Increases in the number of published papers cause many problems in the academic communication field. Because of the steep rise in journal prices, libraries are decreasing the number of journals which they purchase each year. According to a search in PubMed, 213, 000 papers were published in 1970 and 515, 000 papers in 2000. Judging from the increasing number of printed papers, printed journals are no longer useful communication tools in the academic field. In the 1990's, many publishers began to release online journals. There are two types of online journals. Many online journals released by commercial publishers are just the same as the printed ones. On the other hand, online journals released by non-profit organizations offer a solution to the problem. The solution offered by this type of online journals published by non-profit organizations is based on new academic communication factors: 1) A reasonable price for subscription and access; 2) Creation of a new economic model; and 3) Copyright held by authors. Because of the current scarcity of published and cited numbers of papers, the influence or “impact factor” of online journals published by non-profit organizations, for example, the HighWire Press, the BioMed Central and the SPARC's Alternative, is not yet so high. In the past, researchers jointly raised the reputation of their chosen journals by the submission of excellent peer-reviewed papers. If researchers were to take the same approach and support online journals released by non-profit organizations, the standing and usefulness of online journals may increase and gain a good reputation in the future.