response from Journal of Internet Medical Research

[Alex Holcombe]

From: Gunther Eysenbach <geys...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Open letter asking you to discontinue the fast-track
fee policy
Date: 26 April 2011 10:46:59 PM AEST

Thank you for bringing this interesting view to our attention.
Authors sometimes have to meet publication deadlines, e.g. for
promotion & tenure or thesis defense, grant proposals, spending of
research funds before a certain deadline, publication of follow-up
papers. The existence of a fast-track option, which guarantees
decision-making by a certain deadline, is generally considered to be a
welcome development.
That scientists with more grant funding can do more things (like going
to conferences) may be called a 2-tier system - the alternative would
be to get rid of the grant-funding system altogether and give each
scientist a fixed amount of money, so everything is equal.
I am not sure to what degree your are involved in editing a journal,
but do you really think at journals who do not offer a fast-track fee
all manuscripts are treated equal in terms of the turnaround time?

In any case, we will launch a survey among our readers and authors to
see what the views on this are.

Thanks for bringing this line of thought to my attention.


G. Eysenbach
Editor