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I've thought about this for years, and the fundamental problem I keep running up against is that you'd need to reinvent academic culture and incentives to have
by natechols 8y ago
I've thought about this for years, and the fundamental problem I keep running up against is that you'd need to reinvent academic culture and incentives to have any hope of replacing the publication system with something better.
- mac01021 8y agoSo your answer is that, if we disbanded the existing publishers, a new set of nearly-identical publishers would pop up in there place and our system for the dissemination of scientific knowledge would continue to operate just as it does today? I don't know that you're wrong, but: Right now, I really want an article in Nature or some other prestigious journal, in order to advance my career as a scientist. If those prestigious publications were suddenly gone, there might be other publications that would spring up to fill the vaccuum, but the new ones would have no track record and no prestige. So wouldn't everyone just as soon either self-publish or else favor non-exploitative, open-access journals?