4 ms·

Good, now the Nobel Committee should say it will only consider science published in open source journals for future Nobel prizes...

mirimir 8y ago
Excellent idea. Wish I'd thought of that :) It's arguable that stuff isn't actually in the public record if access requires payments.
- aurizon 8y ago
  Elsevier is a criminal enterprise, nothing more, nothing less...
  - rreichman 8y ago
    We gotta stop enabling them. If we demand that publicly funded universities adopt open access Elsevier will be gone in a few years. And of course I'm not recommending Sci-Hub because it's illegal but worth mentioning it...
    - damontal 8y ago
      How will Elsevier be gone if it controls so much of the content used in citations?
      - rreichman 8y ago
        Over time I believe more content will be published in open access journals. In Machine Learning this is already quite common and it's amazing.
    - dagw 8y ago
      If we demand that publicly funded universities adopt open access Elsevier will be gone in a few years. Elsevier will happily publish your papers as open access (for a small service fee).
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      Unfortunately, funders don't want to restrict where researchers can publish the work (in order to prevent themselves from being able to silence results they might not like, i.e. hinder "academic freedom"). This means that this demand is implemented by simply paying hugely disproportionate publishing fees ("article processing charges") to the same old journals to make the individual articles they funded available as open access.
  - ademup 8y ago
    I would appreciate an explanation of this assertion. What makes them criminal?
    - mirimir 8y ago
      As far as I know, they're not breaking any laws, so they're not criminals. Basically, over the years, they acquired a bunch of academic publishers that were effectively not-for-profit. And since, they've been raising prices. Harvesting market position. Sure, that's not illegal. But it's arguably immoral.
    - aurizon 8y ago
      Well, not criminal, nor is Disney, but people who bribe law makers to extend copyright to defeat the purpose of copyright seem criminal to me. Remember, copyright was made to give authors a period of monopoly, then open source. What if Microsoft bribed law makers to extend patents for 100 years? or drug makers?
  - creddit 8y ago
    Extreme hyperbole like this rarely helps your case. Please try to elevate your discussion. Elsevier is a significant drain on public benefit relative to free/open journals but that doesn't make them criminal.
    - belorn 8y ago
      Research that is funded by the public for the public is being put in the hand of for-profit organizations like Elsevier and then held private unless someone pays. Its not criminal but it is also more than just a drain on public benefit relative to free/open journals. Its like if we paid taxes to build and maintain roads and bridges, only to have the constructor give the rights of the finished result to a toll-both company in order so they could evaluate and rate how good the individual construction workers are and make it easier to promote and hire them in the future. It make no sense for any practical profession to behave like this, and yet thats how academia has operated for ages. It is time that the public get what it paid for.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
s0rce 8y ago
Unless you think you are really likely to win one its still going to be important for your more immediate-term career to publish in high impact journals, of which most aren't open access (ex. Nature/Science).
evrydayhustling 8y ago
Love this. GenBank had a similar tactic - got Journals where people published sequencing papers to say they won't publish any results that haven't been uploaded to GenBank. Created an anchor resource that led to computational biologists having world class shared datasets and evolving the field much faster.
Vinnl 8y ago
I think the Nobel prize is not what drives most researchers. Rather, tenure track and grant application committees should only consider open access research. However, obviously their main concern is finding the "best" applicants, not changing the scholarly publishing ecosystem, and doing so would help the former but arguably hinder the latter.
PeterisP 8y ago
If research grant funding calls would require the results to be published in open access journals, the field would switch pretty much overnight.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  I made this point elsewhere as well, but: > Unfortunately, funders don't want to restrict where researchers can publish the work (in order to prevent themselves from being able to silence results they might not like, i.e. hinder "academic freedom"). This means that this demand is implemented by simply paying hugely disproportionate publishing fees ("article processing charges") to the same old journals to make the individual articles they funded available as open access.
  - smaddox 8y ago
    That's an absurd rationalization, and I don't believe it. First, it's an absurd rationalization because all the finding agencies need to do is say "starting Jan 2019, all research papers funded by this fund must be open access; each violation results in $1k reduction in the grant", and any journals that don't yet have the option would provide a ~$1k open access publishing option. Second, I don't believe the rationalization is what's really going on. I think there just aren't any/enough people at the funding agencies that care.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      As for your first point: that is in fact what is happening. It's somewhat of a "loophole" in that is has allowed funders to mandate open access without restricting academic freedom, by simply making money available to publish those single articles as open access. The downside then is that it still leads to public funds being wasted: rather than paying money to access research, it is paid to publish it. The costs are then still disproportionate to the actual service provided, and it's still a barrier to inclusivity in academia (e.g. towards researchers in developing countries or in industry). I expanded on this in more detail at https://medium.com/flockademic/to-fix-scholarly-publishing-decouple-credentialing-from-publishing-29b211f49acc https://medium.com/flockademic/to-fix-scholarly-publishing-d... As for your second point: obviously there are many funding agencies, and surely people don't care at some. I was mostly referring to those who do want to promote the adoption of open access, such as the Gates Foundation or the Wellcome Trust (and many national funding bodies). They have absolutely come out making the above argument. They're really hesitant about this (although without a doubt also due to lobbying by the traditional publishers), which is laudable but also exacerbates the problem. (Note also that they do have reason to be hesitant: science has seen a lot of pushback in the past, so these lessons have been hard-won and are ingrained in their DNA. Any movement that appears to go in the direction of the times when the catholic church could limit the adoption of scientific theories is met with heavy scepticism.)

mirimir 8y ago

Excellent idea. Wish I'd thought of that :) It's arguable that stuff isn't actually in the public record if access requires payments.

aurizon 8y ago
Elsevier is a criminal enterprise, nothing more, nothing less...
- rreichman 8y ago
  We gotta stop enabling them. If we demand that publicly funded universities adopt open access Elsevier will be gone in a few years. And of course I'm not recommending Sci-Hub because it's illegal but worth mentioning it...
  - damontal 8y ago
    How will Elsevier be gone if it controls so much of the content used in citations?
    - rreichman 8y ago
      Over time I believe more content will be published in open access journals. In Machine Learning this is already quite common and it's amazing.
  - dagw 8y ago
    If we demand that publicly funded universities adopt open access Elsevier will be gone in a few years. Elsevier will happily publish your papers as open access (for a small service fee).
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    Unfortunately, funders don't want to restrict where researchers can publish the work (in order to prevent themselves from being able to silence results they might not like, i.e. hinder "academic freedom"). This means that this demand is implemented by simply paying hugely disproportionate publishing fees ("article processing charges") to the same old journals to make the individual articles they funded available as open access.
- ademup 8y ago
  I would appreciate an explanation of this assertion. What makes them criminal?
  - mirimir 8y ago
    As far as I know, they're not breaking any laws, so they're not criminals. Basically, over the years, they acquired a bunch of academic publishers that were effectively not-for-profit. And since, they've been raising prices. Harvesting market position. Sure, that's not illegal. But it's arguably immoral.
  - aurizon 8y ago
    Well, not criminal, nor is Disney, but people who bribe law makers to extend copyright to defeat the purpose of copyright seem criminal to me. Remember, copyright was made to give authors a period of monopoly, then open source. What if Microsoft bribed law makers to extend patents for 100 years? or drug makers?
- creddit 8y ago
  Extreme hyperbole like this rarely helps your case. Please try to elevate your discussion. Elsevier is a significant drain on public benefit relative to free/open journals but that doesn't make them criminal.
  - belorn 8y ago
    Research that is funded by the public for the public is being put in the hand of for-profit organizations like Elsevier and then held private unless someone pays. Its not criminal but it is also more than just a drain on public benefit relative to free/open journals. Its like if we paid taxes to build and maintain roads and bridges, only to have the constructor give the rights of the finished result to a toll-both company in order so they could evaluate and rate how good the individual construction workers are and make it easier to promote and hire them in the future. It make no sense for any practical profession to behave like this, and yet thats how academia has operated for ages. It is time that the public get what it paid for.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

s0rce 8y ago

Unless you think you are really likely to win one its still going to be important for your more immediate-term career to publish in high impact journals, of which most aren't open access (ex. Nature/Science).

evrydayhustling 8y ago

Love this. GenBank had a similar tactic - got Journals where people published sequencing papers to say they won't publish any results that haven't been uploaded to GenBank. Created an anchor resource that led to computational biologists having world class shared datasets and evolving the field much faster.

Vinnl 8y ago

I think the Nobel prize is not what drives most researchers. Rather, tenure track and grant application committees should only consider open access research. However, obviously their main concern is finding the "best" applicants, not changing the scholarly publishing ecosystem, and doing so would help the former but arguably hinder the latter.

PeterisP 8y ago

If research grant funding calls would require the results to be published in open access journals, the field would switch pretty much overnight.

Vinnl 8y ago
I made this point elsewhere as well, but: > Unfortunately, funders don't want to restrict where researchers can publish the work (in order to prevent themselves from being able to silence results they might not like, i.e. hinder "academic freedom"). This means that this demand is implemented by simply paying hugely disproportionate publishing fees ("article processing charges") to the same old journals to make the individual articles they funded available as open access.
- smaddox 8y ago
  That's an absurd rationalization, and I don't believe it. First, it's an absurd rationalization because all the finding agencies need to do is say "starting Jan 2019, all research papers funded by this fund must be open access; each violation results in $1k reduction in the grant", and any journals that don't yet have the option would provide a ~$1k open access publishing option. Second, I don't believe the rationalization is what's really going on. I think there just aren't any/enough people at the funding agencies that care.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    As for your first point: that is in fact what is happening. It's somewhat of a "loophole" in that is has allowed funders to mandate open access without restricting academic freedom, by simply making money available to publish those single articles as open access. The downside then is that it still leads to public funds being wasted: rather than paying money to access research, it is paid to publish it. The costs are then still disproportionate to the actual service provided, and it's still a barrier to inclusivity in academia (e.g. towards researchers in developing countries or in industry). I expanded on this in more detail at https://medium.com/flockademic/to-fix-scholarly-publishing-decouple-credentialing-from-publishing-29b211f49acc https://medium.com/flockademic/to-fix-scholarly-publishing-d... As for your second point: obviously there are many funding agencies, and surely people don't care at some. I was mostly referring to those who do want to promote the adoption of open access, such as the Gates Foundation or the Wellcome Trust (and many national funding bodies). They have absolutely come out making the above argument. They're really hesitant about this (although without a doubt also due to lobbying by the traditional publishers), which is laudable but also exacerbates the problem. (Note also that they do have reason to be hesitant: science has seen a lot of pushback in the past, so these lessons have been hard-won and are ingrained in their DNA. Any movement that appears to go in the direction of the times when the catholic church could limit the adoption of scientific theories is met with heavy scepticism.)