7 ms·

I've always said that the problem is not framed correctly. Who gives money to the greedy publisher, for basically nothing? Blame them first and the problem will

by buhics 8y ago

I've always said that the problem is not framed correctly. Who gives money to the greedy publisher, for basically nothing? Blame them first and the problem will go away. EDIT: blame the academic management who gives the money to the publishers. This way the publishers will go away to greener pastures.

Vinnl 8y ago
Well... It is pretty often framed as blaming the publishers?
- buhics 8y ago
  Yes, most of the time. Publishers should be blamed because they ask money for a service which is no longer needed. But who gives them the money, nevertheless? Academic management. Researchers have very little to say about this, except if you look at their real behavior (arXiv, sci-hub, etc). However, in management land everything is designed to support the publishers.
  - lixtra 8y ago
    > Researchers have very little to say about this, except if you look at their real behavior (arXiv, sci-hub, etc). If powerful researchers cared, they wouldn’t review for journals they don’t like. Obviously the benefit from doing the reviews is bigger than their preference of Open Access.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      > Obviously the benefit from doing the reviews is bigger than their preference of Open Access. Researchers don't usually benefit from doing peer review: they don't get paid for it, and it eats time they could spend doing research. It's more of a sense of duty they have that they're "supposed" to do those reviews, and I can't really fault them for that. (Though I would very much encourage them to only review for fully Open Access journals, and respond to review requests with invitations to submit the work to those journals.)
      - lixtra 8y ago
        If they don’t benefit in some way why do they review? Edit: - sorry, I missed the sense of duty. Thanks for pointing it out below. - added don’t
        Vinnl 8y ago
        Again: a sense of duty, it's considered part of their job. They can certainly choose not to do it, or not to do it for paywalled journals. However, when I suggest that, I often get the reply that that's not fair to those who submit to those journals - often early-career researchers whose career could be greatly helped by publishing there. And again, I can't fault them for that. (I assume you meant to say "don't benefit"?)
        buhics 8y ago
        I don't buy the sense of duty argument. It's good for the career. Until the appearance of the notion of open peer-review, the reviews were not public and thrown away by the editor after the publishing decision. Concerning the sense of duty, nobody stops anybody to review a work and post it somewhere publicly accessible. However, that's rare to see.
      - a3_nm 8y ago
        The benefit to reviewing is that it's frowned upon to publish in a conference/journal if you don't review for them. So academics are not just motivated by a "sense of duty": if they don't accept to review then it can become harder for them to publish (which has significant career benefits). So if you don't review for closed-access venues (which I try to do), you are pressured into not publishing there: and not publishing in closed-access venues is difficult as most papers are collaborations, and usually your co-authors do not share your convictions.
        Vinnl 8y ago
        Yes, I guess that's true, too. But even researchers who do boycott some journals sometimes indicate that they still review for those journals for the above reasons.
    - buhics 8y ago
      Yes, many of them follow the path of least resistance, but not all of them. Even the usual researcher from the middle of the herd votes against publishers with the reading behaviors.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    > who gives them the money, nevertheless? When it comes to subscriptions: academic libraries, under pressure of academics. (And in this case, a group of German libraries finally refused to do so.) When it comes to disproportionally high publishing fees, however, academics do have something to say, because they can often choose to publish somewhere with lower fees. However, that's not really an option as long as their career progression is determined by which journals they publish in. Thus, I think part of the cause there is those who use journal names as a criterion when judging e.g. grant applicants.
    - buhics 8y ago
      > When it comes to subscriptions: academic libraries, under pressure of academics. Where are these researchers who pressure the academic libraries to buy subscriptions? I never saw them, except if they are in the management. If we were to speak in market terms, well, publishers are private entities driven by the market forces, right? So in market terms the clients (researchers) manifest a strong preference for other products than those offered by the publishers. Why do they still exist? Does not make any sense, except if we recognize also that the market is perturbed by the fact that somebody still buys their product and forces the clients to consume and to produce it.
ur-whale 8y ago
You're assuming the academic management has nothing to lose in canceling the deals with the vultures. I suspect they do have much to lose.
- asdff 8y ago
  It will be hard to recruit faculty who get grant money to fund the school if Elsevier has banned your campus IP addresses.
refurb 8y ago
Blame the academic administrators who demand publications in top tier journals - the same ones who charge a ton for access. Scientists can publish in whatever journal they please. The problem is that if they publish in most open sources journals (there are exceptions), they aren't counted as top tier and it hurts their career.
- jshowa3 8y ago
  Many of the open source journals are predatory. And they will publish anything, even complete junk. The problem isn't academic administers demanding publication in recognized journals. Its that they charge steep prices in the first place.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Open source means that the source code is available, not that you can get the product for free.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > Open source means that the source code is available, not that you can get the product for free. But open source means that the work can be copied freely - which leads to marginal costs of near 0 €$.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        Open source implies does-not-cost-anything, but does-not-cost-anything does not imply open source. Open access journals would only be open source if they, you know, made available source code (or source something).
        jshowa3 8y ago
        Open source doesn't imply "does-not-cost-anything" at all considering you can still sell open source applications. And yeah, open access is a better word.

by buhics 8y ago

Vinnl 8y ago

Well... It is pretty often framed as blaming the publishers?

buhics 8y ago
Yes, most of the time. Publishers should be blamed because they ask money for a service which is no longer needed. But who gives them the money, nevertheless? Academic management. Researchers have very little to say about this, except if you look at their real behavior (arXiv, sci-hub, etc). However, in management land everything is designed to support the publishers.
- lixtra 8y ago
  > Researchers have very little to say about this, except if you look at their real behavior (arXiv, sci-hub, etc). If powerful researchers cared, they wouldn’t review for journals they don’t like. Obviously the benefit from doing the reviews is bigger than their preference of Open Access.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    > Obviously the benefit from doing the reviews is bigger than their preference of Open Access. Researchers don't usually benefit from doing peer review: they don't get paid for it, and it eats time they could spend doing research. It's more of a sense of duty they have that they're "supposed" to do those reviews, and I can't really fault them for that. (Though I would very much encourage them to only review for fully Open Access journals, and respond to review requests with invitations to submit the work to those journals.)
    - lixtra 8y ago
      If they don’t benefit in some way why do they review? Edit: - sorry, I missed the sense of duty. Thanks for pointing it out below. - added don’t
      - Vinnl 8y ago
        Again: a sense of duty, it's considered part of their job. They can certainly choose not to do it, or not to do it for paywalled journals. However, when I suggest that, I often get the reply that that's not fair to those who submit to those journals - often early-career researchers whose career could be greatly helped by publishing there. And again, I can't fault them for that. (I assume you meant to say "don't benefit"?)
      - buhics 8y ago
        I don't buy the sense of duty argument. It's good for the career. Until the appearance of the notion of open peer-review, the reviews were not public and thrown away by the editor after the publishing decision. Concerning the sense of duty, nobody stops anybody to review a work and post it somewhere publicly accessible. However, that's rare to see.
    - a3_nm 8y ago
      The benefit to reviewing is that it's frowned upon to publish in a conference/journal if you don't review for them. So academics are not just motivated by a "sense of duty": if they don't accept to review then it can become harder for them to publish (which has significant career benefits). So if you don't review for closed-access venues (which I try to do), you are pressured into not publishing there: and not publishing in closed-access venues is difficult as most papers are collaborations, and usually your co-authors do not share your convictions.
      - Vinnl 8y ago
        Yes, I guess that's true, too. But even researchers who do boycott some journals sometimes indicate that they still review for those journals for the above reasons.
  - buhics 8y ago
    Yes, many of them follow the path of least resistance, but not all of them. Even the usual researcher from the middle of the herd votes against publishers with the reading behaviors.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  > who gives them the money, nevertheless? When it comes to subscriptions: academic libraries, under pressure of academics. (And in this case, a group of German libraries finally refused to do so.) When it comes to disproportionally high publishing fees, however, academics do have something to say, because they can often choose to publish somewhere with lower fees. However, that's not really an option as long as their career progression is determined by which journals they publish in. Thus, I think part of the cause there is those who use journal names as a criterion when judging e.g. grant applicants.
  - buhics 8y ago
    > When it comes to subscriptions: academic libraries, under pressure of academics. Where are these researchers who pressure the academic libraries to buy subscriptions? I never saw them, except if they are in the management. If we were to speak in market terms, well, publishers are private entities driven by the market forces, right? So in market terms the clients (researchers) manifest a strong preference for other products than those offered by the publishers. Why do they still exist? Does not make any sense, except if we recognize also that the market is perturbed by the fact that somebody still buys their product and forces the clients to consume and to produce it.

ur-whale 8y ago

You're assuming the academic management has nothing to lose in canceling the deals with the vultures. I suspect they do have much to lose.

asdff 8y ago
It will be hard to recruit faculty who get grant money to fund the school if Elsevier has banned your campus IP addresses.

refurb 8y ago

Blame the academic administrators who demand publications in top tier journals - the same ones who charge a ton for access. Scientists can publish in whatever journal they please. The problem is that if they publish in most open sources journals (there are exceptions), they aren't counted as top tier and it hurts their career.

jshowa3 8y ago
Many of the open source journals are predatory. And they will publish anything, even complete junk. The problem isn't academic administers demanding publication in recognized journals. Its that they charge steep prices in the first place.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Open source means that the source code is available, not that you can get the product for free.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Open source means that the source code is available, not that you can get the product for free. But open source means that the work can be copied freely - which leads to marginal costs of near 0 €$.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      Open source implies does-not-cost-anything, but does-not-cost-anything does not imply open source. Open access journals would only be open source if they, you know, made available source code (or source something).
      - jshowa3 8y ago
        Open source doesn't imply "does-not-cost-anything" at all considering you can still sell open source applications. And yeah, open access is a better word.