I was recently asked to do peer review of a paper in the Elsevier journal Icarus. Here’s what I said. I encourage you to say something in the same vein:
Thank you for your invitation to participate in the peer review process which is so vital to the progress of scientific knowledge. However, I unwilling to contribute any review or editorial work to publications which do not satisfy very liberal Open Access criteria as set out by, for example, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing from 2003, or the Creative Commons Attribution license used by the Public Library of Science Journals. I look forward to a day hopefully not too far off when Elsevier decides to support free access to scientific knowledge (PDF) for all, and especially for scientific knowledge which was gained in part through publicly funded research.
Peer review is only one necessary ingredient for science to work. Open access and systemic transparency are others. All of them need work.
2 replies on “No peer review without open access”
Other ways to make a cause for open access:
1. Sign the BOAI pledge to not publish in commercial publishing.
2. Do not teach classes with required textbooks, if you can compile enough open access resources.
3. Promote open access week if you are on an academic campus.
4. If you are a student, found a freeculture.org branch on your campus.
5. If in US, tell your congress person to support FRPAA.
Now this is interesting. In response to my declining to participate in the peer review of a non-OA journal, I get this note, refusing even to admit the reason I gave:
Maybe there really is no reform in this world without collapse.