Mathematicians to Run Open Access Journals on arXiv. (January 20, 2013)

Trust the mathematicians to be out in front once again. Cambridge University Fields Medal Tim Gowers in his June 16 blog brought to public attention that the maths community are working to launch a group of peer-reviewed-open-access journals that are to be hosted on arXiv. Named the Episciences Project the initiators intend to demonstrate that it is possible to publish peer reviewed work cheaply by bypassing commercial publishers.

According to Jean-Pierre Demailly, a mathematician at the University of Grenoble, France who is leading the push: "It’s a global vision of how the research community should work: we want to offer an alternative to traditional mathematics journals." Financial backing is being obtained in part from the French government and according to Professor Demailly launch date may be as early as April.

The reasoning behind the Episciences Project is straightforward Professor  Demailly told Nature's Richard Van Noorden: "[Researchers] already do most of the work involved in publishing their research. At no cost [to the journal's publisher], they type up and format their own papers, post them to online servers, join journal editorial boards and review the work of their peers. By creating journals that publish links to peer-reviewed work on servers such as arXiv the community could run its own publishing system. The extra expense involved would be the cost of maintaining websites and computer equipment".

Citing arXiv as an example Mr Van Noorden notes: "The arXiv server, for example, costs about US$826,000 a year to run, and is funded by the Cornell University Library in Ithaca, New York; the Simons Foundation in New York and institutional members." The approach is to have papers which begin as un-reviewed submissions to arXiv to also be submitted to one of the epijournals which would have its own editor and editorial board and would arrange for peer review. "Peer-reviewed papers would be posted on arXiv alongside their un-reviewed versions."

Professor Demailly points out some free, community-organized mathematics journals, such as Documenta Mathematica are already online: "They are doing things on their own with a small website; we will have a global platform capable of drastically reducing an individual journal’s administration costs." And Professor Demailly adds: "If people want larger reviews linked to papers, or the possibility of online comments and blogs, we can offer this with only minor changes to the platform."

As to the success of the proposed venture?  Obviously that'll depend on the acceptance of the intended readership,  but as Mr Van Noorden says, "the involvement of Gowers and other prominent mathematicians, such as Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles, may help to build support."

Make no mistake the times they are a changin.