The cost of reading research. A study of Computer Science publication venues

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the costs associated with computer science academic publishing for authors and readers, providing data and insights to inform future research on the economic aspects of scholarly communication.

Contribution

It offers a focused analysis of author and reader costs in computer science publishing, serving as a foundation for broader future studies across disciplines.

Findings

Quantitative data on author costs

Quantitative data on reader costs

Insights into the current state of publishing economics

Abstract

What does the cost of academic publishing look like to the common researcher today? Our goal is to convey the current state of academic publishing, specifically in regards to the field of computer science and provide analysis and data to be used as a basis for future studies. We will focus on author and reader costs as they are the primary points of interaction within the publishing world. In this work, we restrict our focus to only computer science in order to make the data collection more feasible (the authors are computer scientists) and hope future work can analyze and collect data across all academic fields.