6 ms·

Math Journal Editors Quit for Open Access

190 points by colinprince 9y ago

MichaelBurge 9y ago
E-JC is also notable for combinatorics: http://www.combinatorics.org/ http://www.combinatorics.org/
merraksh 9y ago
I hope this is just the beginning. What would make this easier is a free platform for article submission and refereeing. That usually takes away 90% of the menial work of inviting referees, storing reviews, managing revisions, etc. Some non-free options such as Editorial Manager and Elsevier's own system are slow and awkward.
- baldfat 9y ago
  This has been going on for decades but it doesn't seem to touch JSTOR and company much at all in the long run. AKA Read that in this article. They are thinking that this might be different but I guarantee you there are plenty of other University Professors that would love to have the title of Chief Editor to make them look good to their school's administration and ease their research load.
  - merraksh 9y ago
    Well, even with infinitely many greedy would-be EiC of a paid-access journal it just takes one open-access journal in the same area with some well-known editor to change things. The problem is not that at least one such paid-access journal exists, it is that it takes time for any journal to earn reputation. Once that happens, you probably get a lower teaching/research load as an EiC of an open-access journal as well.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      Work flow is also the issue. As a researcher many just pop into their one database MAYBE two and see what's in their walled garden. I would work on getting people to use Open Journal search engines but then they were disappointed in the inconsistent quality of journals.
- colinprince 9y ago
  PKP makes Open Journal Systems, which is GPL licensed. A flexible review process is part of the goal of the project, and the developers are responsive. https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
code4tee 9y ago
Good for them. The academic publishing industry needs a good shakeup.
baldfat 9y ago
As a former System's Librarian YES! This is such a racket. You sell new Journals to libraries and you made your living just doing that. Some of the Journals are hundreds of dollars to have in print. Libraries then put the old journals in behind the new one for about 18 or so copies. The older ones get stored in boxes and collect dust. Occasionally (10 out of a thousand students will come in and ask for help to find a journal. That was all. As Journals came online they solved the storage and accessibility problems for the library. $30,000 a year to save your library team all the work and increase accessibility is AWESOME sales pitch. Within 3 years our $30,000 bill became $90,000 and today my old library has 3 less librarians due to the cost of digital access (Or so I am told). Digital Access = free money that they never got till now. Also many Journals are not included in the digital access for 12 to 18 months so that their print business stayed at the same level and so did the storage for libraries. To think of all that and the fact that most of the Journals's research has direct use of tax payer funds but not give tax payer access is crazy. Also knowledge is power and all our top knowledge is behind closed doors. Drove me nuts.
Sharlin 9y ago
Evidently their contracts didn't have a proper no-compete clause. </s>
- _fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
  No-compete clauses rarely hold up in court anyway.
  - fnord123 9y ago
    Most of the governance board is in Europe: http://www.mathoa.org/sample-page/governance-structure/ http://www.mathoa.org/sample-page/governance-structure/ Depending on the country, the non compete will be invalid. e.g. UK where this would be listed as 'restraint of trade' if the previous publisher was not still paying the editors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Europe Also, they're only valid within the same country so if the editors happened to move country then the non-compete would have been invalidated.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    That heavily depends on your jurisdiction.
n4r9 9y ago
Readers might also be interested to hear that Timothy Gowers, Cambridge mathematics professor and one of the foremost voices of the Elsevier boycott, has pioneered the creation of a peer-reviewed mathematics journal which acts as an Arxiv overlay and is free to publish in. https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an-arxiv-overlay-journal/ https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an...

190 points by colinprince 9y ago

E-JC is also notable for combinatorics: http://www.combinatorics.org/ http://www.combinatorics.org/

I hope this is just the beginning. What would make this easier is a free platform for article submission and refereeing. That usually takes away 90% of the menial work of inviting referees, storing reviews, managing revisions, etc. Some non-free options such as Editorial Manager and Elsevier's own system are slow and awkward.

baldfat 9y ago
This has been going on for decades but it doesn't seem to touch JSTOR and company much at all in the long run. AKA Read that in this article. They are thinking that this might be different but I guarantee you there are plenty of other University Professors that would love to have the title of Chief Editor to make them look good to their school's administration and ease their research load.
- merraksh 9y ago
  Well, even with infinitely many greedy would-be EiC of a paid-access journal it just takes one open-access journal in the same area with some well-known editor to change things. The problem is not that at least one such paid-access journal exists, it is that it takes time for any journal to earn reputation. Once that happens, you probably get a lower teaching/research load as an EiC of an open-access journal as well.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    Work flow is also the issue. As a researcher many just pop into their one database MAYBE two and see what's in their walled garden. I would work on getting people to use Open Journal search engines but then they were disappointed in the inconsistent quality of journals.
colinprince 9y ago
PKP makes Open Journal Systems, which is GPL licensed. A flexible review process is part of the goal of the project, and the developers are responsive. https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/

code4tee 9y ago

Good for them. The academic publishing industry needs a good shakeup.

baldfat 9y ago

As a former System's Librarian YES! This is such a racket. You sell new Journals to libraries and you made your living just doing that. Some of the Journals are hundreds of dollars to have in print. Libraries then put the old journals in behind the new one for about 18 or so copies. The older ones get stored in boxes and collect dust. Occasionally (10 out of a thousand students will come in and ask for help to find a journal. That was all. As Journals came online they solved the storage and accessibility problems for the library. $30,000 a year to save your library team all the work and increase accessibility is AWESOME sales pitch. Within 3 years our $30,000 bill became $90,000 and today my old library has 3 less librarians due to the cost of digital access (Or so I am told). Digital Access = free money that they never got till now. Also many Journals are not included in the digital access for 12 to 18 months so that their print business stayed at the same level and so did the storage for libraries. To think of all that and the fact that most of the Journals's research has direct use of tax payer funds but not give tax payer access is crazy. Also knowledge is power and all our top knowledge is behind closed doors. Drove me nuts.

Sharlin 9y ago

Evidently their contracts didn't have a proper no-compete clause. </s>

_fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
No-compete clauses rarely hold up in court anyway.
- fnord123 9y ago
  Most of the governance board is in Europe: http://www.mathoa.org/sample-page/governance-structure/ http://www.mathoa.org/sample-page/governance-structure/ Depending on the country, the non compete will be invalid. e.g. UK where this would be listed as 'restraint of trade' if the previous publisher was not still paying the editors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Europe Also, they're only valid within the same country so if the editors happened to move country then the non-compete would have been invalidated.
- monocasa 9y ago
  That heavily depends on your jurisdiction.

n4r9 9y ago

Readers might also be interested to hear that Timothy Gowers, Cambridge mathematics professor and one of the foremost voices of the Elsevier boycott, has pioneered the creation of a peer-reviewed mathematics journal which acts as an Arxiv overlay and is free to publish in. https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an-arxiv-overlay-journal/ https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an...