5 ms·

You seem to blame this squarely on the faculty, and yet faculty have the least amount of freedom when it comes to publication venue. It's an unfortunate fact th

You seem to blame this squarely on the faculty, and yet faculty have the least amount of freedom when it comes to publication venue. It's an unfortunate fact that academic success is inextricably linked to publishing in top journals. I'm not just talking about promotion either -- it's getting grants, compensation, being invited to speak, attracting students and postdocs, ensuring that they get a job later on, having an impact and generally receiving recognition from your peers. All of this is tied to a steady stream of publications in good journals. If Elsevier owns the best journals in your field, your options are to forego all that and hope for the best (works great if you are Tim Gowers or Terry Tao, for the rest of us...) or continue with the status quo. How many people would give up a career they've worked extremely hard to build to stand on principle? Very few. That is what you are asking of faculty here. It's sort of like global warming -- we know very well that the system is broken, but individually are powerless to change it. Concerted action at the national and international level is required.

gerdesj 8y ago
"It's sort of like global warming -- we know very well that the system is broken, but individually are powerless to change it. Concerted action at the national and international level is required." Unlike global warming I think that some individuals could really make a massive impact in this case. Funnily enough some of those individuals are studying global warming. There are already moves at (larger than individual) levels to get to grips with this issue and I think that most affected parties are more than capable of getting to the knowledge source somehow through alternative means when required. If not, then they are in the wrong game. FFS: Studies that are funded by tax payers or charities or whatever should be freely available. Studies that are peer reviewed by unpaid experts in the field should be published freely. I am happy to pay for journalism - that is something different.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  "Studies that are peer reviewed by unpaid experts in the field should be published freely" Unasked question: How does Elsevier a for profit business get away with having salaried UCLA professors review articles for free?
calhoun137 8y ago
You say "You seem to blame this squarely on the faculty, and yet faculty have the least amount of freedom when it comes to publication venue" I assume you are referencing this > If UCLA were serious it would simply walk from the negotiation. THAT would send a message to all parties. It might actually spur some action on the part of faculty to get off their collective backsides Then you suggest "Concerted action at the national and international level is required". Who exactly is supposed to be responsible for organizing national and international action and to do what exactly, disband Elsevier? This is not a practical suggestion. A practical approach would be for the institutions that pay Elsevier for access, i.e the faculty/admins to get better organized and get better at negotiating. asking faculty to consider the mere act of not reviewing (much less not submitting papers to) these top journals is a third rate negotiating tactic. A strong negotiator would simply walk out at this point. That would send a much stronger message.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  > asking faculty to consider the mere act of not reviewing But do you not think that a mandatory "DO NOT REVIEW" is authoritarian and heavy-handed? If you are negotiating GitHub licenses, you will mandate that your employees do not contribute to open-source GitHub?
  - calhoun137 8y ago
    It's a tricky problem. The suggestion at hand was UCLA walk from the negotiation. Would that mean faculty at UCLA are given a mandatory "DO NOT REVIEW" order? I would have assumed their free labor would still be most welcome, especially from experts. If UCLA walks, that would possibly cause other universities to follow suit, and I bet Elsevier would come back to the table with a better offer. The way I see things, the universities are not organized at all and are being taken to the cleaners because of things like this. It looks like the people doing the negotiating on behalf of the faculty are in way over their heads and don't even realize how the game is played and are being out maneuvered at every turn by a savvy, massively powerful corporation for which this is pretty much all they do all day, every day.
- 8y ago

gerdesj 8y ago

"It's sort of like global warming -- we know very well that the system is broken, but individually are powerless to change it. Concerted action at the national and international level is required." Unlike global warming I think that some individuals could really make a massive impact in this case. Funnily enough some of those individuals are studying global warming. There are already moves at (larger than individual) levels to get to grips with this issue and I think that most affected parties are more than capable of getting to the knowledge source somehow through alternative means when required. If not, then they are in the wrong game. FFS: Studies that are funded by tax payers or charities or whatever should be freely available. Studies that are peer reviewed by unpaid experts in the field should be published freely. I am happy to pay for journalism - that is something different.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Gibbon1 8y ago
"Studies that are peer reviewed by unpaid experts in the field should be published freely" Unasked question: How does Elsevier a for profit business get away with having salaried UCLA professors review articles for free?

calhoun137 8y ago

You say "You seem to blame this squarely on the faculty, and yet faculty have the least amount of freedom when it comes to publication venue" I assume you are referencing this > If UCLA were serious it would simply walk from the negotiation. THAT would send a message to all parties. It might actually spur some action on the part of faculty to get off their collective backsides Then you suggest "Concerted action at the national and international level is required". Who exactly is supposed to be responsible for organizing national and international action and to do what exactly, disband Elsevier? This is not a practical suggestion. A practical approach would be for the institutions that pay Elsevier for access, i.e the faculty/admins to get better organized and get better at negotiating. asking faculty to consider the mere act of not reviewing (much less not submitting papers to) these top journals is a third rate negotiating tactic. A strong negotiator would simply walk out at this point. That would send a much stronger message.

paulddraper 8y ago
> asking faculty to consider the mere act of not reviewing But do you not think that a mandatory "DO NOT REVIEW" is authoritarian and heavy-handed? If you are negotiating GitHub licenses, you will mandate that your employees do not contribute to open-source GitHub?
- calhoun137 8y ago
  It's a tricky problem. The suggestion at hand was UCLA walk from the negotiation. Would that mean faculty at UCLA are given a mandatory "DO NOT REVIEW" order? I would have assumed their free labor would still be most welcome, especially from experts. If UCLA walks, that would possibly cause other universities to follow suit, and I bet Elsevier would come back to the table with a better offer. The way I see things, the universities are not organized at all and are being taken to the cleaners because of things like this. It looks like the people doing the negotiating on behalf of the faculty are in way over their heads and don't even realize how the game is played and are being out maneuvered at every turn by a savvy, massively powerful corporation for which this is pretty much all they do all day, every day.
8y ago