The Problem with Scientific Publishing
Scientists write, edit and review papers, while publishers charge publication fees and subscriptions to their journals. In other words, scientists do all the work while publishers get all the profits. Previously, this was justified by the small market of the scientific community compounded with printing and distribution costs. In the internet age, with most journals providing their content digitally only, printing costs are zero and distribution costs are drastically reduced. Yet, subscription and publication fees have increased! Publishers justify this cost by the value they add by filtering (editorial work) and organizing the peer review process.
There are currently little to no incentives for scientists to perform peer review. Because of this, scientific editors have great difficulty in finding suitable reviewers for scientific manuscripts, leading to delays in the time to acceptance and poorer quality of reviews. This situation has lead to what is known as the reviewer crisis.
