4 ms·

It's unfortunately detrimental to one's academic career to not publish in the most "prestigious" journal one can. This results in researchers publishing in clos

It's unfortunately detrimental to one's academic career to not publish in the most "prestigious" journal one can. This results in researchers publishing in closed journals either to try and maintain their own careers or due to pressure from their department as a way of looking more attractive in grant applications. Extremely prominent researchers and departments may be able to pull this off but everyone else in the trenches will be more or less committing career/department suicide by allowing this to happen. Hopefully those who can stand up will but I wouldn't expect a sudden leap from the trenches until this situation changes.

dqpb 8y ago
I really don't want to insult anyone with this comment, but after hearing about how shitty academics are treated during their entire career (phd, postdoc, faculty, publishing), including the low pay, politics, and giving away the rights to their work, they seem like one of the most manipulated and least self-confident demographics in the global workforce.
- williamstein 8y ago
  And it is especially ironic given how many of us have tenure...
- tomkat0789 8y ago
  That's why I keep my PhD in academia. The papers I published in grad school just felt like a more grown up version of school homework, with a small clique of prominent guys at the top getting most of the attention.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >but after hearing about how shitty academics are treated during their entire career (phd, postdoc, faculty, publishing), including the low pay, politics, and giving away the rights to their work, they seem like one of the most manipulated and least self-confident demographics in the global workforce. I'll both agree and disagree. Starting with disagree: A lot of these problems arose mostly in the last 20 years, and is somewhat dependent on the discipline. To give you an idea, someone getting an engineering PhD with, say, 3-5 papers published in peer reviewed (but average) journals had a good chance of getting a tenure track job as late as, say, 2005 - without doing any postdocs - no concerns about impact factors, etc. Most advisors were not slave drivers. Now if you switch to something like biology or physics, then it was much less likely and you needed a post doc. Still, if you went back another 20 years, you'd likely get a tenure track job straight out of a physics PhD. For publishing, most academics never cared until the last 10 years or so. The cost of journals to universities did not explode until some point in the 2000's - so even less prestigious universities would subscribe to most journals an academic needed. Once you got through tenure, it's hard to describe how you're treated as "shitty". You choose your hours. You choose if you want to get paid for summer or not. You choose what you want to work on. The pay is low, but it somewhat tracks that of industry (i.e. engineering professors still get paid more than humanities, etc). Having all that freedom should cost you in terms of pay. And just like in the real world, you can always get paid more if you do pretty good work in things that others care about (i.e. sacrifice your freedom somewhat). Where I agree with you: In my experience, any group that insulates itself from the outside and uses only in-group metrics will eventually reach the stage they are in. If only they get to decide what makes one academic better than another, then you will get pettiness.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  On the other hand, outside of an academic lab, you are unlikely to ever work on the cutting edge of any field, and in some fields there is no non-academic option at all. A friend of mine does research on quasars and other distant astronomical objects. He has discussed moving to an "industry" job, but has never really wanted to give up the opportunity to work in a field he is truly interested in. Nobody takes an academic job for the money.
- kgwgk 8y ago
  "Academic politics is the most bitter and vicious form of politics, because the stakes are so low"

dqpb 8y ago

I really don't want to insult anyone with this comment, but after hearing about how shitty academics are treated during their entire career (phd, postdoc, faculty, publishing), including the low pay, politics, and giving away the rights to their work, they seem like one of the most manipulated and least self-confident demographics in the global workforce.

williamstein 8y ago
And it is especially ironic given how many of us have tenure...
tomkat0789 8y ago
That's why I keep my PhD in academia. The papers I published in grad school just felt like a more grown up version of school homework, with a small clique of prominent guys at the top getting most of the attention.
BeetleB 8y ago
>but after hearing about how shitty academics are treated during their entire career (phd, postdoc, faculty, publishing), including the low pay, politics, and giving away the rights to their work, they seem like one of the most manipulated and least self-confident demographics in the global workforce. I'll both agree and disagree. Starting with disagree: A lot of these problems arose mostly in the last 20 years, and is somewhat dependent on the discipline. To give you an idea, someone getting an engineering PhD with, say, 3-5 papers published in peer reviewed (but average) journals had a good chance of getting a tenure track job as late as, say, 2005 - without doing any postdocs - no concerns about impact factors, etc. Most advisors were not slave drivers. Now if you switch to something like biology or physics, then it was much less likely and you needed a post doc. Still, if you went back another 20 years, you'd likely get a tenure track job straight out of a physics PhD. For publishing, most academics never cared until the last 10 years or so. The cost of journals to universities did not explode until some point in the 2000's - so even less prestigious universities would subscribe to most journals an academic needed. Once you got through tenure, it's hard to describe how you're treated as "shitty". You choose your hours. You choose if you want to get paid for summer or not. You choose what you want to work on. The pay is low, but it somewhat tracks that of industry (i.e. engineering professors still get paid more than humanities, etc). Having all that freedom should cost you in terms of pay. And just like in the real world, you can always get paid more if you do pretty good work in things that others care about (i.e. sacrifice your freedom somewhat). Where I agree with you: In my experience, any group that insulates itself from the outside and uses only in-group metrics will eventually reach the stage they are in. If only they get to decide what makes one academic better than another, then you will get pettiness.
betterunix2 8y ago
On the other hand, outside of an academic lab, you are unlikely to ever work on the cutting edge of any field, and in some fields there is no non-academic option at all. A friend of mine does research on quasars and other distant astronomical objects. He has discussed moving to an "industry" job, but has never really wanted to give up the opportunity to work in a field he is truly interested in. Nobody takes an academic job for the money.
kgwgk 8y ago
"Academic politics is the most bitter and vicious form of politics, because the stakes are so low"