Universities spend millions on accessing results of publicly funded research(theconversation.com)
theconversation.com
Universities spend millions on accessing results of publicly funded research
https://theconversation.com/universities-spend-millions-on-accessing-results-of-publicly-funded-research-88392
175 comments
It’s pretty clear that open access is the way things should be. Particularly as now publication and reproduction costs are essentially zero.
It’s interesting to note how we got here, and how we remain here. Academics mostly universally complain about the current state of affairs, with reason.
However, we’re here because academics gave up control. Because the journal system, which was originally run by academic volunteers was seen as a hassle and has given over to businesses to run. Slowly, the businesses became to extract more and more profit...
The solution is probably to return to a less profit driven publishing model. But current publishers and academics pretty well locked in.
It’s interesting to note how we got here, and how we remain here. Academics mostly universally complain about the current state of affairs, with reason.
However, we’re here because academics gave up control. Because the journal system, which was originally run by academic volunteers was seen as a hassle and has given over to businesses to run. Slowly, the businesses became to extract more and more profit...
The solution is probably to return to a less profit driven publishing model. But current publishers and academics pretty well locked in.
A friend was working for the EPA and she didn't have access to all the journals to do her work so she had to ask me to fetch them for her from the university library. Remember seeing the prices for each article and each subscription and thinking - they are making some nice profits charging $30 per paper.
I've been in academia for three decades, and have yet to pay a cent to download a paper. I don't know any colleagues or students who have done so, either. I doubt that they make much money from per-article fees. I think they set them high so that universities will be forced to subscribe.
My funding councils want people to publish in open-access journals, but they don't provide extra funds for the doubling of cost that's involved. The money has to come from somewhere, and the main cost item tends to be student stipends, so professors tend to continue publishing in pay-access journals.
I've been on both sides of the "fetch for a friend" process. I've had to ask friends to fetch copies of papers that I've written, for which I've paid page charges, because my university had to drop the journal in one or another waves of cost saving.
And for all this money, the journals do very little in the way of contributing to the process, nowadays. Reviewers work for free, as do most academic editors. Technical editors seem to barely exist anymore, since authors do their own typesetting and journals rely on academic reviewers to help with English.
Academics are caught in a narrowing vice as they move through the career process. Papers have to appear in high-reputation journals, or else. And those journals just happen to be expensive.
My funding councils want people to publish in open-access journals, but they don't provide extra funds for the doubling of cost that's involved. The money has to come from somewhere, and the main cost item tends to be student stipends, so professors tend to continue publishing in pay-access journals.
I've been on both sides of the "fetch for a friend" process. I've had to ask friends to fetch copies of papers that I've written, for which I've paid page charges, because my university had to drop the journal in one or another waves of cost saving.
And for all this money, the journals do very little in the way of contributing to the process, nowadays. Reviewers work for free, as do most academic editors. Technical editors seem to barely exist anymore, since authors do their own typesetting and journals rely on academic reviewers to help with English.
Academics are caught in a narrowing vice as they move through the career process. Papers have to appear in high-reputation journals, or else. And those journals just happen to be expensive.
US college libraries do pay per-article fees. Most offer an "interlibrary loan" service where faculty and students can request a specific article from a journal the library doesn't subscribe to. Depending on the journal's licensing and the library's partnerships, the library may get a copy from another library for free, or purchase the article. If a purchase is made, part of the cost may or may not be passed on to the end user (at my library charges are rare and I doubt most end users even know a per-article fee was paid on their behalf). In cases where requests for articles from a particular journal are rare, this may be more cost effective for the library than subscribing to the journal.
Of course this can happen only when the end user uses the formal interlibrary loan process, instead of alternatives like Sci-Hub (which may be faster and easier).
As with the high subscription prices, the primary mark is not faculty/students but libraries, who are expected to provide the content and constrained from doing anything blatantly illegal to get it.
Of course this can happen only when the end user uses the formal interlibrary loan process, instead of alternatives like Sci-Hub (which may be faster and easier).
As with the high subscription prices, the primary mark is not faculty/students but libraries, who are expected to provide the content and constrained from doing anything blatantly illegal to get it.
Unfortunately this is all true too. Not only that but the people that are allowed to do peer reviews, at least in biology, are people that have their Registered Professional Biologist ticket. I don't know what it's like for other sciences but for your RPBio you needed something like 5 years of professional experience, your own published, peer reviewed paper and to pay a yearly fee of $10000. Their the ones that get to sign off on projects. I really disliked working in science honestly. The work itself was really cool, but it's so full of politics and people fighting for scraps of money. You get people who manage to do absolutely nothing but sign their name on projects and review papers for a living. They make good money while doing nothing. I've seen prominent a biologist steal the grant money from a park he pretended to be working with, a government biologist straight up owned by a copper mine that was paid off to ignore any damage being caused by the mine and just a whole culture of money first. The science part of doing science was really the last thing anyone cared about.
Yeah, this thing about paying to publish papers in open access journals is really stupid. It seems to me like a compromise that governments have landed on with publishers in order to keep them in business. I would prefer a model whereby governments fund open access repositories and editorial workflows and simultaneously mandate publishing in open access repositories. The incumbent publishing corporations should not be a part of this new arrangement, their business model pulls in the opposite direction.
I do not understand what exactly you are claiming in your first paragraph. You say that you have never had to pay for an article yet you "have been on both sides of the fetch for a friend" which strictly speaking (and despite how much I hate it) is illegal.
They didn't say they weren't asked to pay for an article - just that they did not. In other words, when confronted with a paywall, they either skipped the article or asked a friend with access.
Note that asking for an article is not always illegal. For example, authors are often allowed to share the article, and there are often also provisions that allow institutions to "loan" access to each other (inter-library loan), although presumably that would have to go through the institution's librarian.
That said, even if it's illegal, I'd worry about it about as much as worrying about pedestrians skipping the red light on deserted crossings.
Note that asking for an article is not always illegal. For example, authors are often allowed to share the article, and there are often also provisions that allow institutions to "loan" access to each other (inter-library loan), although presumably that would have to go through the institution's librarian.
That said, even if it's illegal, I'd worry about it about as much as worrying about pedestrians skipping the red light on deserted crossings.
Tell that to the person that started sci hub
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/scientific-resea...
I thought the music anti piracy people were bad.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/scientific-resea...
I thought the music anti piracy people were bad.
Starting Sci-Hub is something I'd worry about far earlier than I'd worry about asking a friend for an article, obviously, just like I'd worry more if I'd started the Pirate Bay than if I'd downloaded a song.
The most relevant quote in the article:
Scientists can't have their cake and eat it too. Either they fund their own research and publish in prestigious expensive journals that cost the public money, or they take public money and make the research available for all.
But it's not easy to migrate to that because scientist aren't just using journals as a publication platform, but as a reputation platform as a function of their exclusivity and reputation.
> the research community uses historical journal reputation to
> evaluate researchers, making it harder for new, better run
> journals to enter the market.
Scientists can't have their cake and eat it too. Either they fund their own research and publish in prestigious expensive journals that cost the public money, or they take public money and make the research available for all.
But it's not easy to migrate to that because scientist aren't just using journals as a publication platform, but as a reputation platform as a function of their exclusivity and reputation.
I think you're misplacing the blame here. Researchers need to publish in high impact journals, or they lose their funding.
Some funding already comes with the requirement to publish open access.
https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/libraryservices/library...
Some funding already comes with the requirement to publish open access.
https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/libraryservices/library...
Obviously it's implied that if public science funding is going to demand that researchers use only openly available journals, that the rules for the funding itself also be adjusted to disregard the impact of these "high impact journals" for the purposes of preferentially allocating funding.
What do you imagine is going to happen? That public support of science is going to drop to zero because funding bodies forgot to update two of their internal rules, and instead just updated one, thereby creating a dependency relationship that was impossible to satisfy?
What do you imagine is going to happen? That public support of science is going to drop to zero because funding bodies forgot to update two of their internal rules, and instead just updated one, thereby creating a dependency relationship that was impossible to satisfy?
Yep, I'm required to make my work freely available when I can. Some of it is sensitive so not all of it can be, but otherwise we have to. Also all of my code and data is open source, which is not required but we have permission. Where I worked previously was totally different, it took months to get any code release approved.
blaming scientists is misplaced. This is a policy-level question, for which the policy IS evolving fairly rapidly. The scientists are also rapidly updating and most papers have pre-prints available via arxiv or bioRxiv, etc and the NIH and many other funding agencies require open access soon after publication. Lastly, many scientists end-run the publishers and make the print copy PDFs available on their lab websites.
In no way can I imagine how blaming scientists for working within the established incentive structure to advance their careers helps advance this issue.
In no way can I imagine how blaming scientists for working within the established incentive structure to advance their careers helps advance this issue.
It is interesting that open access and preprint are being conflated in some way. At least preprints public. But why is a preprint public and final not in any case?
Well, some of them are also complicit in maintaining that incentive structure: https://theconversation.com/why-i-disagree-with-nobel-laurea...
But yeah, it's hard to blame anyone specifically, as the current situation is the result of so many actors: https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
(Apologies for plugging my own article repeatedly, but otherwise I'd be writing the same all the time...)
But yeah, it's hard to blame anyone specifically, as the current situation is the result of so many actors: https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
(Apologies for plugging my own article repeatedly, but otherwise I'd be writing the same all the time...)
You can definitely blame Elsevier. Have at it.
Haha, I often do, and they've definitely exploited the system most. That said, even they are accountable to a diverse set of shareholders, and if they were to disappear overnight, there'd also be quite some negative effects. But yeah, if you do want to blame any one party, Elsevier would be it.
I wholly reject the type of argument where "you can't blame people for being self-interested in a given incentive structure". You certainly can. To take it to an absurd extreme, it is a bit like saying you can't blame people for not standing up to Nazis in Weimar Germany. It is indeed suicidal to have done so, yet, you can blame them.
That said, I also wholly agree that it is foolish to expect change before changing their incentives. Public exposure of the racket that is scientific publishing is one such minor incentive change.
That said, I also wholly agree that it is foolish to expect change before changing their incentives. Public exposure of the racket that is scientific publishing is one such minor incentive change.
Yes, you can blame them. It would give a great feeling of righteous indignation. But would that help solve the problem?
With a functioning justice system or government or social structure, with blame comes punishment and consequences that deter future behavior.
If top researchers refused to publish in or advocate their department pay for closed-access journals, they would die.
If the NSF required NSF funding could not be used to generate work that would be published in closed-access journals, they would die.
If the justice department broke up these journals for the public good or we simply made it impossible for certain IP regulations to apply to scientific research, they would die.
All of these actions require first to acknowledge there is a problem, second to blame corporations running closed-access journals, third to destroy them. You can't skip the second step.
If top researchers refused to publish in or advocate their department pay for closed-access journals, they would die.
If the NSF required NSF funding could not be used to generate work that would be published in closed-access journals, they would die.
If the justice department broke up these journals for the public good or we simply made it impossible for certain IP regulations to apply to scientific research, they would die.
All of these actions require first to acknowledge there is a problem, second to blame corporations running closed-access journals, third to destroy them. You can't skip the second step.
Blaming individual scientists is largely misplaced, but you can definitely blame then collectively. The root cause of a lot of these problems is that academia has an almost farcical obsession with prestige, and that's largely a bottom-up function of the culture. The inability to collectively move to different publishing venues is merely one consequence of this culture.
As far as I can tell, all young researchers hate the status quo, and want open access to succeed. No one researcher can change the system. Even the ones who believe in open access have their careers to worry about.
I agree with avar's comment above - if the government required that publicly-funded research can only be published the open access way, the problem goes away.
It's a prisoner's dilemma: publishing in a closed, high-prestige journal, benefits the researcher but is bad for science. If the government implemented this requirement, though, all researchers would 'instantly' be spared the temptation of 'defecting' by publishing in a closed journal.
I agree with avar's comment above - if the government required that publicly-funded research can only be published the open access way, the problem goes away.
It's a prisoner's dilemma: publishing in a closed, high-prestige journal, benefits the researcher but is bad for science. If the government implemented this requirement, though, all researchers would 'instantly' be spared the temptation of 'defecting' by publishing in a closed journal.
I do think sites like arxiv are in the right direction. Also love the Twitter bots that tweets new papers. I make it a habit to read every new paper related to a field of my interest.
I thought that was true everywhere? Isn't that a major reason people work at Apple, Google...? I didn't ever notice anything different about academia's concern with prestige (feel free to prove me wrong.)
I think it's significantly less true in tech, even if it's still present. People are far more flexible about hiring and working with programmers of different backgrounds, and the views I've heard on tech company prestige aren't nearly as strong and rigid as what I've heard from CS researchers about other departments. (Mostly from folks at Berkeley, but only because that's where I did some research as an undergrad.)
the farcical aspect of the obsession with prestige in academia is that it is within such a small community, for less money, and for a narrower set of opportunities... prestige at the major tech companies comes with more pay, more opportunities, and brand name recognition
> inability to collectively move to different publishing venues
Sometimes it works. For example, the ACM Transactions on Algorithms came into being when the entire editorial board of the (Elsevier) Journal of Algorithms resigned in 2003 in protest against Elsevier. So, it seems the transfer of reputation is possible. This came about after Don Knuth wrote a lengthy letter (linked from [1]) ranting against Elsevier.
It's stunning that apart from isolated cases like this the scientific publishers are still holding on to their ill-gained profits.
[1] http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~hal/jalg.html
Ceterum censeo Elsevier(um) esse delendum.
Sometimes it works. For example, the ACM Transactions on Algorithms came into being when the entire editorial board of the (Elsevier) Journal of Algorithms resigned in 2003 in protest against Elsevier. So, it seems the transfer of reputation is possible. This came about after Don Knuth wrote a lengthy letter (linked from [1]) ranting against Elsevier.
It's stunning that apart from isolated cases like this the scientific publishers are still holding on to their ill-gained profits.
[1] http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~hal/jalg.html
Ceterum censeo Elsevier(um) esse delendum.
> you can definitely blame then collectively
There are to risks for scientists here: the risk that their work becomes locked after publishing and their increased difficulty in getting access to other papers, on the one hand.
And the risk that his/her colleague will get ahead by publishing in closed journals, while they waste their careers away with less prestigious open publications, on the other hand.
The status quo is that they are more afraid of each other than the publishers, afraid that their colleague is getting ahead, so they can't prioritize open access. This deadlock needs to be cut from above.
There are to risks for scientists here: the risk that their work becomes locked after publishing and their increased difficulty in getting access to other papers, on the one hand.
And the risk that his/her colleague will get ahead by publishing in closed journals, while they waste their careers away with less prestigious open publications, on the other hand.
The status quo is that they are more afraid of each other than the publishers, afraid that their colleague is getting ahead, so they can't prioritize open access. This deadlock needs to be cut from above.
Tell me, when grants are awarded on the basis of if you published in high impact journals, when policy is to not publish in open access, when the vast majority of researchers, especially the youngest generation, despise the current arrangement as little more than rent-seeking by the big journals, tell me, is that the researchers' fault too? Because they are, what was it, obssessed with prestige?
...which in turn is a result of governments/funders focusing on "excellence" (whatever that means), there being far more people willing to do research than there are funds available, and prestige being used as a way to distribute those funds.
It also extends to things outside finding like graduate school admissions or even peer review. On top of that, you know who's making the low-level decisions for giving grants? People from and steeped in the same academic culture. That's a much larger driving force than the politicians at the top of the funding organizations who don't even understand the intricate prestige ranking in academic fields to do anything actionable with it.
So if you think that the problem stems from a unique problem in academia's culture, then why do you think academia ended up with that culture while other endeavors didn't? Was it because of the character of academics, or because of the incentive structure they operate in?
I don't think it's a unique problem to academia. I recently read something in exactly the same spirit from a lawyer (almost literally "we won't hire anyone not from a T14 school"). If anything, the interesting thing to watch for is which endeavors don't have this culture.
It's either human nature, or driven by wealthy, prestige-sensitive trustees at the top.
If you want to blame anyone, blame publishers, not scientists. Open Access fees assessed by publishers are astronomical, and fall to the scientists seeking to publish them.
I haven't published in Nature yet, but my group has to fork over thousands per open access article above the usual cost. There is a disincentive to publish open access given that.
I haven't published in Nature yet, but my group has to fork over thousands per open access article above the usual cost. There is a disincentive to publish open access given that.
>If you want to blame anyone, blame publishers, not scientists.
The editorial boards are usually scientists.
And the folks on the grant committee (at least the government ones) are usually scientists.
As a collective, scientists do have the power to require all publicly funded research be available through open access means.
The editorial boards are usually scientists.
And the folks on the grant committee (at least the government ones) are usually scientists.
As a collective, scientists do have the power to require all publicly funded research be available through open access means.
The difference is that those scientists are usually senior ones, who also benefit from the status quo, whereas the ones aching for changes are often the early career researchers, who are hardly to blame.
Even when collectives have power, it is always difficult to exercise it. See for example the limited effect of the Elsevier "boycott": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge
Even when collectives have power, it is always difficult to exercise it. See for example the limited effect of the Elsevier "boycott": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge
Blaming the publishers is not very useful, they are just acting according to their self interest. Their interests are not well aligned with those of the public or scientific community, but they won't care about that until they have to.
Have to focus on building up the alternatives, so that the publishers lose the power to dictate the terms. It's happening though, slowly...
As a publishing scientist, let me tell you, science publishing is not a free market. We can't just "build up the alternatives" because that is not conducive to anyone's scientific career. If it's some no name journal where you will publish along side free energy and cold fusion articles, no one will do it.
The mistake is giving journals a profit incentive in the first place in a system that inherently doesn't work well in a market system. You can't have "competition" between journals, it just doesn't work that way. A handful of journals have high impact factors and so get most of the submissions, that's how it is, and they then can crank up their publishing fees because they can.
Perhaps you shouldn't "blame the publishers" given they are "acting according to their self interest." I did say "If you want to blame anyone[...]," implying I don't really care to blame anyone. I admit I am more inclined to blame the publishers, but the whole system is fundamentally broken.
The mistake is giving journals a profit incentive in the first place in a system that inherently doesn't work well in a market system. You can't have "competition" between journals, it just doesn't work that way. A handful of journals have high impact factors and so get most of the submissions, that's how it is, and they then can crank up their publishing fees because they can.
Perhaps you shouldn't "blame the publishers" given they are "acting according to their self interest." I did say "If you want to blame anyone[...]," implying I don't really care to blame anyone. I admit I am more inclined to blame the publishers, but the whole system is fundamentally broken.
Blame the taxpayer. We as a nation should demand we get access to what we pay for. At this point we are funding publishers to make free money off of what was already paid for.
That's effectively what this article does.
As a software developer, I do have the opportunity to build up alternatives - in fact, I'm hoping for that to be my career.
So that's what I'm doing now [1], and anyone interested can subscribe at [2].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/dear-scientists-help-me-help-... [2] https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic
So that's what I'm doing now [1], and anyone interested can subscribe at [2].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/dear-scientists-help-me-help-... [2] https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic
>Blaming the publishers is not very useful, they are just acting according to their self interest.
Blaming the person who mugged you at gunpoint is not very useful, he is just acting according to his self interest.
Alternatives are great, but it's ridiculous to reject blaming the people who are responsible for and perpetuate the very bad status quo. They could end it, they just choose not to. We can and should simultaneously advocate to strip them of their power while holding them to account for abusing it.
Blaming the person who mugged you at gunpoint is not very useful, he is just acting according to his self interest.
Alternatives are great, but it's ridiculous to reject blaming the people who are responsible for and perpetuate the very bad status quo. They could end it, they just choose not to. We can and should simultaneously advocate to strip them of their power while holding them to account for abusing it.
At some point, it’s ok to blame the system (e.g. lack of laws) rather than the mugger. You live in a country in civil war, cross the town at night, get mugged, who’s to blame? You, the mugger, the war?
Yes, huge swaths of ultra desperate people struggling to survive who rob and mug others is definitely analogous to a tiny cabal of ultra powerful, ultra wealthy publishers that could do any number of things but choose to leech millions off the public good.
You are introducing desperation to the scenario, which is totally inappropriate. Unless you know of some publishing house executives who are struggling to put food on the table or homeless?
Also, are you saying you wouldn't blame the mugger?
You are introducing desperation to the scenario, which is totally inappropriate. Unless you know of some publishing house executives who are struggling to put food on the table or homeless?
Also, are you saying you wouldn't blame the mugger?
Always the mugger
Not sure why this is being debated. Other people (including yourself) could bear part of the blame, but ultimately the mugger decided to do the mugging.
Is this valid too if the mugger's family hasn't eaten in 3 days? Because it's easy to talk from a cushy home, with a full belly and a trouble-free upbringing.
One can feel sympathy for someone without absolving them. If they're so desperate, then why deny them their moral agency as well?
They are still to blame for the mugging, even if the reasons are understandable.
I'm not blaming scientists, which should be obvious given my proposed solution of solving this at the funding level.
Of course some scientists derive value from publishing in prestigious journals, but if that's the case they can pay for those fees themselves out of their own pocket, not out of their research grant.
If those journals demand exclusivity, which they often do, the scientists can of course continue to publish in them if they so choose, but then they can also fund their own research.
Of course some scientists derive value from publishing in prestigious journals, but if that's the case they can pay for those fees themselves out of their own pocket, not out of their research grant.
If those journals demand exclusivity, which they often do, the scientists can of course continue to publish in them if they so choose, but then they can also fund their own research.
EDIT: reread your comment, you're offering hypotheticals I suppose.
I'm okay with the public through the government mandating open access, so they have to then pay the open access fees and we'll all be happy to do it.
I'm okay with the public through the government mandating open access, so they have to then pay the open access fees and we'll all be happy to do it.
I second others that blaming scientists isn't the right thing, and punishing them certainly isn't. The life of a scientist is incredibly stressful and poorly paid. The average salary for a postdoc is like $45,000. These people have graduate degrees from the top schools in the nation, are often in their early to mid thirties, are doing research that can lead to blockbuster drugs that massively improve human health, are incredibly passionate about and good at their work, yet make little more than minimum wage
A better solution, counterintuitive as it sounds, is to increas public funding for more research. If scientists can make a reasonable wage that doesn't force them to pursue tenure by living and dying by the whim of a few top journals, it will be much easier for them to stomach the financial, and possibly career, hit of publishing open source
I wonder how robust the open source movement would be if engineers only made $45k / year
A better solution, counterintuitive as it sounds, is to increas public funding for more research. If scientists can make a reasonable wage that doesn't force them to pursue tenure by living and dying by the whim of a few top journals, it will be much easier for them to stomach the financial, and possibly career, hit of publishing open source
I wonder how robust the open source movement would be if engineers only made $45k / year
Important is also that their contracts are usually term-limited, and that they will need to have been employed at several different institutions at entirely different locations in order to have a shot later in their careers. That doesn't help, and software developers definitely do not have this problem.
Unbeknown to you, there are plenty of programmers, and engineers making "only" 45k / year or less.
And that is already a lot of money. More money than I can think of spending and enough money to let me save 50% of my paycheque.
So excuse us for making 'barely anything above minimum wage'
And that is already a lot of money. More money than I can think of spending and enough money to let me save 50% of my paycheque.
So excuse us for making 'barely anything above minimum wage'
In some areas it's definitely a lot of money. Not in the Bay Area / NYC / socal though. Especially if you have kids.
Not trying to knock anyone or be condescending. The point is that like 90%+ of biology or chem phds make less than $60k. That is not true of engineers, not by a long shot. There was a recent nytimes article comparing grad student degreees awarded in various fields to jobs in that field. There were more jobs than degrees in comp sci. For life sciences, there were like 115,000 advanced degrees and like 10k jobs
Not trying to knock anyone or be condescending. The point is that like 90%+ of biology or chem phds make less than $60k. That is not true of engineers, not by a long shot. There was a recent nytimes article comparing grad student degreees awarded in various fields to jobs in that field. There were more jobs than degrees in comp sci. For life sciences, there were like 115,000 advanced degrees and like 10k jobs
Probably still pretty robust, much of the open sourcing that happens, especially these days, is companies open sourcing aspects of their infrastructure. People then use the fact that they built a platform that became popular to start their own companies or be a valuable candidate at all kinds of companies.
Yes, but you're missing the point. The point is that those developers were being paid 6 figures while they were building their platform / resume.
Yes, but it's not that simple. Funders don't want to be seen as trying to decide where their researchers publish. They can stipulate Open Access (and many do! [1] [2] [3]), but then authors continue to want to publish in the journals with high scores because it helps those careers, so those journals/publishers charge egregious fees to publish there (instead of subscription fees), which are once again paid from public money and raise the barrier to publish research, e.g. for universities in developing countries.
[1] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Informat...
[2] https://wellcome.ac.uk/funding/managing-grant/open-access-po...
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=opena...
[1] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Informat...
[2] https://wellcome.ac.uk/funding/managing-grant/open-access-po...
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=opena...
Can the funder make a stipulation that private journals are authorized, but not to be paid for with funded money?
In fact, they often make special funds available to pay these charges. As long as there is strong demand by researchers to publish in these journals, they will have to pay up or accept subscriptions. And there is very strong demand, because it affects researchers' long-term career prospects: https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...
That said, funders are also somewhat complicit in it by deciding who to fund based on if they published in those journals. Which is the result of those decisions being made by academics who typically cannot read all the research of all applicants: https://theconversation.com/why-i-disagree-with-nobel-laurea...
That said, funders are also somewhat complicit in it by deciding who to fund based on if they published in those journals. Which is the result of those decisions being made by academics who typically cannot read all the research of all applicants: https://theconversation.com/why-i-disagree-with-nobel-laurea...
I wish there was a way to align these incentives, specifically the issue around reputation.
I think this is a case where if you fix the incentives then the behavior changes. I think by default scientists want to discover things and collaborate - if there was a way to cause this behavior to lead to additional reputation and funding (similar to how open source software participation increases reputation) that would go a long way.
It'd be cool if hypothesis, experiment design, results, data, and papers were shared and available for open access.
I think this is a case where if you fix the incentives then the behavior changes. I think by default scientists want to discover things and collaborate - if there was a way to cause this behavior to lead to additional reputation and funding (similar to how open source software participation increases reputation) that would go a long way.
It'd be cool if hypothesis, experiment design, results, data, and papers were shared and available for open access.
Academia's emphasis on reputation isn't only problematic with respect to the adoption of open access. It also impedes the dissemination of important results that come out of less prestigious labs. I've often felt like science in particular would benefit from a sort of embargo period, during which time pseudonymous authorship would be obligatory, and after which researchers could collect their due credit. Too much focus is given to "rockstar" PIs and their labs rather than the substance of their findings.
An interesting historical example of this was an early breakthrough in interpreting genetic code by Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei [1], both of whom were considered unremarkable and largely ignored by more established geneticists at the time of their discovery, who were fixated on finding a hypothetical "delimiter" between genetic instructions coded in DNA.
This, however, is a digression for another day.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirenberg_and_Matthaei_experim...
An interesting historical example of this was an early breakthrough in interpreting genetic code by Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei [1], both of whom were considered unremarkable and largely ignored by more established geneticists at the time of their discovery, who were fixated on finding a hypothetical "delimiter" between genetic instructions coded in DNA.
This, however, is a digression for another day.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirenberg_and_Matthaei_experim...
> I've often felt like science in particular would benefit from a sort of embargo period, during which time pseudonymous authorship would be obligatory, and after which researchers could collect their due credit. Too much focus is given to "rockstar" PIs and their labs rather than the substance of their findings.
I don't think this would work because pre-publication work is usually not a secret, it gets promoted at conferences and seminars well before it's formally published.
I don't think this would work because pre-publication work is usually not a secret, it gets promoted at conferences and seminars well before it's formally published.
That's a good point- the openness that is most essential to science would probably doom any attempts at pseudonymity. Another potential way to moderate the amount of attention given to rockstars might be to establish quotas at journals based off impact factor that would ensure that early-career researchers and more obscure researchers could have a chance to be heard.
That probably won't be something I'll have any hand in implementing though :)
That probably won't be something I'll have any hand in implementing though :)
Unfortunately pseudonymity is practically impossible: http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2017/10/31/the-fractu...
I agree - even Mendel was ignored for 40 years by the researchers of his day (and his findings were only published in an obscure journal that were largely ignored until being rediscovered later).
It's bad for science, which is bad for all of us.
It's bad for science, which is bad for all of us.
Part of the issue with Mendel was that he didn't fit the role of a scientist, and people were unable to seem as anything other than a monk. I'm not even sure if he himself would have regarded himself as a scientist- that's a gap in my knowledge that my history of science hobby has left open.
The Gene touches on this a bit (great book in general), but Mendel was actively trying to reach out to researchers and share his findings. They just wouldn’t listen to him and didn’t care.
Academics =/= scientists
The former is a more expansive category than the latter. This is something which is true for all academics.
The former is a more expansive category than the latter. This is something which is true for all academics.
It might be good to know that some languages have one word ("scientist") for everyone working in science, the humanities and social scientists. Thus, and given the context of the article, it's safe to assume that people mean academics when they say scientists.
That explanation presumes (i) that most or all of the people who have been using 'scientist' in that way are non-English speaking; and (ii) that they have no knowledge of or fail to use the English sense of 'scientist'. I don't see why that's plausible at all.
I think the likely explanation is that we're on a tech forum with a decisively scientistic outlook, and in which most of the people here have a scientific background. And of course 'people mean academics when they say scientists', but that's the point - we shouldn't sublate all academic work into the sciences.
I think the likely explanation is that we're on a tech forum with a decisively scientistic outlook, and in which most of the people here have a scientific background. And of course 'people mean academics when they say scientists', but that's the point - we shouldn't sublate all academic work into the sciences.
The second is definitely plausible - I only recently learned this after diving really deep into the academic world. Most of the friends I have in academia don't know this distinction.
The first is not necessary (although still not that implausible to me) - non-native speakers also influence native speakers.
But yes, your final paragraph is definitely true too. Although I think in the comment you responded to, you can equate them.
The first is not necessary (although still not that implausible to me) - non-native speakers also influence native speakers.
But yes, your final paragraph is definitely true too. Although I think in the comment you responded to, you can equate them.
Well, maybe we just disagree. I think it's very unlikely that most or all the people to use 'scientist' in that way are all three of: non-English speaking; based in the sciences (for it would not be possible to conflate the two otherwise), and ignorant of the distinction, or just indisposed toward using it.
How can you equate them? I don't see it personally. Science is defined by the scientific method. Most of the humanities do not use the scientific method most of the time (history, philosophy, sociology, English, etc.)
How can you equate them? I don't see it personally. Science is defined by the scientific method. Most of the humanities do not use the scientific method most of the time (history, philosophy, sociology, English, etc.)
> Well, maybe we just disagree.
I guess :) (Note also that you don't need to be based in the sciences - you can also just not be in academia.)
I can equate them in this context because OP said:
> Scientists can't have their cake and eat it too. Either they fund their own research and publish in prestigious expensive journals that cost the public money, or they take public money and make the research available for all.
The same holds true for those in the humanities, right?
I guess :) (Note also that you don't need to be based in the sciences - you can also just not be in academia.)
I can equate them in this context because OP said:
> Scientists can't have their cake and eat it too. Either they fund their own research and publish in prestigious expensive journals that cost the public money, or they take public money and make the research available for all.
The same holds true for those in the humanities, right?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...
this will make you cringe
this will make you cringe
Like this? https://publicaccess.nih.gov/
Everyone working for Elsevier should resign. The board is forced to pursue this rapacious harvest strategy, but the employees are not. They should go work for an honest, value-creating company.
Crowd fund a program to offer buy-outs of key employees in immoral enterprises. How much would it take to get half of the employees to resign?
Sounds like the Cobra Effect just waiting to happen.
Besides, if the positions pay well there will be plenty of other candidates willing step in. There is no shortage of examples showing that morals are often secondary to money.
Besides, if the positions pay well there will be plenty of other candidates willing step in. There is no shortage of examples showing that morals are often secondary to money.
You didn't explain how it would make the situation worse.
GP was referencing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
Some ways this could play out would be:
a) Found a startup that does $immoral_thing, wait for "payouts for everyone" to start rolling in.
b) Like (a), but just invent fake employees and give them a linkedin and some social media profile.
c) As an employee, keep joining immoral enterprises. I get a payday every time! So sort of a reverse incentive actually.
Some ways this could play out would be:
a) Found a startup that does $immoral_thing, wait for "payouts for everyone" to start rolling in.
b) Like (a), but just invent fake employees and give them a linkedin and some social media profile.
c) As an employee, keep joining immoral enterprises. I get a payday every time! So sort of a reverse incentive actually.
My gut reaction is that this creates a moral hazard. Social pressure seems generally more viable and robust.
Perhaps something like this could work under certain limited circumstances... but I'm skeptical.
Perhaps something like this could work under certain limited circumstances... but I'm skeptical.
Could make it available only for employees over a certain tenure at the company (to prevent a get hired, get paid scenario) and also make pay outs tied to length of time outside of those enterprises (i.e. 25% immediately, and another 25% for each of three years after you quit).
Could offer incentives for people to convince their co-workers to quit en-masse (i.e., bonus payouts for getting many employees to quit an once)...
Could offer incentives for people to convince their co-workers to quit en-masse (i.e., bonus payouts for getting many employees to quit an once)...
The practice of charging for subscriptions to information that benefits the public good seems silly. Publishing fees make sense, researchers would work the costs into their grant proposals and taxpayers would ultimately bear the cost there instead of in university departmental budgets.
But I also know nothing about running a journal. Can someone explain the cost structure of an academic journal, and why a model like publishing fees wouldn't work?
But I also know nothing about running a journal. Can someone explain the cost structure of an academic journal, and why a model like publishing fees wouldn't work?
Most of the work is done by academics who receive no compensation from the publisher. Most importantly, it is expected that one participate in peer review. Fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with a reciprocal model of review, but why should publishers get to enjoy enormous profit margins on said work when they're not the ones doing it? Authors don't receive any money from subscriptions or access fees, either. Editors sometimes receive some compensation, but very little. There's just not a lot that the publishers do. It seems unfair that they should be the only ones to profit monetarily from academics' work.
It's not that publishers do little (there's a lot that you don't usually see, but it's not the peer review), just that not all of it is that necessary, and that it still pales in comparison to the prices they charge.
In physics at least you need to write and typeset your own papers for the most part.
Look at arxiv.org, that papers there are made purely by academics from start to finish and are already publication grade (if not better).
Look at arxiv.org, that papers there are made purely by academics from start to finish and are already publication grade (if not better).
Yes, physics (and most disciplines on arXiv) is relatively special. Although for some reason physicists still mostly submit there work to the journals in addition to placing them on arXiv...
(That said, typesetting and writing are more and more often offloaded to academics, but there's also things like e.g. making HTML versions and system-readable versions [1] available, which is a cumbersome manual process.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesti...
(That said, typesetting and writing are more and more often offloaded to academics, but there's also things like e.g. making HTML versions and system-readable versions [1] available, which is a cumbersome manual process.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Metadata_Harvesti...
It depends on the field, but you're forgetting that arXiv does not do peer-review. Just because publishing is broken and yes peer-review has issues doesn't mean peer-review isn't needed.
On the one hand that's an important point, but on the other hand, the formal process of peer review as currently arranged by journals has many flaws, and the reason arXiv is so popular in fields like physics is that they want their results "out there" for others to use as soon as possible - i.e. people start to use it before it's been peer reviewed. In fact, the comments one receives after publishing it in arXiv often make its way into the submitted manuscript.
So yes, peer review is useful, but it also often happens after publication at arXiv, outside of the journal submission.
So yes, peer review is useful, but it also often happens after publication at arXiv, outside of the journal submission.
Reviewers certainly shouldn't be the ones profiting from it, that would be an absurd conflict-of-interest. Publishers do some work, but I think it's mostly the long-tail problem. The popular stuff is subsidizing the large number of very very esoteric. Unbundling might help.
You're mistaken. Paying reviewers would only cause a conflict of interest if it biases reviewers in a particular direction. Which direction would that be?
Paying the reviewer doesn't incentivise them to accept or reject only to actually do the review. As it stands, in many fields reviewers are far from experts in the area they're reviewing but only in the same general discipline. Papers sail through review without proper statistical oversight, because what statistics expert is going to spend their time reviewing psych or bio articles when that's not their discipline?
Well if we paid people to do what amounts to some of the most important work in science, maybe we'd get actual experts to do it!
Paying the reviewer doesn't incentivise them to accept or reject only to actually do the review. As it stands, in many fields reviewers are far from experts in the area they're reviewing but only in the same general discipline. Papers sail through review without proper statistical oversight, because what statistics expert is going to spend their time reviewing psych or bio articles when that's not their discipline?
Well if we paid people to do what amounts to some of the most important work in science, maybe we'd get actual experts to do it!
Or, you get charlatans who review for money.
That's a danger, for sure, but once you're paying people you can generally be more choosy. CVs can be reviewed as can previous review work.
No one suggests that paying programmers to program results in shoddier work. There just needs to be an accountability and feedback system just like in any other industry.
No one suggests that paying programmers to program results in shoddier work. There just needs to be an accountability and feedback system just like in any other industry.
I'd have to think of it, but I think reviewers would have a conflict-of-interest if they were paid based on the result of their reviews. If they are compensated to just review a paper either way I don't see the issue.
Depends on what they believe the purpose of the review is. They'll be incented to do whatever gets them more reviews.
Can you explain the conflict you see?
The editor would still pick reviewers based on reputation, they'd just get a lump sum along with the work.
The editor would still pick reviewers based on reputation, they'd just get a lump sum along with the work.
That's actually how the UK and the Netherlands have been pushing for Open Access: by paying the publishers for publishing an article.
The problem is that this keeps the barrier to participate high - instead of paying to read research, you're paying to publish it.
Now, this isn't necessarily a problem: research costs money, and publishing that research is just part of that. However, the prices are widely considered disproportionate: ranging from $3000 to $5000 per article in the traditional journals (that researchers feel obliged to publish in because that helps their careers), with profit margins of 30% to 40% (comparable to Apple's, which sells luxury products).
Considering how technology has drastically lowered the prices of most other types of media publishing, it's suspicious that prices of academic articles have only risen.
There's a huge movement to improve this situation, but it's a pretty difficult market with many different actors with different incentives. I've written some about why it is difficult to change this at [1].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
The problem is that this keeps the barrier to participate high - instead of paying to read research, you're paying to publish it.
Now, this isn't necessarily a problem: research costs money, and publishing that research is just part of that. However, the prices are widely considered disproportionate: ranging from $3000 to $5000 per article in the traditional journals (that researchers feel obliged to publish in because that helps their careers), with profit margins of 30% to 40% (comparable to Apple's, which sells luxury products).
Considering how technology has drastically lowered the prices of most other types of media publishing, it's suspicious that prices of academic articles have only risen.
There's a huge movement to improve this situation, but it's a pretty difficult market with many different actors with different incentives. I've written some about why it is difficult to change this at [1].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
Publishing fees could introduce a perverse incentive for publishers to accept any paper regardless of quality. Although maybe making it a "review fee" may be better. Publishers get more money the more submissions, but quality would still be maintained. Otherwise, I agree with you.
All things being equal, a journal that charges a subscription will out-compete a journal that charges publishing fees because it shifts fees from the researcher to a bunch of schools.
The schools are relatively cost insensitive as long as the journal is high impact.
Researchers will always be highly cost sensitive.
The schools are relatively cost insensitive as long as the journal is high impact.
Researchers will always be highly cost sensitive.
Not to say whether they are a good idea or bad idea in general, but on thing worth considering is that publishing fees also act as a barrier to entry for less well-funded groups. Some journals even charge fees to submit (even if you are rejected in the end). This can be especially problematic for interdiscinplinary work -- in my field (applied math) grants are generally smaller, and if I submitting a paper to a biology journal that charges a submission fee up front is not always a triial decision.
That fee is called a "page charge", and many journals have them. Some are mostly supported by page charges, some open-access journals are entirely supported by them.
As far as I understand it, page charges are actually often charged for subscription journals as well upon publishing. The publication fees sometimes (but not always!) charged by Open Access journals are called Article Processing Charges.
And it's gonna cost even more money, because some are trying to actively block access to Scihub. For example: https://sciencebusiness.net/news/court-tells-internet-compan...
Something on the order of 50% of all research funding goes to the academic publishing industry.
edit: Downvote if you want, but it is true, maybe not at every institution, but some Latin American countries the budget for access to the literature is greater than what they spend on supporting basic research [0].
0. https://www.slideshare.net/biodiego88/force2017-ppt-diegogom...
edit: Downvote if you want, but it is true, maybe not at every institution, but some Latin American countries the budget for access to the literature is greater than what they spend on supporting basic research [0].
0. https://www.slideshare.net/biodiego88/force2017-ppt-diegogom...
For such a strong statement as that, some context is critical. Many readers are doing mental math based on American pay rates, and concluding that this can't possibly be true. Indeed, the access cost cited won't be anything even slightly approaching 50% in a first world context.
In less well off developing countries, you are absolutely and completely correct in every way, shape, form, and manner. The cost for access to literature can be greater than that of the salaries a department pays its basic research faculty.
In less well off developing countries, you are absolutely and completely correct in every way, shape, form, and manner. The cost for access to literature can be greater than that of the salaries a department pays its basic research faculty.
I am charged with the task of returning a university that used to be a research school before the Khmer Rouge to be a national research university. Professors are paid a little over US$500 a month by the government. Staff often have to buy their own office supplies, computers and even light bulbs. We're finally getting some foreign grants from China to rebuild some of the laboratories, but there is no budget for paying subscriptions to journals. JSTOR provides reasonable discounts for developing countries, as does APNIC (for IP blocks) but it's difficult to try to build something when US45,000 a year is considered to be a low paying job and used as a baseline for access to information.
Thankfully there is lib-gen and sci-hub. Sadly, the United States is trying to force developing countries to support copyright measures that will lock us out if we adopt them.
Thankfully there is lib-gen and sci-hub. Sadly, the United States is trying to force developing countries to support copyright measures that will lock us out if we adopt them.
There's currently a push in Germany to negotiate more reasonable licensing agreements nationwide, and to publish all research by authors in Germany under a CC-BY licence: https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/. There's a long list of universities that have decided not to renew their contracts with Elsevier for future publications. I recently got an email from my university's administration that "numerous scientists have pledged their support in the negotiations with Elsevier by not reviewing for or acting as editor of Elsevier publications until a mutual agreement has been reached".
I work at a German research center and we recently also got informed by our library that all contracts with Elsevier will end at the end of year. However, and this is the fun part, it was also noted that it has been reported by other institutions that Elsevier did not actually cancel the access permissions for them after the contracts ended. Seems to me we could finally got into a good position for negotiations about fair access to our own work.
And apparently something similar is happening in France with Springer (and next year Elsevier): https://www.soundofscience.fr/755 (article in French)
Its not only the journals. Another thing that costs shittons of money are standards. A single two-dozen page ISO, DIN or comparable standard can easily amount to a couple thousand Euros. And it's not like you need one. You might need a second or third or fourth one because they just chain their references. "Test Devices can be found in ISO-123" In ISO-123:"The devices listed here have to be configured analogue to the devices mentioned in DIN-2153" And so on. And don't get me started about versioning. A couple of same-number standards in parallel because they are from different months or years or just small amendments (Single Sentences). And there is only one company selling em. It's laughable. Oh, and it's not as if anyone gets paid to write standards. Standards are written for free by engineers and scientists in their free time. It's a money-printing machine.
I got so fed up with this that I quit my job a few months ago to work on this issue [1]. I've researched it quite a bit and have written about that (which I've been linking to where relevant in the comments here), and I'm gearing up to launch a non-profit to combat this in January. If you're interested, you can leave your email address at https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic
(And of course, any questions and remarks are welcome!)
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/dear-scientists-help-me-help-...
(And of course, any questions and remarks are welcome!)
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/dear-scientists-help-me-help-...
In the meantime, Reed Elsevier stock is at an all time high https://www.nyse.com/quote/XXXX:RELX
Obviously - they've so far managed to stave off threats to their subscription business model, and managed to make good money off of the open access movement (through charging publishing fees for opening up articles).
That said, they do definitely feel the pressure as well, given their moving in the direction of a research analytics company rather than a publisher.
That said, they do definitely feel the pressure as well, given their moving in the direction of a research analytics company rather than a publisher.
One entity not mentioned in the article : https://www.plos.org/who-we-are
I posted a commenton how I read mathematics [1] I would be able to not jump through so many hoops if universities got what they contributed.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15911888
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15911888
Now imagine that, but for reading up on experimental treatments for a rare disease that you or a relative got.
This reminds me that the EU had a proposal last year about mandating all publicly-funded research to be open access. I'm curious to see what will become of that.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/dramatic-statement-e...
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=opena...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/dramatic-statement-e...
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=opena...
Somewhat related, there's also small advocacy towards releasing publicly funded code under the open source licenses:
https://publiccode.eu/
https://publiccode.eu/
Ugh. Why are we still having this conversation after so many years? Everyone knows the system is broken but no one will fix it.
There are many people/organisations trying to fix it (a few examples at [1]). However, it's a system that keeps itself intact and is really hard to change, which I wrote about at [2].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/these-trailblazers-are-paving...
[2] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/these-trailblazers-are-paving...
[2] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl...
I was surprised to see this article because I remember hearing steps to address this in the U.S. over the years. Then I actually saw the article was about New Zealand and comments are about Germany and other countries.
After doing a quick search here's some info I found about U.S. federal funding for research: https://scholcomm.columbia.edu/open-access/public-access-man...
I'm not in the research business, but available after 1 year sounds reasonable to me. I can see the cost in vetting and distributing and how certain businesses and universities would pay a premium for quicker access.
After doing a quick search here's some info I found about U.S. federal funding for research: https://scholcomm.columbia.edu/open-access/public-access-man...
I'm not in the research business, but available after 1 year sounds reasonable to me. I can see the cost in vetting and distributing and how certain businesses and universities would pay a premium for quicker access.
In Germany universities have joined efforts to at least bargain with Elsevier & others for overall cost reductions:
https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/
Of course in the US with basically unlimited student loan money, no one seems to be in a particular hurry to cut costs.
https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/
Of course in the US with basically unlimited student loan money, no one seems to be in a particular hurry to cut costs.
> Of course in the US with basically unlimited student loan money, no one seems to be in a particular hurry to cut costs.
Well... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-univ...
Well... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-univ...
I'm not very well versed in academia, so correct me if I'm wrong.
The research in these journals isn't funded by the journals, and researchers aren't payed royalties for people reading these journals (I assume they don't get paid by the journal at all).
So why are these journals so expensive to access? Is it all just a rort?
The research in these journals isn't funded by the journals, and researchers aren't payed royalties for people reading these journals (I assume they don't get paid by the journal at all).
So why are these journals so expensive to access? Is it all just a rort?
Basically, yes. There is barely any market pressure on the publishers, so they can keep asking ridiculous fees. More on why it doesn't change at [1], and how it got this way at [2].
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...
[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/the-vicious-cycle-of-scholarl... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...
Not just the research, all the hard work of peer review, etc. is volunteer. Typesetting and stuff is paid for by the journal. Researchers publishing in the journals often have to pay a per page publication fee in addition to missing out on any royalties.
I've had dealings with the publishing industry over the years and some of the "Open Access to the rescue!" comments here badly underestimate the business acumen of Elsevier & co.
They're no idiot. Do you think these guys have been asleep at the wheel for the past 6 years, oblivious to the Open Access debate and the general sentiment?
When it comes to Open Access, the new distribution and sales channels have already been accounted for, new policies (and policy makers) worked out. Open Access will be the second coming of Christ for that industry, a new golden goose.
They're no idiot. Do you think these guys have been asleep at the wheel for the past 6 years, oblivious to the Open Access debate and the general sentiment?
When it comes to Open Access, the new distribution and sales channels have already been accounted for, new policies (and policy makers) worked out. Open Access will be the second coming of Christ for that industry, a new golden goose.
Lets narrow it a little bit for anyone who wants to try and argue that there is nothing wrong here...
Universities pay publishing companies millions to access the results of research their employees performed.
Universities pay publishing companies millions to access the results of research their employees performed.
... and publishing companies use that money to lobby against free/cheaper alternatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society#Cont...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society#Cont...
Performed often with the help of public funds.
I am not a researcher, so I'd like to get some answers.
Why do people publish papers. Is it to get acknowledged for the work? Is it a requirement for getting PhD? Or is it so that world could benefit from the research?
Also, can someone simply use a paper, copy that idea to make a product, and make money out of it, without giving anything back to the researchers?
If researchers publish out of necessity or to get acknowledged or so that the "world knows", can't they just put it on Arxiv? Why spend money on costly journals?
Why do people publish papers. Is it to get acknowledged for the work? Is it a requirement for getting PhD? Or is it so that world could benefit from the research?
Also, can someone simply use a paper, copy that idea to make a product, and make money out of it, without giving anything back to the researchers?
If researchers publish out of necessity or to get acknowledged or so that the "world knows", can't they just put it on Arxiv? Why spend money on costly journals?
> Why do people publish papers. Is it to get acknowledged for the work? Is it a requirement for getting PhD? Or is it so that world could benefit from the research?
All three of those are correct.
> Also, can someone simply use a paper, copy that idea to make a product, and make money out of it, without giving anything back to the researchers?
Yes, although it's usually not that simple. The focus of research is usually more fundamental in nature, that only leads to products far down the road.
But note that the researchers are funded using public money, so if there was anything to give back, it would be to the public (which sort of happens through new companies).
> If researchers publish out of necessity or to get acknowledged or so that the "world knows", can't they just put it on Arxiv? Why spend money on costly journals?
"Acknowledgement" goes beyond that - it needs to be considered good in order to qualify for further academic positions. See https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...
All three of those are correct.
> Also, can someone simply use a paper, copy that idea to make a product, and make money out of it, without giving anything back to the researchers?
Yes, although it's usually not that simple. The focus of research is usually more fundamental in nature, that only leads to products far down the road.
But note that the researchers are funded using public money, so if there was anything to give back, it would be to the public (which sort of happens through new companies).
> If researchers publish out of necessity or to get acknowledged or so that the "world knows", can't they just put it on Arxiv? Why spend money on costly journals?
"Acknowledgement" goes beyond that - it needs to be considered good in order to qualify for further academic positions. See https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...
A good journal needs good reviewers.
The quality of peer-review at conferences for example is terrible, and that is well known. Even at not very big conferences, and despite the usually hard work of the organizers.
So establishing a good review process is not easy and perhaps that is what is stopping the open access model rather than just the prestige issue mentioned in other comments.
The quality of peer-review at conferences for example is terrible, and that is well known. Even at not very big conferences, and despite the usually hard work of the organizers.
So establishing a good review process is not easy and perhaps that is what is stopping the open access model rather than just the prestige issue mentioned in other comments.
The review process at the "prestige" journals in many disciplines is garbage. This is a known issue. Competent experts simply don't have time to do the reviews, so they end up being farmed out to graduate students and post-docs if they get done at all. I had one paper get rejected, because they couldn't find anyone to review it! By the time a reviewer is found, you're often the action-editor's last desperate pool of 5th-tier people who are sort of maybe vaguely related to the topic area.
Add to that that the majority of papers in many disciplines receive virtually zero statistical oversight from an actual statistical expert, and... well... you begin to wonder what service the existing journals are actually adding. Marketing and sales?
Add to that that the majority of papers in many disciplines receive virtually zero statistical oversight from an actual statistical expert, and... well... you begin to wonder what service the existing journals are actually adding. Marketing and sales?
I know that in some journals it is good some of the time. But yeah, didn't mean to imply thats always good.
Maybe we should introduce a process of reviewing the reviews, and some incentives accordingly. Not sure how to do that.
An example - as a 1st year grad student, I had to review a number of articles in 'top-ranked' journals, just because my supervisor preferred to dump it on me rather than bother to do it himself...
Are there good open source solutions for journal publishing? (HTML abstract, PDFs, comments, ...)?
Yes, quite a few: [1], [2], [3], [4], to name a few. Maintain a server and keeping software up to date is no small feat, however, so just making those available does not seem to be enough (although it helps!).
[1] https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
[2] https://janeway.systems/
[3] https://coko.foundation/
[4] https://cos.io/
[1] https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
[2] https://janeway.systems/
[3] https://coko.foundation/
[4] https://cos.io/
I don't think that [4] can really be accurately characterized as producing general-purpose journal management systems. The OSF is more for study management and sharing results, although I imagine that you're referring to OSF Preprints (https://osf.io/preprints) which serves a similar function for pre-peer review results sharing.
For [3], the actual platforms produced by Coko and its affiliates are more readily discovered here: https://pubsweet.org/ http://substance.io/
Hadn't heard of [2] before- looks neat.
We have [1] currently deployed for a couple of websites where I currently work. We've found it to be a bit of a pain and are trying to phase it out to some degree. It's basically a layer on top of WordPress to the best of my understanding (I haven't dealt too much with it).
For [3], the actual platforms produced by Coko and its affiliates are more readily discovered here: https://pubsweet.org/ http://substance.io/
Hadn't heard of [2] before- looks neat.
We have [1] currently deployed for a couple of websites where I currently work. We've found it to be a bit of a pain and are trying to phase it out to some degree. It's basically a layer on top of WordPress to the best of my understanding (I haven't dealt too much with it).
You're completely correct, thanks for the updated links!
Your final point is probably correct, but I'd add that when it comes to wanting to take publishing out of the hands of the established publishers, having to run software yourself is going to be painful anyway (though hopefully not as painful as OJS, which has quite a history already).
Your final point is probably correct, but I'd add that when it comes to wanting to take publishing out of the hands of the established publishers, having to run software yourself is going to be painful anyway (though hopefully not as painful as OJS, which has quite a history already).
Yes- quite a few beyond what's already been listed, in fact:
http://www.theoj.org/ https://plos.github.io/ambraproject/index.html https://v4.pubpub.org/
http://www.theoj.org/ https://plos.github.io/ambraproject/index.html https://v4.pubpub.org/
Ambra is being discontinued! http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2017/12/ceo-letter-to-the-communi...
Edit: And theoj doesn't really appear to be maintained anymore either...
Edit: And theoj doesn't really appear to be maintained anymore either...
> Ambra is being discontinued!
The article mentions the discontinuation of Aperta but nothing about Ambra?
https://plos.github.io/ambraproject/Developer-Overview.html
https://github.com/PLOS/ambra
The article mentions the discontinuation of Aperta but nothing about Ambra?
https://plos.github.io/ambraproject/Developer-Overview.html
https://github.com/PLOS/ambra
I'm sorry, I just realised that as well - my mistake.
What is stopping somebody from not publishing in a journal and simply putting up a PDF on their own website?
Otherwise, if you ran a Journal, how would you setup a free system to curate high-impact research? Or alternatively, how much would you charge to run such a journal?
Otherwise, if you ran a Journal, how would you setup a free system to curate high-impact research? Or alternatively, how much would you charge to run such a journal?
> What is stopping somebody from not publishing in a journal and simply putting up a PDF on their own website?
That they want to have a job in research, which are really, really scarce. I explained this in more detail at https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...
> Otherwise, if you ran a Journal, how would you setup a free system to curate high-impact research? Or alternatively, how much would you charge to run such a journal?
If you run a journal, you're most likely one of the big publishers that is profiting heavily from the status quo.
Much of the actual academic work (finding reviewers, etc.) is done by actual academics (mostly for free), but the rest of it, including promoting it to potential readers, is done by the publishers. (There have been some success stories of editorial boards leaving the publishers' journals to start their own, e.g. Glossa (formerly Lingua), but those are few and far between.
That they want to have a job in research, which are really, really scarce. I explained this in more detail at https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...
> Otherwise, if you ran a Journal, how would you setup a free system to curate high-impact research? Or alternatively, how much would you charge to run such a journal?
If you run a journal, you're most likely one of the big publishers that is profiting heavily from the status quo.
Much of the actual academic work (finding reviewers, etc.) is done by actual academics (mostly for free), but the rest of it, including promoting it to potential readers, is done by the publishers. (There have been some success stories of editorial boards leaving the publishers' journals to start their own, e.g. Glossa (formerly Lingua), but those are few and far between.
Thanks for your comment. I enjoyed reading your article.
[deleted]
It's easy to be outraged by this, but the bottom line is that journals need to make money to sustain their own operations. Research might be tax-funded, but the publishing houses are privately-held entities with employees and payroll (per their wiki page, for example, Nature employs 800 people).
Someone has to pay for expenses associated with maintaining these platforms. Right now its either the tax payers or college students who pay for it indirectly, when their institution buys library access.
Someone has to pay for expenses associated with maintaining these platforms. Right now its either the tax payers or college students who pay for it indirectly, when their institution buys library access.
Yes, but there are strong reasons to believe that the amount of money they are currently charging is in no way proportionate to the amount they need to sustain (+reasonable profits): https://medium.com/flockademic/the-future-of-open-access-sho...
This doesn't make logical sense.
We don't care about their problems, their employees should go find another job which isn't so predatory and leaching off public programs and funding.
Nobody has to pay, a better alternative is for these publishers to cease to exist.
We don't care about their problems, their employees should go find another job which isn't so predatory and leaching off public programs and funding.
Nobody has to pay, a better alternative is for these publishers to cease to exist.
Can’t wait for the day that universities are massively overpaying supplies, chemicals and equipment comes to light.
Those are not comparable to research publications. The university does not give corporations chemicals for free and then pay to get them back.
It's almost like everyone agrees capitalism is fucking terrible.
Remember Aaron Swartz
How the hell is this even legal?
And people say the government is efficient?
Is waste like this even preventable?
Is it possible for people to have ethics?
Please don't post unsubstantive rants to HN. I'm sure most of us agree with you but one still has to bring thoughtful comments, not howls, into the discussion.
If you can't or don't want to do that, please just don't post until you can and do.
If you can't or don't want to do that, please just don't post until you can and do.
Because it costs money to read the research that costs money to produce... How is this controversial?
I would review the following articles for more context / so that you can actually produce an informed (rather than lazy) opinion:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/22/academic-... https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31858... http://thecostofknowledge.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/22/academic-... https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31858... http://thecostofknowledge.com/
the first thing I thought of when I came across this post is indeed https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...
The research has already been funded through taxes. The money made from journal subscriptions goes to the publisher, not to the researchers or their institutions. The reason why researchers publish in such expensive journals is historical (the journal has a good reputation and is thus widely read), not because they are looking to fund their research.
The journals charge researchers. I literally paid thousands of dollars to have my papers published in journals, who did little in terms of editing or typesetting, so that they could turn around and sell those papers to other people and give me none of the proceeds.
The researchers don't get the money that's being discussed, the journals do.
Even the project I worked on when I finished school. We were funded by government grants and our results were intended to be posted publicly, it was written in our proposal. Instead, once we started posting our data online we were told that we were no longer allowed to and our data must now be submitted to a government database. Otherwise we would recieve no more funding.This database of course had access fees that needed to be paid. It felt really shitty to have to lock everything away. I'd worked on an online database and map I was really excited about and it all had to be taken down.