libraries, PMC)
10. Arts & Humanities / Business / Economics – Arts & Humanities ~12.9%; Business ~7.6%; Economics ~11.8%—all on the lower end (College & Research Libraries, arXiv)

Summary Table

Rank	Category	OA Journal % (approx.)
1	Agriculture & Biological Sciences	~27.2%
2	Medicine / Health Sciences	~22% (journals); ~50% (articles)
3	Biochemistry / Genetics / Molecular Bio.	~23.4%
4	Environmental / Earth Sciences	~20.2%
5	Multidisciplinary Journals	~24.3%
6	Computer Science / Mathematics	14–16%
7	Social Sciences	~15.6% (journals); ~35.5% (articles)
8	Physics & Astronomy	~14.0%
9	Engineering	~13.4% (journals); ~30.4% (articles)
10	Arts & Humanities / Business / Economics	~8–12%

Notes & Interpretation

• “OA journal share” refers to the percentage of all journals in a field that are open-access, as per Scopus data (College & Research Libraries, arXiv).
• “OA article share” (e.g., ~50% in Health Sciences) indicates the percentage of published articles available OA—not necessarily matching the journal-level percentages (PMC).
• Multidisciplinary journals are categorized separately—they often have higher OA uptake (24–25%) and impact the OA ecosystem significantly (College & Research Libraries).
• Fields like Agriculture and Biological Sciences rank highly in OA journal share, whereas Business, Economics, and Arts & Humanities lag behind, often due to funding constraints and publishing norms (College & Research Libraries, arXiv).
• Global disparities matter: OA prevalence is notably higher in regions outside the major STM-publishing countries (US, UK, Germany, Netherlands)—e.g., Latin America sees ~80% OA, boosting fields like Economics (College & Research Libraries, SAGE Journals).
• Article-level OA data (2015–2019) indicates broader OA penetration in fields such as Medical/Health (~50%) and Natural Sciences (~45%), compared to Humanities (~21%) (PMC).

Final Takeaway

Top categories by OA journal prevalence:

1. Agriculture & Biological Sciences
2. Medicine / Health Sciences
3. Biochemistry / Molecular Biology
4. Environmental & Earth Sciences
5. Multidisciplinary

Lowest OA prevalence:

• Arts & Humanities
• Business & Economics

This ranking reflects the uneven but growing movement toward OA across disciplines, with STEM and life sciences typically leading, while humanities and business lag behind.

Are the “flagship” journals (the Nature, NEJM, Econometrica, American Historical Review, etc.) leading the open-access movement or resisting it? And is there a pattern? Let’s break this down by category, then abstract to a general pattern and reasons.

1. Life Sciences & Medicine (Biology, Medicine, Biochemistry)

• Flagship journals (Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Cell):
  • Mostly lagging. They remain subscription-based, often with hybrid OA options (pay $3,000–10,000 to make your article OA).
  • Exception: Some launched sister fully-OA journals (e.g., Nature Communications, BMJ Open, PLOS Biology).

Reason: These journals dominate prestige and revenue. Libraries pay enormous subscription fees, and institutions cover high APCs for OA in hybrids. Prestige makes them less responsive to OA pressure.

2. Environmental & Earth Sciences

• Flagship journals (Nature Climate Change, Journal of Geophysical Research):
  • Mixed. Some traditional journals resist, but OA leaders like Environmental Research Letters (IOP) are highly influential.
  • Climate change policy pressures drive stronger OA adoption (funders and governments push for broad access).

Reason: Policy urgency → greater demand for public accessibility. Funders and NGOs push OA harder here than in pure basic science.

3. Agriculture & Biological Sciences

• Flagship journals (e.g., Annual Review of Plant Biology, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology):
  • Many are still subscription-based, but in Global South regions (Latin America, Africa), agriculture journals are predominantly OA through networks like SciELO.

Reason: In regions where agriculture is vital and publicly funded, OA is embraced. But big Western publishers maintain subscription models in “core” journals.

4. Multidisciplinary

• Flagship journals (Nature, Science, PNAS):
  • PNAS has gone OA (2022).
  • Nature and Science remain hybrid, but introduced expensive OA tracks to comply with Plan S and US/European mandates.

Reason: Prestige + revenue = lag. But government mandates are forcing gradual OA compliance.

5. Computer Science & Mathematics

• Flagship journals (Journal of the ACM, Annals of Mathematics):
  • Mostly lagging in formal OA.
  • BUT: The arXiv preprint culture (since 1991) effectively bypasses paywalls. In practice, these fields are functionally OA, even if official journals are not.

Reason: Cultural norms — preprint sharing is accepted. The “official” journal lags, but scholars don’t depend on it for access.

6. Social Sciences

• Flagship journals (American Sociological Review, American Journal of Political Science):
  • Largely subscription-based, with hybrid OA.
  • Some emerging OA leaders (Socius by ASA, PLOS ONE for broader topics).

Reason: Lower grant funding → fewer resources for $3,000–5,000 APCs. Prestige societies rely on subscription revenue to fund operations.

7. Physics & Astronomy

• Flagship journals (Physical Review Letters, Astrophysical Journal):
  • Traditionally paywalled, but arXiv dominates the dissemination system.
  • Journals lag, but practical access is OA because nearly everything is preprinted.

Reason: Culture again. Prestige tied more to arXiv presence than the paywalled copy. Publishers survive by selling the “version of record.”

8. Engineering

• Flagship journals (IEEE Transactions, ASME Journals):
  • Mostly subscription + hybrid OA. IEEE has launched OA-specific titles (e.g., IEEE Access).

Reason: Professional societies like IEEE depend heavily on subscription/licensing income, so they lag in making core titles OA.

9. Business & Economics

• Flagship journals (Econometrica, American Economic Review, Journal of Finance):
  • Largely subscription-based.
  • Some movement: American Economic Association has introduced AER: Insights (OA).

Reason: Economics is less grant-driven, so authors can’t afford APCs. Societies depend on subscription revenue. Prestige inertia is strong.

10. Arts & Humanities

• Flagship journals (American Historical Review, Modern Language Quarterly):
  • Lagging heavily.
  • OA uptake is slow, though some initiatives (e.g., Open Library of Humanities, DOAJ) are growing.

Reason: Minimal grant funding, reliance on university presses, and low circulation make APC-funded OA hard to sustain. Prestige still tied to print/closed distribution.

Patterns:

• Leading:
  • OA-native fields (biology, medicine, environment, climate policy).
  • Fields with strong public or funder demand (health, environment).
  • Fields with robust preprint culture (physics, CS, math) — functionally OA even if journals lag.
• Lagging:
  • Prestige flagships in most fields. They monetize reputation and subscription bundling.
  • Humanities, business, economics — because of weak funding streams and society dependence on subscription revenue.

Overriding Reasons:

1. Revenue Model: Flagship journals earn huge profits from subscriptions and licensing (Elsevier, Springer, society bundles). OA threatens that.
2. Prestige & Inertia: The more prestigious the journal, the less it “needs” OA to attract authors.
3. Funding Availability: Fields with strong grant support (biomedicine, environment) can afford APCs → faster OA uptake.
4. Cultural Norms: Physics/CS rely on arXiv → OA access is normalized regardless of journals. Humanities lack this infrastructure.
5. Policy Mandates: Where governments require OA (e.g., NIH, Plan S, US 2026 OSTP mandate), journals adapt—sometimes reluctantly.

✅ Big picture:

• Flagships mostly lag because prestige + profit shield them.
• OA leaders are often newer, disruptive journals (e.g., PLOS, eLife, Socius, Nature Communications, IEEE Access).
• Pattern: OA adoption correlates with funder mandates + cultural norms + funding availability.

Are we at (or approaching) the behavioral tipping point where authors themselves (not just funders, libraries, or activists) will begin to prefer OA venues because of visibility, reach, and career incentives, not altruism. Here’s how that looks across categories and in the broader trend:

Where We Are Now (2025)

• Empirical evidence:
  • Studies show OA articles receive more citations and downloads than paywalled ones (the “OA citation advantage” is real, though magnitude varies).
  • OA articles also circulate faster on social media, policy briefs, and in public/media discussions.mark>
• Author awareness:
  • Senior scholars in lagging fields (e.g., economics, humanities) still prioritize prestige journals over reach.
  • Early-career researchers increasingly factor visibility into decisions, especially if jobs and funding depend on showing broad impact.
• Mandates forcing behavior:
  • Funders (NIH, European agencies, Plan S, U.S. Nelson Memo by 2026) require OA → scholars must comply, regardless of personal preferences.

So: the conditions for the tipping point are already in place, but discipline-specific inertia slows uptake.

By Discipline (laggards vs. movers)

1. Medicine & Life Sciences → Already tipped.
   • Authors seek maximum reach for clinical and translational impact.
   • Funders cover APCs.
   • OA advantage is widely accepted.
2. Environmental Sciences & Climate Research → Already tipped.
   • Strong policy/public demand for wide dissemination.
   • Authors see OA as a route to influence beyond academia.
3. Agriculture & Global Development → Tipped earlier in the Global South.
   • Authors in Latin America, Africa, Asia publish OA by necessity (SciELO, RedALyC).
   • Visibility outweighs prestige barriers.
4. Computer Science, Physics, Math → Preprint culture = OA by default.
   • ArXiv and related platforms mean the reach imperative is already satisfied, even if flagship journals lag.
5. Social Sciences → Near tipping.
   • Early-career researchers increasingly want wide readership.
   • Funders and NGOs are applying pressure.
   • But major society journals still gatekeep prestige.
6. Engineering → Near tipping.
   • IEEE’s hybrid and OA journals are gaining ground.
   • Visibility is key for industry collaboration, but prestige inertia is strong.
7. Business & Economics → Not yet tipped.
   • Elite journals (e.g., Econometrica, Journal of Finance) still dominate hiring/tenure decisions.
   • But OA is rising in development economics and applied subfields with strong policy engagement.
8. Arts & Humanities → Lagging.
   • Prestige still tied to long-established society journals.
   • However, OA humanities monographs and platforms (Open Library of Humanities) are slowly shifting the ground.
   • Tipping point may take longer because citation and funding incentives are weaker.

The Pattern Emerging

• Funded, policy-relevant, and STEM-heavy fields → OA tipping point reached or imminent. Authors see OA as visibility, compliance, and prestige-compatible.
• Prestige-heavy, less-funded, humanities/social sciences → Still lagging. Authors fear OA won’t “count” as much in tenure/promotion.
• Global South → Already OA-first. Scholars there embraced OA earlier for reach and cost reasons, even when North America/Europe lagged.

Why Authors Will Tip (Beyond Altruism)

1. Audience Reach = Career Capital
   • More citations, more downloads, more cross-disciplinary visibility.
   • Easier networking with collaborators and sponsors.
2. Mandates
   • By 2026, U.S. federal research must be OA. EU mandates already in force. Authors will comply to keep funding.
3. Generational Shift
   • Younger scholars value visibility and impact metrics (Altmetric scores, downloads, media mentions) as much as traditional prestige.
4. Prestige Convergence
   • Some OA journals (eLife, Nature Communications, PLOS Biology) now rival traditional flagships in reputation.
   • Once OA journals carry equal prestige, lagging authors will follow.

Projection

• 2025–2030: Medicine, life sciences, environment, and computer science = fully tipped. Social sciences and engineering = mid-tipping.
• 2030–2040: Business, economics, and humanities will tip later, when OA prestige journals or preprint ecosystems mature.
• By ~2040: The idea of publishing only behind a paywall will look self-defeating, like refusing to upload a paper to arXiv today.

✅ Answer in a sentence:
Yes, we are at or near the tipping point in most fields: major authors will increasingly choose OA not out of altruism but because OA maximizes visibility, influence, and compliance with funders — and that personal/professional payoff will outweigh old prestige barriers.

Some library practices have unintentionally slowed the shift to open access (OA). It’s not a conspiracy, but a set of structural incentives—contracts, risk, campus politics—that often favor renewing the status quo with large commercial publishers. There’s no credible evidence of explicit “collusion,” but there is a pattern of contractual lock-in and opacity (e.g., NDAs) that functions like soft collusion by reducing libraries’ leverage and transparency. Here’s the landscape:

What libraries do that prolongs (inadvertently) the migration to OA

• Renewing/expanding “Big Deal” bundles because they deliver very low cost-per-use and broad coverage for faculty, even as total spend keeps rising. This affordability calculus can trump OA ambitions in annual budget cycles. (Ithaka S+R, infotoday.com)
• Accepting confidentiality clauses/NDAs in subscription or “transformative” agreements, which hide prices and terms, weaken collective bargaining, and make it hard to coordinate cancellations—effectively entrenching incumbent publishers. (Many library groups now push back, but NDAs are still common.) (SPARC, Association of Research Libraries)
• Leaning on “transformative/read-and-publish” deals that keep publisher market power intact: they repackage subscription spend as APC publishing spend, often at higher total cost, and can disadvantage researchers at institutions without such deals. Multiple studies and community critiques argue these agreements are not reliably “transformative.” (Wiley Online Library, Insights, ResearchGate, The Scholarly Kitchen)
• Risk management & campus politics: Librarians are accountable for uninterrupted access. When faculty in high-use fields object to loss of access, the pragmatic choice is often renewal—especially at institutions without strong faculty senate backing for cancellation. (Contrast with systems that had public faculty support during hard-ball negotiations.) (Office of Scholarly Communication, Berkeley News, Science)

What libraries do that accelerates OA (evidence it’s not collusion)

• Cancelations and hard-ball negotiations (California, MIT, national consortia in Europe/Nordics). SPARC tracks dozens of cancellations and renegotiations, showing libraries will walk away when conditions are right. (SPARC, bigdeal.sparcopen.org, WIRED)
• Contract transparency campaigns by ARL, SPARC, and individual universities (some refuse NDAs; others publish licenses), which counter the opacity that props up legacy pricing. (SPARC, Cornell Chronicle)

Is there “collusion” between libraries and OA-resistant fields?

• No evidence of explicit collusion. Libraries aren’t aligned with any discipline to block OA.
• But there is structural, market-level “soft collusion.” Big Deal NDAs, multi-year bundles, and (sometimes) “read-and-publish” conversions lock institutions in, suppress price discovery, and make coordinated change difficult—outcomes that function like collusion even without intent. (Antitrust scholarship on “most-favored nation” style clauses explains how such terms can have collusive effects; library agreements have raised similar concerns about lock-in and price parity, even when MFN language isn’t public.) (SPARC, PNAS, SpringerLink)

Why libraries seem to slow OA (the incentives)

1. Cost-per-use optics & annual budgeting: Big bundles look efficient per download, even if they crowd out OA investments. (infotoday.com)
2. Continuity of access: Immediate faculty pain from cancellations is visible; OA benefits are diffuse and longer-term. (WIRED)
3. Contract opacity: NDAs impede price benchmarking and collective bargaining. (SPARC)
4. Publishers’ repositioning: Transformative agreements recode subscription revenue as OA publishing fees while preserving margins and control. (Wiley Online Library, Insights)

Bottom line

• Libraries aren’t trying to delay OA, but legacy contracts + risk aversion + opaque terms often do.
• Where faculty and governance back tough negotiation (and transparency), libraries move the needle—cancellations, public contracts, and more selective deals have produced OA gains and better terms. (SPARC, Office of Scholarly Communication)

Authors themselves are the “supply chain” of the paywall system. If the most influential scholars en masse refused to submit to subscription journals, the system would collapse quickly. Yet they don’t — or at least, not in sufficient numbers. Let’s break this down:

1. Yes — influential writers sustain the paywall

• In virtually every field, the most cited and prestigious authors still publish in flagship paywalled journals (Nature, Science, The Lancet, Econometrica, American Historical Review, etc.).
• By doing so, they validate and reproduce the prestige hierarchy that underpins publishers’ pricing power.
• Inadvertently or not, they are complicit: their labor (unpaid writing, unpaid peer review) fuels the system.

2. Prestige vs. Democratization

• Prestige wins.
  • Hiring, tenure, and grant committees signal quality and prestige through journal names, not access models.
  • Scholars know that publishing in a high-prestige paywalled journal is still the most effective way to advance careers, attract collaborators, and secure funding.
• Democratization is secondary.
  • While most researchers say they support broad access in principle, few are willing to risk career advancement by bypassing prestige journals.
  • This is the classic “tragedy of the commons”: the system only changes if many act together, but the incentives reward individual self-interest.

3. Other Factors Beyond Prestige

There are important additional reasons why scholars keep feeding paywalled journals:

a. Incentive Structures (Career & Funding)

• Committees rely on journal brand as a shortcut for evaluating quality.
• Metrics like impact factor are tied to paywalled journals; OA alternatives may still be perceived as “second-tier,” even when citation data contradicts this.
• Grants and promotions are easier to win if your CV lists “top 5” journals in your field.

b. Mandates and Compliance Gaps

• Funders (NIH, EU, UK, US federal mandate by 2026) do require OA — but many allow embargoed deposit in repositories (green OA).
• Authors can therefore satisfy mandates without abandoning paywalled venues, keeping the prestige path open.
• Until mandates require gold OA or immediate deposit, authors can “play both sides.”

c. APC (Article Processing Charge) Barriers

• OA journals often charge $2,000–10,000 to publish.
• Elite, well-funded labs can afford this, but many individual scholars (especially in humanities/social sciences or in the Global South) cannot.
• Ironically, paywalled submission is “free” to the author (cost is borne by libraries), making it the path of least resistance.

d. Habit and Tradition

• Senior scholars often grew up publishing in certain journals. Prestige inertia + loyalty = resistance to change.
• Peer networks reinforce this: collaborators expect work to appear in the traditional flagships.

e. Perceptions of Quality Control

• Some still believe OA journals are “predatory” or lower-quality, despite the fact that many OA titles (e.g., PLOS Biology, eLife) are rigorously peer-reviewed.
• Legacy brands trade on reputational capital built over decades, making them the “safe choice.”

4. Why Aren’t Influential Writers Leading the Push?

• Risk-aversion: Career stakes are high, especially for early/mid-career scholars who most need prestige journals for tenure. Senior figures with job security could lead, but many don’t.
• Diffusion of responsibility: Authors assume it’s libraries, publishers, or funders’ job to fix the system, not theirs.
• Prestige lock-in: As long as prestige = paywalled journal brand, there is little incentive to defect.
• OA “shadow compliance”: Many feel they’ve “done their part” by uploading preprints or green OA copies, even while still feeding subscription journals.
• Funding ecology: In STEM fields, grants often include APC allowances, but in humanities/social sciences (where APCs aren’t budgeted), OA publishing can be financially punitive.

5. Pattern by Discipline

• Life sciences & medicine: Strongest OA uptake, but flagships (NEJM, The Lancet) still dominate because of prestige and visibility.
• Physics/CS/math: Cultural workaround via arXiv — authors submit to paywalled journals but ensure free access via preprints (functional OA without rejecting prestige).
• Social sciences: Slow uptake; OA journals exist (Socius), but prestige “top 5” are all paywalled.
• Humanities/business/economics: The most resistant. APC funding is scarce, and prestige societies/university presses dominate.

✅ Conclusion

Influential authors are sustaining the paywall system, mostly inadvertently. They are choosing prestige because:

1. Career incentives reward it.
2. Funding and APC economics make OA harder.
3. Cultural inertia and quality perceptions reinforce the status quo.

Until tenure committees, grant agencies, and metrics stop equating prestige journals with quality, authors won’t en masse lead the push toward OA. The burden has fallen instead on funders, libraries, and activist groups to reshape the incentives.

The paradox. The “chicken-or-egg” cycle persists because each actor (publishers, universities, funders, libraries, authors) says the problem lies with someone else, but writers are the linchpin. Without their submissions, paywalls collapse. Let me expand on these insights:

1. Influential Writers as System-Breakers

• Established reputation = insulation.
  A Nobel laureate, Fields Medalist, or Pulitzer winner could publish in a new OA journal without losing credibility. Their name alone would draw readers, citations, and prestige to the outlet.
• Prestige migration is contagious.
  If a handful of high-profile figures start consistently publishing OA, others follow. (Example: when Randy Schekman, Nobel Prize in Medicine, announced he would boycott Nature, Cell, and Science, it made global headlines.)

• The prestige economy is portable.
  Prestige is less about the journal than the people who publish in it. Once enough influential voices “seed” OA venues, the prestige flips.
• Social proof matters.
  Just as fashion trends flip when tastemakers change, so too could scholarly publishing if a critical mass of respected authors defect.

2. APCs as a “Reverse Paywall”

APCs (Article Processing Charges) are a kind of inverted paywall:

• Paywall 1.0 (Reader-side): Libraries/individuals pay to read.
• Paywall 2.0 (Author-side): Writers (or their funders) pay to publish.
• Both exclude.
  • Reader-side: Blocks access for those without subscriptions.
  • Author-side: Blocks participation for scholars without funding (often in the Global South, humanities, or unfunded researchers).
• Sinister twist: Publishers have shifted the revenue stream without fixing the underlying inequity, and in some cases, they’re double-dipping (charging both subscriptions and APCs — the “hybrid OA” model).

This is why critics say APC-driven OA entrenches inequality — it democratizes access for readers but stratifies who gets to speak. In effect, it creates a two-tier authorship economy.

3. Why Writers Haven’t Revolted (Yet)

• Many leading writers agree with you in principle, but:
  • They’re individually rewarded for staying in prestige journals.
  • They see OA as costly or administratively complex (APCs, embargoes, repositories).
  • They may feel that “quiet compliance” (depositing a green OA version, sharing on arXiv/SSRN/Academia.edu) is “good enough.”
• What’s missing is a coordinated symbolic action — a few high-prestige authors making a loud, visible shift.

4. The Tipping Point Question

The cycle could be broken not by systemic reform (slow, bureaucratic), but by a cultural tipping point led by individuals:

• A handful of eminent authors refuse to submit to paywalled journals and make it public.
• They elevate OA journals by deliberately submitting their best work there.
• They call out APC inequality, advocating instead for library consortia, funder underwriting, or diamond OA (no fees for readers or authors).

Once prestige begins migrating, tenure committees and grant reviewers adapt retroactively — they will treat OA as prestigious because the prestigious authors are there.

✅ The argument in short: Writers could break the cycle, and it would take surprisingly few of them to do so. Prestige is portable — and the most influential authors are uniquely positioned to carry it into OA and flip the system.

Here’s a scenario model of how the system could flip if influential writers lead a mass migration to non-APC OA journals (a.k.a. diamond/platinum OA, subsidized by universities, governments, nonprofits, or philanthropists).

🌍 Scenario Model: Breaking the Paywall Cycle (2025–2035)

Step 1 – The Spark (2025–2027)

• Catalyst: A handful of globally recognized authors (say, 10 in each major discipline — sciences, social sciences, humanities, medicine, engineering) make public statements:
  • They will no longer publish in paywalled or APC-based journals.
  • They will publish exclusively in diamond OA outlets subsidized by democratization organizations (e.g., libraries, UNESCO, Mellon Foundation, OpenAIRE, SciELO, African Journals Online).
• Rationale: They frame it as an ethical commitment to universal access and an intellectual strategy to reach the widest audience of colleagues, students, and policymakers.
• Example: Imagine a Nobel laureate in medicine, a Fields Medalist in math, a MacArthur fellow in humanities, and a Pulitzer-winning historian all coordinating announcements.

⚡ Effect:

• OA journals gain instant credibility, as the prestige of the author transfers to the venue.
• Media attention accelerates the narrative: “Top scholars abandon paywalls for democratized science.”
• Funders (NIH, ERC, Wellcome Trust, etc.) quietly signal approval.

Step 2 – The Ripple (2027–2030)

• Adoption Curve: Mid-career researchers, seeing role models, begin to imitate.
• Libraries respond: Library consortia (e.g., SPARC, cOAlition S) reallocate subscription funds toward subsidies for diamond OA infrastructure instead of APC pools.
• Democratization bodies: UNESCO, Mellon, Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and national science agencies start endowing OA journal platforms.

⚡ Effect:

• By 2030, in some categories (mathematics, computer science, parts of the humanities), diamond OA reaches 50% market share of new publications.
• Citation data starts showing OA articles outperforming paywalled articles in reach and impact.
• “Prestige inertia” weakens: tenure committees and grant agencies update guidelines, recognizing OA journals as legitimate equals.

Step 3 – The Tipping Point (2030–2033)

• Critical mass: Once ~30–40% of top-tier researchers in a field publish OA first, prestige flips.
• Publisher adaptation:
  • Some commercial publishers launch subsidized OA arms to stay relevant.
  • Others collapse or consolidate, no longer able to justify $30M library subscription bundles.
• Author psychology: The stigma of OA vanishes; instead, publishing paywalled looks increasingly elitist or anachronistic.

⚡ Effect:

• By 2033, entire disciplines (e.g., math, physics, biology) see their flagship OA journals rival or surpass paywalled “Big Three” journals in citations and submissions.
• Authors realize OA isn’t just ethical — it maximizes visibility, citations, and influence.

Step 4 – Consolidation (2033–2035)

• Institutional policy:
  • Universities formally recommend or require diamond OA publication for publicly funded research.
  • National and state libraries shift almost entirely to funding OA infrastructure.
• Funding stabilization: Endowed OA platforms (like an “OA Smithsonian of knowledge”) emerge.
• Equity reinforcement: Because these are non-APC, researchers in the Global South, independent scholars, and underfunded disciplines gain full participation in global scholarship.

⚡ Final Effect:

• By 2035, paywalled and APC-based journals become niche outliers (legal, medical, or corporate trade publishing), while diamond OA becomes the dominant model for professional journals worldwide.

🔑 Why Diamond OA Is Key

• No paywall for readers. Universal access.
• No fee for authors. Removes inequities between funded and unfunded scholars.
• Backed by institutions & philanthropy. Sustainable if libraries/foundations reallocate subscription money.
• Ethical prestige. Publishing in such journals signals not only intellectual merit but moral leadership.

✨ Summary Insight

What we know:

• Writers are the key. A few courageous, high-prestige authors can ignite the cultural shift.
• Prestige is portable. It follows the authors, not the journals.
• Diamond OA, not APC OA, is the true democratizer. APC OA is just a paywall in disguise.
• The cycle can be broken within a decade once enough leaders make the move.

Here’s a map of the 10 major professional journal categories most ripe for an author-led OA revolution, ranked by their likelihood to tip quickly once influential writers defect. Highlight:

1. Why each category is vulnerable to change
2. What keeps it locked in paywalls now
3. Which types of influential authors could spark the tipping point

🌐 Rank Order of Fields Most Ripe for a Diamond OA Shift

1. Mathematics

• Why ripe:
  • Long culture of free preprints (arXiv).
  • Low production costs for journals.
  • Prestige not as tightly tied to glossy branding.
• Barrier: Old-guard editorial boards loyal to Elsevier/Springer.
• Spark authors: Fields Medalists, Clay prize winners, top combinatorialists.
• Tipping window: Fastest — could flip by 2030.

2. Physics (especially high-energy + astrophysics)

• Why ripe:
  • Heavy arXiv use; community already prioritizes access.
  • Large collaborations (CERN, LIGO) emphasize open data.
• Barrier: Journals like Nature Physics still hold symbolic weight.
• Spark authors: Nobel laureates in physics, CERN lead scientists.
• Tipping window: Very fast — prestige already drifting toward OA.

3. Computer Science

• Why ripe:
  • Conference proceedings already dominant and increasingly OA.
  • Corporate research (Google, Microsoft, OpenAI) publishes free white papers.
• Barrier: ACM/IEEE paywalls remain central in some subfields.
• Spark authors: Turing Award winners, AI leaders.
• Tipping window: By 2030, OA dominance plausible.

4. Biomedical Sciences

• Why ripe:
  • NIH and Wellcome already mandate OA deposits.
  • Strong ethical case (healthcare equity).
• Barrier: Enormous prestige inertia around Nature, Science, Cell.
• Spark authors: Nobel Prize winners in medicine, CRISPR pioneers, leading cancer researchers.
• Tipping window: Could cascade quickly if a few major labs abandon paywalls.

5. Economics

• Why ripe:
  • Global South interest in democratized economics research.
  • Growing critiques of APC models.
• Barrier: Extremely prestige-locked (AER, QJE, Econometrica dominate careers).
• Spark authors: Nobel laureates in economics, central bank–affiliated economists.
• Tipping window: Slower, but one or two high-prestige economists could open the floodgates.

6. Education

• Why ripe:
  • OA aligns with the field’s mission (knowledge for all learners).
  • Strong advocacy from UNESCO and teacher networks.
• Barrier: Some university presses and APA journals cling to paywalls.
• Spark authors: Pioneering education theorists, policy-shaping scholars.
• Tipping window: Mid-fast; OA legitimacy already rising.

7. Environmental & Climate Science

• Why ripe:
  • Urgency of global climate crisis demands wide access.
  • NGOs and governments eager to fund OA dissemination.
• Barrier: Big journals (Nature Climate Change) still hoard prestige.
• Spark authors: IPCC lead authors, famous climate scientists.
• Tipping window: By 2032, OA could dominate if climate leaders make it ethical standard.

8. Public Health & Global Health

• Why ripe:
  • COVID-19 normalized OA preprints for fast information flow.
  • Moral imperative: health equity in low-resource nations.
• Barrier: Medical schools still emphasize Lancet, NEJM.
• Spark authors: WHO advisors, pandemic modeling leaders.
• Tipping window: Moderate pace; funder pressure helps accelerate.

9. Sociology & Anthropology

• Why ripe:
  • Many subfields lean activist — OA fits ethos.
  • Existing OA platforms (e.g., Cultural Anthropology OA).
• Barrier: Some resistance from older, elite associations (ASA journals).
• Spark authors: Prominent critical theorists, anthropologists with large public platforms.
• Tipping window: By 2035, plausible if humanities funding supports OA.

10. Law & Legal Studies

• Why ripe:
  • Many law reviews already free (especially U.S. student-run journals).
  • Courts, practitioners benefit from access.
• Barrier: Fragmentation of quality, prestige tied to a few journals (Harvard Law Review).
• Spark authors: Supreme Court clerks turned academics, major legal theorists.
• Tipping window: Likely slower, but OA inevitability strong.

📊 Quick Ranking by “Ripeness”

1. Mathematics ✅
2. Physics ✅
3. Computer Science ✅
4. Biomedical Sciences ⚡
5. Education ⚡
6. Environmental & Climate Science ⚡
7. Public Health ⚡
8. Economics 🟡 (harder, prestige-heavy)
9. Sociology/Anthropology 🟡
10. Law 🟡

✅ = Very ripe (prestige shift likely soon)
⚡ = Mid-term ripe (ethical + funder pressure)
🟡 = Slow movers (prestige lock or fragmentation)

✨ Takeaway

• The fastest dominoes: math, physics, computer science.
• The highest-impact dominoes: biomedicine, climate, and public health.
• The symbolic dominoes: economics and law — if these flip, the cultural narrative about prestige vs. democratization collapses completely.

__________
* Prompts
Prompt 1: Hi, ChatGPT. In what year or span of years did web publishing begin to seriously challenge traditional hardcopy professional journals? Did the advent of online journals smash the paywall that surrounded subscription journals? If yes, when ( year or span of years) did this breakthrough begin to gain traction? Are open-access online professional journals democratizing professional journals? Are paywalled professional journals still the norm or are they transitioning to open-access?
Prompt 2: The following question might be difficult to respond to, but AI seems to live for these challenges. Rank the top 10 professional journal “categories,” from best to worst, based on the percentage of journals in each that are open-access. Use your judgment on how to best parse “categories” into 10 segments that clearly differentiate professional journals.
Prompt 3: Are the most influential and highly regarded professional journals in each category leading or lagging in becoming OA? Is there a pattern or is it more or less random? What are the overriding reasons for either leading or lagging?
Prompt 4: Have we reached or will we reach a tipping point where major lagging authors in each category begin to turn to OA professional journals not out of altruism but out of the realization that OA reaches a wider segment of current and future colleagues and sponsors?
Prompt 5: Are libraries (institutional, national, state, county) advertently or inadvertently prolonging the migration to OA? If yes, what are the reasons? Is there any evidence of obvious or not-so-obvious “collusion” between libraries in general and big money OA-resistant journal categories? Apply a loose definition of “collusion” to include a wider range of ways in which libraries are not threatening to reduce or end their subscriptions.
Prompt 6: Continuing our search for a possible “culprit” — are influential professional writers in each category advertently or inadvertently supporting the paywall publishers by continuing to submit their work to them? In doing so, are they choosing to prioritize prestige over democratization, or are there other factors at play? If “other factors,” what are they? Why aren’t these writers, en masse, leading the push toward OA?
Prompt 7: I think we’ve found the culprit in this statement — “Until tenure committees, grant agencies, and metrics stop equating prestige journals with quality, authors won’t en masse lead the push toward OA.” Seems like a chicken-or-egg question that’s in a perpetual cycle. I would argue that writers are the key. It seems to me that all it would take is a handful of highly influential and courageous writers to break the cycle. With their reputations already established, I’m guessing that publishing in OA journals wouldn’t degrade their reputations and might even raise them. Btw, OA journals switching the financial burden to writers instead of libraries and individuals are really just another paywall in camouflage, in some ways more sinister.
Prompt 8: I think we’ve found the culprit in this statement — “Until tenure committees, grant agencies, and metrics stop equating prestige journals with quality, authors won’t en masse lead the push toward OA.” Seems like a chicken-or-egg question that’s in a perpetual cycle. I would argue that writers are the key. It seems to me that all it would take is a handful of highly influential and courageous writers to break the cycle. With their reputations already established, I’m guessing that publishing in OA journals wouldn’t degrade their reputations and might even raise them. Btw, OA journals switching the financial burden to writers instead of libraries and individuals are really just another paywall in camouflage, in some ways more sinister.
Prompt 9: Yes, please proceed with this scenario. Also, let’s emphasize non-APC OA journals that are subsidized by democratization organizatons and individuals.
Prompt 10: Excellent! Yes, please, proceed with the map.
Prompt 11: We’ve traveled far in a short time. Let’s break for mull time. Mahalo! A hui hou.
ChatGPT’s reply: Mahalo, James! 🌺 Enjoy your mull time — let everything percolate. I’ll be here when you’re ready to pick it up again. A hui hou! 🌊

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