4 ms·

That being said, think about the other lines in the accountants books that could be better funded if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions.

That being said, think about the other lines in the accountants books that could be better funded if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions. That funding could go towards hiring more professors, paying professors better, hiring more research assistants, outfitting research labs better, etc. If we aren't paying researchers for peer review, the journal pay wall is just a net loss in productivity. It's just one more useless middleman.

exhilaration 9y ago
...if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions. That funding could go towards hiring more professors... And more lawyers! If the journals did sue the universities it would be a one time legal cost to defeat them (thereby driving them out of business) versus the ongoing and growing cost of journal subscriptions.
- teraflop 9y ago
  Um, I know our legal system isn't perfect, but the outcome of a court case is still largely decided by, you know, actual laws and facts. You can't just throw money at some lawyers and assume you get to "defeat" whoever you want. I totally agree with the position that for-profit journals are bad for the research community, but is there any doubt that legally they have the right to charge universities for the content that they own the rights to?
  - rvern 9y ago
    It is the researchers who are downloading papers, not the universities.
- digikata 9y ago
  Perhaps the universities should really look over the submitter contracts and see if they can directly grant open access to the university’s own past submissions. Some sort of collective group could help them share the cost of that legal analysis.
HarryHirsch 9y ago
if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions You've misunderstood something there. With the "open access" model the costs are merely shifted around. In the traditional model the library would pay for subscription, now it's the researcher paying page charges for publication. In the past of society publishers the society had a reputation to lose, but Hindawi doesn't have such restraints on it.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > In the traditional model the library would pay for subscription, now it's the researcher paying page charges for publication. Not necessarily. In my own field (a branch of linguistics), many of our journals are open access, but they are still free to publish in. Some of the publishing costs are covered by the fact that these journals are put out by learned societies that are sitting on large endowments or receive state funding, and even for journals that are open access online, libraries often still want to pay for hard copies.
  - HarryHirsch 9y ago
    In my field (chemical biology) the page charges for open access are substantial. Traditional journals are still going strong; this may be changing, though. We don't do conferences, they seem to be a CS thing. The PLOS family of journals is reputable and charges north of 2000 dollars: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees Hindawi is half that, but they will publish anything.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  In many fields, this change is a reflection of the shift in costs and responsibility for publication. I'll speak of conference proceedings in CS, since that's what I know best (but these are roughly the equivalent of journals in other fields - peer reviewed, 10-20 pages per article, etc.) 20 years ago, the process involved the creation of a physical artifact -- bound paper, handed out to participants, mailed to subscribers, etc. This is a fairly non-trivial undertaking, certainly costing quite a few thousand dollars. As of a few years ago, the last of the major conferences in my area stopped creating printed proceedings. Along with that goes away the need (desire?) to ensure precise formatting rules, etc. -- the job of the typesetter is gone. We just submit PDFs, and everyone does their own. The other "costs" of a journal or conference were already borne by the research community -- most of our conferences and journals are all-volunteer. It's a decentralized cost spread across the salaries of everyone in the community. In our model, at least, the role of the publisher is greatly diminished. They provide some hosting, some indexing... and not much else. Not all fields are like that. Science and Nature, for example, have paid editors. Fine. Happy to pay for that. The shift in costs happened a while ago - the costs are probably in the range of $10-$100 per paper now, compared to quite a bit more before.
pishpash 9y ago
The funding would not go towards those things. If you understand anything about universities, it would go towards expanding the bureaucratic workforce.

exhilaration 9y ago

...if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions. That funding could go towards hiring more professors... And more lawyers! If the journals did sue the universities it would be a one time legal cost to defeat them (thereby driving them out of business) versus the ongoing and growing cost of journal subscriptions.

teraflop 9y ago
Um, I know our legal system isn't perfect, but the outcome of a court case is still largely decided by, you know, actual laws and facts. You can't just throw money at some lawyers and assume you get to "defeat" whoever you want. I totally agree with the position that for-profit journals are bad for the research community, but is there any doubt that legally they have the right to charge universities for the content that they own the rights to?
- rvern 9y ago
  It is the researchers who are downloading papers, not the universities.
digikata 9y ago
Perhaps the universities should really look over the submitter contracts and see if they can directly grant open access to the university’s own past submissions. Some sort of collective group could help them share the cost of that legal analysis.

HarryHirsch 9y ago

if universities didn't have to pay for journal subscriptions You've misunderstood something there. With the "open access" model the costs are merely shifted around. In the traditional model the library would pay for subscription, now it's the researcher paying page charges for publication. In the past of society publishers the society had a reputation to lose, but Hindawi doesn't have such restraints on it.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
> In the traditional model the library would pay for subscription, now it's the researcher paying page charges for publication. Not necessarily. In my own field (a branch of linguistics), many of our journals are open access, but they are still free to publish in. Some of the publishing costs are covered by the fact that these journals are put out by learned societies that are sitting on large endowments or receive state funding, and even for journals that are open access online, libraries often still want to pay for hard copies.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  In my field (chemical biology) the page charges for open access are substantial. Traditional journals are still going strong; this may be changing, though. We don't do conferences, they seem to be a CS thing. The PLOS family of journals is reputable and charges north of 2000 dollars: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees Hindawi is half that, but they will publish anything.
dgacmu 9y ago
In many fields, this change is a reflection of the shift in costs and responsibility for publication. I'll speak of conference proceedings in CS, since that's what I know best (but these are roughly the equivalent of journals in other fields - peer reviewed, 10-20 pages per article, etc.) 20 years ago, the process involved the creation of a physical artifact -- bound paper, handed out to participants, mailed to subscribers, etc. This is a fairly non-trivial undertaking, certainly costing quite a few thousand dollars. As of a few years ago, the last of the major conferences in my area stopped creating printed proceedings. Along with that goes away the need (desire?) to ensure precise formatting rules, etc. -- the job of the typesetter is gone. We just submit PDFs, and everyone does their own. The other "costs" of a journal or conference were already borne by the research community -- most of our conferences and journals are all-volunteer. It's a decentralized cost spread across the salaries of everyone in the community. In our model, at least, the role of the publisher is greatly diminished. They provide some hosting, some indexing... and not much else. Not all fields are like that. Science and Nature, for example, have paid editors. Fine. Happy to pay for that. The shift in costs happened a while ago - the costs are probably in the range of $10-$100 per paper now, compared to quite a bit more before.

pishpash 9y ago

The funding would not go towards those things. If you understand anything about universities, it would go towards expanding the bureaucratic workforce.