letter sent to journals with fast-track fees

I have sent the below letter to the journals Obesity Reviews,
International Journal of Digital Content Technology and its
Applications, Journal of Convergence Information Technology,
International Journal of Advancements in Computing Technology,
Advances in Information Science and Service Sciences (Advanced
Institute of Convergence IT journals), Journal of Medical Internet
Research, Eurasian Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Review of Finance
Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Mathematical and Computational
Forestry & Natural-Resource Sciences journals:

We write to ask that you discontinue the policy of fast-tracking
submissions for a fee.

We have two objections to the policy. First is that we are against any
form of preferential treatment for those who can pay. Fast-tracking
for a fee creates a two-tier system, wherein the well-funded have an
unfair advantage over the less well-to-do; in particular, it
exacerbates the differences between developed and developing nations.
The fast-track policy at the least allows faster publication by those
with funds, improving the chance for the funded to win subsequent
grants and to publish before other labs working on the same topic.

Our second objection to the policy stems from our concern that fast-
tracked manuscripts will receive an advantage above and beyond just
faster publication. Your policy requires that reviewers review more
rapidly and editors make their decision in a shorter time than for non-
fast-tracked manuscripts. There are three possible negative effects of
this. First is that the reduced time for reviewers to spend on their
work may lead to more superficial and less stringent reviews. Second
is that the editor may sometimes have to complete their action letter
on the basis of fewer reviews, when the reviewers do not finish by the
deadline. The consequence is that at least some fast-tracked articles
will receive less critical reviewing than those by author teams who do
not pay for fast-track. The third possible negative effect reflects
the linkage between fast-tracked articles and the journal’s finances.
Your journal would receive more money if it evaluates fast-tracked
articles less stringently, and even if it does not succumb to this
incentive the readers may always have that perception.

Overall, the association of author fees with preferential treatment
may eventually imperil science’s reputation among governments and the
public. Science traditionally has been something of a refuge from the
injustice of rich vs. poor, and previously in publishing there has
always been the expectation that publication of an article is a mark
of the quality of the work, not the depth of the pockets behind it.

Superficially, the policy of fees for fast-tracking seems similar to
the “Gold Open Access” model, in which authors pay a fee to have their
article published if it passes peer review. In most of those journals,
however, the policy is set so that authors who pay are treated the
same as those who don’t. Most Gold OA journals offer a waiver for
authors who cannot afford the usual fee, and reviewers and editors do
not know whose fees are waived and whose are not. And in those
unfortunate cases of journals that require a fee for all, at least
there is no difference within the journal with some articles receiving
preferential treatment.

We, the undersigned, will not submit work to a journal which offers
competitive advantages at a financial premium; nor will we review for
any such journal.

Alex O. Holcombe, PhD, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology,
University of Sydney (alex.h...@sydney.edu.au)
Claudia Koltzenburg, Managing editor, Cellular Therapy and
Transplantation (an open access journal in Western/Russian
cooperation), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
(managin...@ctt-journal.com)
Kaan Öztürk, Dept. of Information Systems and Technologies, Yeditepe
University, Istanbul, Turkey. (kaan....@yeditepe.edu.tr)
Ayşe Karasu, METU, Dept. of Physics, Ankara, Turkey
(aka...@metu.edu.tr)
Arman Abrahamyan, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of
Psychology, University of Sydney (arman.ab...@sydney.edu.au)
Bill Hooker, Portland, OR (cwho...@fastmail.fm)
William Gunn, San Diego CA
Daniel Mietchen, PhD, Jena, Germany
(daniel....@science3point0.com)
Daniel Linares, PhD, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain
(danil...@gmail.com)
Barton L. Anderson, School of Psychology, University of Sydney
Kiley Seymour, PhD, Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow,
Berlin, Germany
Björn Brembs, PhD, Heisenberg Fellow, Freie Universität Berlin,
Germany
M Fabiana Kubke, PhD, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Graham Steel, Glasgow, Scotland ( graham at science3point0.com )
Matthew Davidson, Psychology Dept, Columbia University
(mat...@psych.columbia.edu)
Richard Badge, PhD, Lecturer, Department of Genetics, University of
Leicester, UK (rm...@leicester.ac.uk)
Pedro Mendes, PhD, Professor, School of Computer Science, The
University of Manchester, UK (mendes...@googlemail.com)
R. Steven Kurti, PhD, Director Biomaterials and Photonics Laboratory,
Loma Linda University School of Dentistry, California
(sku...@llu.edu).

This letter was written after I (Alex Holcombe) brought people's
attention to the issue with these blog posts:
http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/tag/fast-track-fees/
Please make any response available to all potential journal readers
and authors by posting the response or a link to them at
http://groups.google.com/group/fair-science-publishing/