4 ms·

It's good to see this. As a single researcher it's hard to have an impact and force yourself not to publish to these journals when you have the chance to. But i

by carreau 10y ago

It's good to see this. As a single researcher it's hard to have an impact and force yourself not to publish to these journals when you have the chance to. But it's horrifying to see that often you even have to pay an extra fee for your online figures to be in color ! That's ridiculous. I hope that other funding sources not only follow the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation move, but go even further.

ksk 10y ago
You can always publish the paper on your own website. Publishing in a top journal like science or nature is primarily for getting the social capital of having gone through a difficult selection process. People need to get paid to see if the science done in the paper was good, whether it was plagiarized, peer-review, etc etc. Simply.. more selective = more effort = more cost.
- ci5er 10y ago
  Many journals (IEEE comes to mind, but surely they are not alone) used to prohibit the author from independently publishing substantially similar papers on their own (or the institution's) websites or ArXiv. I suspect they still do.
  - ksk 10y ago
    Yes what you said is completely true. I misread the original comment.
- carreau 10y ago
  Of course I _can_ publish to my own website, and I do, with my code in git, data available... etc. Though, even if _I_ am the author, I give away the rights of the final form, meaning that I am not allowed to publish the exact figures and form of the paper I publish, and have to redo them with enough change to be different. Also _I_ review for these journal _for free_ with ridiculous timeline (review that for tomorrow), and _I_ also have to find a place to host the dataset and code, potentially pay for it. And when I pay $3k for a paper to be Open Access and it still cost $35 to read I'm wondering where is this money going to ? If the journal were to offer the kind of services and actual guaranties that you mention, then I would be fine to pay more. But that's far from being the case, and even in top journals you end up having to send corrections for changes made by clueless editors. During my PhD we had to complain as the final version of our paper "A 1mW IR laser..." was changed to "A laser (model 1mW-IR)..." without or consent, or even writing to us. And you know what, even if it was the journal fault we ended up paying for the correction.
  - ksk 10y ago
    I think we're arguing with extremes. Open doesn't mean anyone can publish anything and be taken equally seriously and paid doesn't mean greedy for-profit capitalists who are just in it for the money. I'm sure you'd agree that there is value to curation. Who pays for that, and how, is the question.
    - carreau 10y ago
      Sure of course there is value to curation. There is another problem these days with curation in that only "positive" and "new" result get publish. Which is sad, but is beyond the current scope. Though the current curation to price ratio these days is dramatic. It would be great that movement like this one send a signal to publishers that in the 21st century we are waiting from them more than what they are currently doing. I'm all for publisher like Nature to change and show what _can_ be done. First acknowledging this (like this article) is a great step. And some people in these journals are doing an extraordinary job internally[1]. Just hoping this could shake things and wake up some people in management. [1] is one example http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the-code-1.16261 http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the...

by carreau 10y ago

ksk 10y ago

You can always publish the paper on your own website. Publishing in a top journal like science or nature is primarily for getting the social capital of having gone through a difficult selection process. People need to get paid to see if the science done in the paper was good, whether it was plagiarized, peer-review, etc etc. Simply.. more selective = more effort = more cost.

ci5er 10y ago
Many journals (IEEE comes to mind, but surely they are not alone) used to prohibit the author from independently publishing substantially similar papers on their own (or the institution's) websites or ArXiv. I suspect they still do.
- ksk 10y ago
  Yes what you said is completely true. I misread the original comment.
carreau 10y ago
Of course I _can_ publish to my own website, and I do, with my code in git, data available... etc. Though, even if _I_ am the author, I give away the rights of the final form, meaning that I am not allowed to publish the exact figures and form of the paper I publish, and have to redo them with enough change to be different. Also _I_ review for these journal _for free_ with ridiculous timeline (review that for tomorrow), and _I_ also have to find a place to host the dataset and code, potentially pay for it. And when I pay $3k for a paper to be Open Access and it still cost $35 to read I'm wondering where is this money going to ? If the journal were to offer the kind of services and actual guaranties that you mention, then I would be fine to pay more. But that's far from being the case, and even in top journals you end up having to send corrections for changes made by clueless editors. During my PhD we had to complain as the final version of our paper "A 1mW IR laser..." was changed to "A laser (model 1mW-IR)..." without or consent, or even writing to us. And you know what, even if it was the journal fault we ended up paying for the correction.
- ksk 10y ago
  I think we're arguing with extremes. Open doesn't mean anyone can publish anything and be taken equally seriously and paid doesn't mean greedy for-profit capitalists who are just in it for the money. I'm sure you'd agree that there is value to curation. Who pays for that, and how, is the question.
  - carreau 10y ago
    Sure of course there is value to curation. There is another problem these days with curation in that only "positive" and "new" result get publish. Which is sad, but is beyond the current scope. Though the current curation to price ratio these days is dramatic. It would be great that movement like this one send a signal to publishers that in the 21st century we are waiting from them more than what they are currently doing. I'm all for publisher like Nature to change and show what _can_ be done. First acknowledging this (like this article) is a great step. And some people in these journals are doing an extraordinary job internally[1]. Just hoping this could shake things and wake up some people in management. [1] is one example http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the-code-1.16261 http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the...