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I'm an academic and fully making research open access. But when I read discussions like this I always wonder about the people who work at journals. The process

I'm an academic and fully making research open access. But when I read discussions like this I always wonder about the people who work at journals. The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication is not something that can be done for free. Granted, the current journal publishers spend too much money on overhead, and I certainly don't support the for-profit ones like Elsevier that rake in huge profits. But I also don't see much allowance made for the fact that publishing research in a peer-reviewed format involves labor which should continue to be compensated in some way (incidentally, it's not entirely true that researchers themselves aren't compensated - publishing offers an indirect benefit but a real one in the sense that publications are directly linked to salary increases down the line).

pizza 9y ago
Would it make sense for the peer review to be uncoupled from the distribution? I don't know about if this were physical, but, digitally, if e.g. ACMEcorp serves the paper, and if review team 1, team 2, etc.. can all attach their signatures of peer review in e.g. PeerDB, doesn't that make the review more transparent and detangle incentives?
JoshTriplett 9y ago
> But when I read discussions like this I always wonder about the people who work at journals. The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication is not something that can be done for free. Peer review is done by others in the field (peers), typically for free. Online publication is "where do I stick this PDF", and does not require per-paper work (or if it does that can be done by the author). That leaves us with copyediting, and in many cases, copyediting issues are caught by peer review rather than any paid editor.
- benbreen 9y ago
  I do peer review myself and am familiar with the model. IMO, when I'm contacted to review someone's work, the journal employee contacting me is performing a legitimate service. They did research to find my name and email and determine that I'm competent to assess the paper. They or another editor have also reviewed the paper in the first place to determine if it's worthy of being peer-reviewed at all, which requires some domain-specific knowledge. And if I pass on peer reviewing, they have to find another person to ask, and so on. Multiplied by dozens of papers, that can be a substantial amount of work. I also think that you underestimate the importance of copy-editors. It's not the job of a peer reviewer to make sure that the author uses an apostrophe properly, etc. There needs to be a specialist who is dedicated to catching those errors, particularly since, as you note, peer-reviewers aren't directly compensated so it's unfair to burden them with a whole other set of responsibilities.
  - wongarsu 9y ago
    Even if we don't put all the copy-editing burden on the author (it's their reputation that is affected by the mistakes), the costs for organizing peer review and copy-editing could be covered by a fairly small submission fee, or alternatively donations or the sale of hard-copies. You could even offer freemium models where anyone can read the papers for free, but value-add options are sold to libraries and universities (integration into library catalog, better search, etc).
    - benbreen 9y ago
      I think something like the freemium model you mention is the way to go. As others have mentioned in this discussion, the alternatives simply rely on pushing the costs to different sectors (like funding agencies or even, in the worst case scenarios, researchers themselves). I keep waiting for this sort of thing to happen. Perhaps it could even be bundled into some kind of social network that would offer an alternative to academia.edu. It seems that there is a lot of inertia when it comes to scholarly publishing though.
  - amelius 9y ago
    Let me rephrase that a little. In your first paragraph you argue that the work journals actually do is finding others to do the real work. And in the second paragraph you say that the copy editor is there to catch missing apostrophes. It's true that that is not "zero" work, but it's not a very strong case. And it certainly does not justify the absurd cost model we are currently stuck with.
    - benbreen 9y ago
      We agree, it absolutely doesn't justify the current cost model. I hate having to donate my time to Elsevier as much as the next academic. Maybe I gave the wrong impression by mentioning apostrophes, however. Professional copy editing is, in my view, super important in terms of differentiating a good journal from a bad or mediocre journal. As is the vetting procedure of finding appropriate peer reviewers and coordination between them. Whether or not you think of that as "real" work compared to producing actual research, it is still work that should be compensated in some way, in my view. An analogy might be the professor teaching a class vs the maintenance guys who makes sure the projectors are working and the lights turn on. One might be more important than the other, but I don't think either should be working for free.
- slaymaker1907 9y ago
  @benbreen even if some papers vet peer reviewers, I've heard many just use suggestions for reviewers provided by the author...
wbl 9y ago
MSP does all of this for quite reasonable rates.
WalterSear 9y ago
> The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication I'm confused that you aren't aware of this but, peer review and copy-editing is by-and-large done by other academics, not journal publishers, and, at most, for what amounts to an honorarium. And online publication is not a job, per se. We automated it a long time ago. Teenages have tumblr blogs now. There is no reason why the practical aspects of online journal curation could not be handled by a very small team of people working in the IT departments of a few universities. Journal article publication may contribute to academic careers, but that has nothing to do with the publishers' involvement: it has to do with the quality of the journal, which is driven by the academics in writing and reviewing for it. Simply put, journal publishers are >entirely< overhead.
- benbreen 9y ago
  See my comment below. Copy-editing isn't performed by other academics (or at least it shouldn't be given their other responsibilities, in my view). And although peer review relies on specialists volunteering their time, finding and vetting those specialists still requires work. I'm not trying to say that the current publishing model is defensible, but I am pointing out that running a high quality peer reviewed journal still requires at least one or two dedicated workers. Whether you think they should be paid for their time or expected to volunteer is a different issue, but we shouldn't pretend that the whole apparatus is an illusion created by greedy publishers.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    I always - always - sent my paper to at least one non-coauthor for a final copy-edit before being submitted. Also, no editor at any journal (I've published ~20 papers) made any edits to my papers.
    - benbreen 9y ago
      This must be highly field-specific then. I published a peer-reviewed paper a couple months ago that came back with around 50 suggested copy edits, as well as a few paragraphs of suggested changes from the journal editor. And then it went through the process again in a lesser form at the page proofs stage. Granted, a lot of those suggested edits were to make it conform to a somewhat arbitrary and tedious house style, but it also caught things that I or the other people I shared the paper with didn't see.
peteretep 9y ago
Napster apparently forged a reasonable business model for music publishers, let's hope this forges one for journals.
Ar-Curunir 9y ago
The companies do not recompense the reviewers or editors meaningfully. They ride only on the coattails of prestigious venues, with all the work done by volunteers.
Ar-Curunir 9y ago
The companies do not recompense the reviewers or editors meaningfully. They ride only on the coattails of prestigious venues, with all the work done by volunteers.

pizza 9y ago

Would it make sense for the peer review to be uncoupled from the distribution? I don't know about if this were physical, but, digitally, if e.g. ACMEcorp serves the paper, and if review team 1, team 2, etc.. can all attach their signatures of peer review in e.g. PeerDB, doesn't that make the review more transparent and detangle incentives?

JoshTriplett 9y ago

> But when I read discussions like this I always wonder about the people who work at journals. The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication is not something that can be done for free. Peer review is done by others in the field (peers), typically for free. Online publication is "where do I stick this PDF", and does not require per-paper work (or if it does that can be done by the author). That leaves us with copyediting, and in many cases, copyediting issues are caught by peer review rather than any paid editor.

benbreen 9y ago
I do peer review myself and am familiar with the model. IMO, when I'm contacted to review someone's work, the journal employee contacting me is performing a legitimate service. They did research to find my name and email and determine that I'm competent to assess the paper. They or another editor have also reviewed the paper in the first place to determine if it's worthy of being peer-reviewed at all, which requires some domain-specific knowledge. And if I pass on peer reviewing, they have to find another person to ask, and so on. Multiplied by dozens of papers, that can be a substantial amount of work. I also think that you underestimate the importance of copy-editors. It's not the job of a peer reviewer to make sure that the author uses an apostrophe properly, etc. There needs to be a specialist who is dedicated to catching those errors, particularly since, as you note, peer-reviewers aren't directly compensated so it's unfair to burden them with a whole other set of responsibilities.
- wongarsu 9y ago
  Even if we don't put all the copy-editing burden on the author (it's their reputation that is affected by the mistakes), the costs for organizing peer review and copy-editing could be covered by a fairly small submission fee, or alternatively donations or the sale of hard-copies. You could even offer freemium models where anyone can read the papers for free, but value-add options are sold to libraries and universities (integration into library catalog, better search, etc).
  - benbreen 9y ago
    I think something like the freemium model you mention is the way to go. As others have mentioned in this discussion, the alternatives simply rely on pushing the costs to different sectors (like funding agencies or even, in the worst case scenarios, researchers themselves). I keep waiting for this sort of thing to happen. Perhaps it could even be bundled into some kind of social network that would offer an alternative to academia.edu. It seems that there is a lot of inertia when it comes to scholarly publishing though.
- amelius 9y ago
  Let me rephrase that a little. In your first paragraph you argue that the work journals actually do is finding others to do the real work. And in the second paragraph you say that the copy editor is there to catch missing apostrophes. It's true that that is not "zero" work, but it's not a very strong case. And it certainly does not justify the absurd cost model we are currently stuck with.
  - benbreen 9y ago
    We agree, it absolutely doesn't justify the current cost model. I hate having to donate my time to Elsevier as much as the next academic. Maybe I gave the wrong impression by mentioning apostrophes, however. Professional copy editing is, in my view, super important in terms of differentiating a good journal from a bad or mediocre journal. As is the vetting procedure of finding appropriate peer reviewers and coordination between them. Whether or not you think of that as "real" work compared to producing actual research, it is still work that should be compensated in some way, in my view. An analogy might be the professor teaching a class vs the maintenance guys who makes sure the projectors are working and the lights turn on. One might be more important than the other, but I don't think either should be working for free.
slaymaker1907 9y ago
@benbreen even if some papers vet peer reviewers, I've heard many just use suggestions for reviewers provided by the author...

wbl 9y ago

MSP does all of this for quite reasonable rates.

WalterSear 9y ago

> The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication I'm confused that you aren't aware of this but, peer review and copy-editing is by-and-large done by other academics, not journal publishers, and, at most, for what amounts to an honorarium. And online publication is not a job, per se. We automated it a long time ago. Teenages have tumblr blogs now. There is no reason why the practical aspects of online journal curation could not be handled by a very small team of people working in the IT departments of a few universities. Journal article publication may contribute to academic careers, but that has nothing to do with the publishers' involvement: it has to do with the quality of the journal, which is driven by the academics in writing and reviewing for it. Simply put, journal publishers are >entirely< overhead.

benbreen 9y ago
See my comment below. Copy-editing isn't performed by other academics (or at least it shouldn't be given their other responsibilities, in my view). And although peer review relies on specialists volunteering their time, finding and vetting those specialists still requires work. I'm not trying to say that the current publishing model is defensible, but I am pointing out that running a high quality peer reviewed journal still requires at least one or two dedicated workers. Whether you think they should be paid for their time or expected to volunteer is a different issue, but we shouldn't pretend that the whole apparatus is an illusion created by greedy publishers.
- dekhn 9y ago
  I always - always - sent my paper to at least one non-coauthor for a final copy-edit before being submitted. Also, no editor at any journal (I've published ~20 papers) made any edits to my papers.
  - benbreen 9y ago
    This must be highly field-specific then. I published a peer-reviewed paper a couple months ago that came back with around 50 suggested copy edits, as well as a few paragraphs of suggested changes from the journal editor. And then it went through the process again in a lesser form at the page proofs stage. Granted, a lot of those suggested edits were to make it conform to a somewhat arbitrary and tedious house style, but it also caught things that I or the other people I shared the paper with didn't see.

peteretep 9y ago

Napster apparently forged a reasonable business model for music publishers, let's hope this forges one for journals.

Ar-Curunir 9y ago

The companies do not recompense the reviewers or editors meaningfully. They ride only on the coattails of prestigious venues, with all the work done by volunteers.

Ar-Curunir 9y ago

The companies do not recompense the reviewers or editors meaningfully. They ride only on the coattails of prestigious venues, with all the work done by volunteers.