5 ms·

Totally agree. I have gone through academia and am now in industry; the other day I wanted to read and browse basic papers in IEEE Explore for basic knowledge

by finfet1 10y ago

Totally agree. I have gone through academia and am now in industry; the other day I wanted to read and browse basic papers in IEEE Explore for basic knowledge on new topics. Since I am no longer a student, I am willing to pay money - as much as hundreds to get unlimited access. Instead, for hundreds, IEEE explore offers a measly ("generous") 25 downloads a month or some such non-sense It just seemed so miserly of them. We researchers had formerly given them pretty much free research to publish, and they turn their back on even legitimate paid avenues for us to get the papers. We are willing to pay; but where is the option? Anyone that has gone through research and academia knows that you often need to browse many papers to even find the ones worth reading. 25 paper cap includes browsing PDFs; you will easily hit that cap in a single day simply through browsing. IEEE and IEEE Explore can go something themselves. This is coming from a published IEEE author and academic researcher.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
donlzx 10y ago
After the IEEE $25 monthly service came out, I subscribed for three years until finally canceled it. Honestly most of the papers I downloaded were junks, the only reason I download them was to verify the available references. The paper quality declination plus publication quantity inflation are the main reasons in this "Sci-Hub" crisis.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  This sounds like an increasingly commented on issue: there are now hundreds and hundreds of specialty journals, but quality is patchy. In fact, I think we may be seeing inherent problems coming to the fore now that journals are more focussed on profits: often there is publication bias towards certain topics; in other cases the bias is towards positive results and breakthroughs, with a lack of enthusiasm for publishing retractions or establishing reproducibility. One thing that always sticks in my craw is that the raw data is very rarely published for analysis. Many may disagree, but I think that by not publishing the raw data for experiments the temptation to commit academic fraud is very high. I often wonder about some of the more recent scandals whether it might have been picked up a lot faster had the data been more readily available. I also have noticed that many journals don't say who the reviewers are after publication. For instance, I was looking at body pyschotherapy the other day and came across something called biodynamic analysis, which appears to be a widely held and well respected view within the subdiscipline. I was amazed to discover that something called "grounding" was a serious concept that underpins this analysis, so I looked at the Wikipedia references and discovered that there was at least one journal citation to The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. The article seems to be attempting to make a link between bloody viscosity and electrical grounding of humans to the earth! [1] Now there is another article that shows there is virtually no impact on the body from the same journal, so I started to wonder how this passed peer review. The answer is - I have no way of knowing as they don't make it clear what their review policies and procedures are, and they appear to charge authors to publish work. In other words - it's pseudoscience dressed up in credibility. And it is making a serious impact in the world of psychology! 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576907/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576907/
  - deleted 10y ago
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    - deleted 10y ago
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  - kefka 10y ago
    Wow. I'm an occultist. One of the first regimens I did so to learn occultism was grounding and centering. It's very much an esoteric skill, and not something to be cited in a paper... unless it was being discussed under a 'microscope'. I would enjoy in using fMRI or other diagnostic tools to see what physiologically happens when I do those things. But I have no qualms; that shouldn't be in any academic paper until my recommendation of measuring it is done.
    - maaku 10y ago
      > I would enjoy in using fMRI or other diagnostic tools to see what physiologically happens when I do those things. But I have no qualms; that shouldn't be in any academic paper until my recommendation of measuring it is done. That's not how science works...
      - kefka 10y ago
        Oh, so researching an interesting phenomenon, that is already cited in journals is somehow "not science"? I'd be careful about letting your own biases affect you negatively. Simply put, there may or may be nothing there. With diagnostic methods and feedback from the person, we can start to determine if there is a measurable effect. If there's something there, we research further. If not, we cite it as proof "no noticeable effect". This also goes to show that we (academic community) should be much more accepting of papers showing "No Effect", rather than only positive papers. Knowing the landmines that others went down is just as valuable as what works. But in actuality, I was also giving on-topic discussion about where those phenomena are discussed at length: in studies on occultism. That's just a factual statement with no value proposition. Whomever is more interested can do their own research, with this topic in mind.
hanklazard 10y ago
"Anyone that has gone through research and academia knows that you often need to browse many papers to even find the ones worth reading." Exactly. And without the monthly subscription plan (something I wasn't even aware of until this comment thread), the going rate seems to be around $30 per paper--rent-seeking to the point of highway robbery. One thing that these publishing companies could have done long ago was allow some sort of "free preview" of the full text or "full refund within 10 min" option to help deal with this problem. I have no idea how this would be done technically to prevent "pirating" but, as it is, the pay-per-paper system is completely disconnected from the way researchers browse papers.
tzs 10y ago
Have you taken a look at deepdyve.com? $40/month ($30/month if bought as an annual subscription) for unlimited online access to a ton of journals, including a bazillion from IEEE: https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee If you create an account but do not subscribe, you can view all the papers but only for 5 minutes each. You can then subscribe to read the ones you need more of, or purchase access to 5 papers for $20. The above is for online reading. If you need PDFs, you can purchase those but they are not cheap. They are usually what the publisher charges on the publisher's site less a 20% discount.
- Alphasite_ 10y ago
  I have no doubt other universities offer this, but see if you can join a Universities library, for access to the papers?
3pt14159 10y ago
If you live in a city with a University, like Toronto, check out getting a library card to their library system. It costs me $300 / year and it's unlimited research papers. The only downside is that it is retrievable in person only, so you kinda need to be either close to the University or keep a list of papers you need before you make the trek out.
- maaku 10y ago
  You are paying $300/year for access to information that was given to the world freely, and sacrificing your time and effort to get it? Do you see the problem here?
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    He didn't claim there wasn't a problem, just gave practical advice for making the most of the unfair situation
    - aab0 10y ago
      Even more practical advice: 'use Libgen'.
      - maaku 10y ago
        I somehow misread that as 'use Lojban' and was momentarily both confused and delighted :\
        chris_wot 10y ago
        It's unfortunate that you are now clear-headed and disappointed.
        apricot 10y ago
        Indeed,"Lojban" and "practical" in the same sentence is not something you see every day.
  - 10y ago
jcoffland 10y ago
The IEEE is such BS. I was a member but left because of all the SPAM. They continued to SPAM me for years after I left.
- jrjr 10y ago
  IEEE is not for Engineers, it's a Management Overlay.
aswanson 10y ago
I recognized what a scam IEEE was my first year of grad school. So many fees, sub-society fees, transaction fees...something themselves indeed. Many times over.

by finfet1 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

donlzx 10y ago

After the IEEE $25 monthly service came out, I subscribed for three years until finally canceled it. Honestly most of the papers I downloaded were junks, the only reason I download them was to verify the available references. The paper quality declination plus publication quantity inflation are the main reasons in this "Sci-Hub" crisis.

chris_wot 10y ago
This sounds like an increasingly commented on issue: there are now hundreds and hundreds of specialty journals, but quality is patchy. In fact, I think we may be seeing inherent problems coming to the fore now that journals are more focussed on profits: often there is publication bias towards certain topics; in other cases the bias is towards positive results and breakthroughs, with a lack of enthusiasm for publishing retractions or establishing reproducibility. One thing that always sticks in my craw is that the raw data is very rarely published for analysis. Many may disagree, but I think that by not publishing the raw data for experiments the temptation to commit academic fraud is very high. I often wonder about some of the more recent scandals whether it might have been picked up a lot faster had the data been more readily available. I also have noticed that many journals don't say who the reviewers are after publication. For instance, I was looking at body pyschotherapy the other day and came across something called biodynamic analysis, which appears to be a widely held and well respected view within the subdiscipline. I was amazed to discover that something called "grounding" was a serious concept that underpins this analysis, so I looked at the Wikipedia references and discovered that there was at least one journal citation to The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. The article seems to be attempting to make a link between bloody viscosity and electrical grounding of humans to the earth! [1] Now there is another article that shows there is virtually no impact on the body from the same journal, so I started to wonder how this passed peer review. The answer is - I have no way of knowing as they don't make it clear what their review policies and procedures are, and they appear to charge authors to publish work. In other words - it's pseudoscience dressed up in credibility. And it is making a serious impact in the world of psychology! 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576907/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576907/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- kefka 10y ago
  Wow. I'm an occultist. One of the first regimens I did so to learn occultism was grounding and centering. It's very much an esoteric skill, and not something to be cited in a paper... unless it was being discussed under a 'microscope'. I would enjoy in using fMRI or other diagnostic tools to see what physiologically happens when I do those things. But I have no qualms; that shouldn't be in any academic paper until my recommendation of measuring it is done.
  - maaku 10y ago
    > I would enjoy in using fMRI or other diagnostic tools to see what physiologically happens when I do those things. But I have no qualms; that shouldn't be in any academic paper until my recommendation of measuring it is done. That's not how science works...
    - kefka 10y ago
      Oh, so researching an interesting phenomenon, that is already cited in journals is somehow "not science"? I'd be careful about letting your own biases affect you negatively. Simply put, there may or may be nothing there. With diagnostic methods and feedback from the person, we can start to determine if there is a measurable effect. If there's something there, we research further. If not, we cite it as proof "no noticeable effect". This also goes to show that we (academic community) should be much more accepting of papers showing "No Effect", rather than only positive papers. Knowing the landmines that others went down is just as valuable as what works. But in actuality, I was also giving on-topic discussion about where those phenomena are discussed at length: in studies on occultism. That's just a factual statement with no value proposition. Whomever is more interested can do their own research, with this topic in mind.

hanklazard 10y ago

"Anyone that has gone through research and academia knows that you often need to browse many papers to even find the ones worth reading." Exactly. And without the monthly subscription plan (something I wasn't even aware of until this comment thread), the going rate seems to be around $30 per paper--rent-seeking to the point of highway robbery. One thing that these publishing companies could have done long ago was allow some sort of "free preview" of the full text or "full refund within 10 min" option to help deal with this problem. I have no idea how this would be done technically to prevent "pirating" but, as it is, the pay-per-paper system is completely disconnected from the way researchers browse papers.

tzs 10y ago

Have you taken a look at deepdyve.com? $40/month ($30/month if bought as an annual subscription) for unlimited online access to a ton of journals, including a bazillion from IEEE: https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee If you create an account but do not subscribe, you can view all the papers but only for 5 minutes each. You can then subscribe to read the ones you need more of, or purchase access to 5 papers for $20. The above is for online reading. If you need PDFs, you can purchase those but they are not cheap. They are usually what the publisher charges on the publisher's site less a 20% discount.

Alphasite_ 10y ago
I have no doubt other universities offer this, but see if you can join a Universities library, for access to the papers?

3pt14159 10y ago

If you live in a city with a University, like Toronto, check out getting a library card to their library system. It costs me $300 / year and it's unlimited research papers. The only downside is that it is retrievable in person only, so you kinda need to be either close to the University or keep a list of papers you need before you make the trek out.

maaku 10y ago
You are paying $300/year for access to information that was given to the world freely, and sacrificing your time and effort to get it? Do you see the problem here?
- umanwizard 10y ago
  He didn't claim there wasn't a problem, just gave practical advice for making the most of the unfair situation
  - aab0 10y ago
    Even more practical advice: 'use Libgen'.
    - maaku 10y ago
      I somehow misread that as 'use Lojban' and was momentarily both confused and delighted :\
      - chris_wot 10y ago
        It's unfortunate that you are now clear-headed and disappointed.
      - apricot 10y ago
        Indeed,"Lojban" and "practical" in the same sentence is not something you see every day.
- 10y ago

jcoffland 10y ago

The IEEE is such BS. I was a member but left because of all the SPAM. They continued to SPAM me for years after I left.

jrjr 10y ago
IEEE is not for Engineers, it's a Management Overlay.

aswanson 10y ago

I recognized what a scam IEEE was my first year of grad school. So many fees, sub-society fees, transaction fees...something themselves indeed. Many times over.