4 ms·

Its hard to answer your argument directly because publishers like Elsevier never publish transparent accounting numbers. For all we know, their costs could most

by ufo 11y ago

Its hard to answer your argument directly because publishers like Elsevier never publish transparent accounting numbers. For all we know, their costs could mostly be "Hollywood Accounting". (not to mention, the profit they do report is already through the roof). It all does strike me as obviously inefficient though. In my day to day research as a grad student I almost never benefit from work the publishers did. I don't even use them to download my papers because the paywalls are so annoying that I usually go directly to the author's home page (google scholar will even find these for you). Every half-decent CS researcher makes their work available on their personal website, at no cost, In the end, what I am trying to say is that I don't trust Elsevier's reported expenses and that even if I did I think a huge chunk of them would be something that could be drastically reduced with a bit of technology.

p4bl0 11y ago
Exactly. I strongly believe that the majority of their expenses are related to lobbying and paying professional lawyers to scam public research librarians into signing awful contracts with them. By the way, these contracts most often contains non-disclosure as legal requirements, which I find outrageous for public money, especially because it gives a strong advantages to publishers in negotiating these contracts.
ikeboy 11y ago
>It all does strike obviously inefficient though. In my day to day research I almost never benefit from work the publishers did. I don't even use them to download my papers because the paywalls are so annoying that I usually go directly to the author's home page (google scholar will even find these for you). Every half-decent CS researcher makes their work available on their personal website, at no cost, Different fields have different needs. You don't need too much trust in CS or math, because you can just evaluate the arguments and proof. But other fields require much more, and you do benefit from the work they did in only showing you certain papers and not others.
- ufo 11y ago
  In all fields, the peer review process is performed by volunteer researches at no cost. The publisher DOES NOT evaluate arguments or ensure that the contents of the paper are correct. The only thing the publisher does is own the name of the prestigious journal.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    If that's the case, why do people give them prestige and won't give a new startup journal prestige? Why is it considered hard to get into those journals, when all you need to do is have a correct paper?
    - ufo 11y ago
      > Why is it considered hard to get into those journals Journals only publish so many papers in a given time. Its not just a matter of submitting a good enough paper. Dunno why this is the case for journals but when it comes to conferences (where lots of CS research is published) there are obvious time limits regarding the number of presentations that can be accepted. > why do people give them prestige and won't give a new startup journal prestige? For historical reasons and perverse incentives, sadly. Young researchers cannot afford to publish on new startup journals because advancing your carrer depends on publishing in prestigeous journals (universities evaluate researchers based on the prestige of where they publish). Meanwhile, tenured professors are under less pressure when it comes to career advancement but they also need to publish on prestigeous journals to secure grant money to fund their labs and to accomodate for their younger co-authors (who are still trying to advance their carrers). It also doesn't help when the "journal prestige categorization" is defined by the government, as happens in my country[1]. Not only are our journal ratings always outdated (punishing startup journals and conferences) but they also emphasize publishing in journals over publishing in conferences (which is terrible for CS research in particular) [1] http://qualis.capes.gov.br/ http://qualis.capes.gov.br/
      - ikeboy 11y ago
        >Journals only publish so many papers in a given time. Its not just a matter of submitting a good enough paper. And how does that happen without any staff evaluating papers, as you claimed above?

by ufo 11y ago

p4bl0 11y ago

Exactly. I strongly believe that the majority of their expenses are related to lobbying and paying professional lawyers to scam public research librarians into signing awful contracts with them. By the way, these contracts most often contains non-disclosure as legal requirements, which I find outrageous for public money, especially because it gives a strong advantages to publishers in negotiating these contracts.

ikeboy 11y ago

>It all does strike obviously inefficient though. In my day to day research I almost never benefit from work the publishers did. I don't even use them to download my papers because the paywalls are so annoying that I usually go directly to the author's home page (google scholar will even find these for you). Every half-decent CS researcher makes their work available on their personal website, at no cost, Different fields have different needs. You don't need too much trust in CS or math, because you can just evaluate the arguments and proof. But other fields require much more, and you do benefit from the work they did in only showing you certain papers and not others.

ufo 11y ago
In all fields, the peer review process is performed by volunteer researches at no cost. The publisher DOES NOT evaluate arguments or ensure that the contents of the paper are correct. The only thing the publisher does is own the name of the prestigious journal.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  If that's the case, why do people give them prestige and won't give a new startup journal prestige? Why is it considered hard to get into those journals, when all you need to do is have a correct paper?
  - ufo 11y ago
    > Why is it considered hard to get into those journals Journals only publish so many papers in a given time. Its not just a matter of submitting a good enough paper. Dunno why this is the case for journals but when it comes to conferences (where lots of CS research is published) there are obvious time limits regarding the number of presentations that can be accepted. > why do people give them prestige and won't give a new startup journal prestige? For historical reasons and perverse incentives, sadly. Young researchers cannot afford to publish on new startup journals because advancing your carrer depends on publishing in prestigeous journals (universities evaluate researchers based on the prestige of where they publish). Meanwhile, tenured professors are under less pressure when it comes to career advancement but they also need to publish on prestigeous journals to secure grant money to fund their labs and to accomodate for their younger co-authors (who are still trying to advance their carrers). It also doesn't help when the "journal prestige categorization" is defined by the government, as happens in my country[1]. Not only are our journal ratings always outdated (punishing startup journals and conferences) but they also emphasize publishing in journals over publishing in conferences (which is terrible for CS research in particular) [1] http://qualis.capes.gov.br/ http://qualis.capes.gov.br/
    - ikeboy 11y ago
      >Journals only publish so many papers in a given time. Its not just a matter of submitting a good enough paper. And how does that happen without any staff evaluating papers, as you claimed above?