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Because they can and academic scientists don't do anything to change the status quo.
by timrpeterson 10y ago
Because they can and academic scientists don't do anything to change the status quo.
- mattkrause 10y agoThat's a bit harsh--many academic scientists can't do much to change the status quo. I would love to submit to open access journals, but I also really like eating, having a place to sleep, and other indulgences that having a job provides. As a grad student, one basically doesn't have much say. Postdocs have a bit more latitude, but need to "play the game" to land jobs; pre-tenure faculty are in a very similar position if they want to keep theirs. Even tenured PIs are in a pretty precarious position: many are on soft-money positions (no grants, no salary), all of them need grants, and their trainees also presumably want to move up the grad student -> postdoc -> faculty ladder. Getting this to change is a massive collective action problem and it's really going to need a push from institutions and the big names at the very top. This holds not just for publications, but a lot of other issues with academia too. I'd love to spend more time making our code solid and publicly available, but there's essentially no payoff for that either.
- apricot 10y agoI wouldn't say scientists are doing nothing. See for instance the "Cost of Knowledge" project spearheaded by top mathematicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge
- timrpeterson 10y agoNot much seeing much output from that initiative which I signed btw.