A new scientific journal backed by venture capitalist Tim O'Reilly relies on a one-time fee for researchers to be able to publish articles there, reports Reuters. The journal, called PeerJ, is the brainchild of Peter Binfield — formerly of PLoS One — and Jason Hoyt — formerly at Mendeley — and it will focus on the biological and medical sciences. "We really flip the whole business model from one where the author pays for a publication to a membership model where they pay just once," Binfield tells ScienceInsider.
PeerJ currently offers three membership options: a basic plan that is $99 and allows researchers to publish one article a year, a $169 plan that allows two publications a year, and a $259 unlimited plan. The prices also vary depending on whether researchers are joining as they submit a paper to after a paper has been accepted. ScienceInsider notes that all authors will need to join.
"I have been waiting for things like this," says the University of California, Davis' Jonathan Eisen, an open-access advocate and the academic editor-in-chief of PLoS Biology, at ScienceInsider. "We need publishers who experiment."
PeerJ will be accepting submissions beginning at the end of the summer and will begin publishing at the end of the year.