I don’t know about other fields, but we did do this for AI. It’s all community-run, papers are freely available for everyone to read, and the cost of submission in a peer-reviewed venue is to review other papers. The publishers don’t actually provide anything of value except name recognition and being “reputable”, which they maintain through momentum.
There is a new journal I know of (TMLR) that’s becoming a bit more popular in these circles, but I believe they rely solely on volunteers to review rather than asking those who submit papers.
There are literally tens of thousands of people in academia who could build a transparent, open-source, non-profit publishing system of their own.
Why don’t they?
There is a transitioning happening but progress churns slowly. I like to compare it to getting out of an abusive relationship.
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/
https://tagteam.harvard.edu/hubs/oatp/items
Corruption - at the highest level.
I don’t know about other fields, but we did do this for AI. It’s all community-run, papers are freely available for everyone to read, and the cost of submission in a peer-reviewed venue is to review other papers. The publishers don’t actually provide anything of value except name recognition and being “reputable”, which they maintain through momentum.
Oh, could you share some links?
Links to what?
Sorry, I might have misunderstood - I thought there would be some journals employing that “review to submit” system you mentioned.
Ah, yes. I just wasn’t clear on whether you wanted to know more about the publication venues or about the value of publishers or something else.
In AI, we normally publish in conferences rather than journals. Some of the big ones are
There is a new journal I know of (TMLR) that’s becoming a bit more popular in these circles, but I believe they rely solely on volunteers to review rather than asking those who submit papers.
Thanks, I will be looking into this!
If you’re still interested in this, CVPR recently made the rule explicit for the upcoming conference.
https://cvpr.thecvf.com/Conferences/2025/CVPRChanges