We’re still failing to deliver open access and solve the serials crisis: to succeed we need a digital transformation of scholarly communication using internet-era principles

Toby Green, Head of Publishing at OECD Publishing (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), suggests that preprint repositories are a more intelligent approach to ensuring a fully-open playing field. If all articles were first published as preprints, and only those that succeeded in attracting the attention of journal editors were submitted for formal publishing, the average cost of publishing a paper would fall significantly. In clinging onto traditional journals to advance the careers of the few (authors), OA is delayed for the many (readers): rebuilding the reputation economy to accept preprints could be the catalyst to deliver OA, solve the serials crisis and drive out predatory journals.