4 ms·

But, Sci-hub (which I use every day and am in full support of!) is a band-aid solution to the open-access problem. I wonder if the entire UC system going offli

But, Sci-hub (which I use every day and am in full support of!) is a band-aid solution to the open-access problem. I wonder if the entire UC system going offline from Elsevier access is enough to stop other researchers from submitting to their journals. Probably not initially, but I know that many of my colleagues avoid submitting to journals that they know their peers don't read.

gh02t 8y ago
It's mostly a problem in more specialized fields where there are only really one or two journals servicing it. If Elsevier owns the only journal(s) in your field then you're gonna be in a tough spot. Organizing and launching a new journal is challenging, which is one of the reasons Elsevier has been so hard to overthrow despite almost everyone being unhappy with them. What is also needed is for more journals to be founded or defect. Elsevier's big subscribers can exert some leverage, but Elsevier's strategy has been to lock down their control of publishing in entire fields, meaning that you may not have much alternative.
jrochkind1 8y ago
Note this announcement doesn't say anything about submitting to journals, doesn't say that even UC researchers will no longer submit to Elsevier journals (or no longer be on Elsevier journal editorial boards). They can and presumably will keep submitting to Elsevier journals. UC just won't pay for licenses to access those journals. If UC tried to tell faculty which journals they were or were not allowed to submit to, that would be a LOT more controversial to them. I mean, this _could_ have been controversial too, but that would be even more so. If this actual decision wasn't controversial among faculty, my guess is it's because they're all using sci-hub anyway.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Note this announcement doesn't say anything about submitting to journals, or even UC researchers no longer doing that. The policy which resulted in it—UC’s push for open access for public-funded research, and Elsevier’s unwillingness to allow open access on terms UC was willing to accept—implies that, should the breach not be healed, there will eventually be a problem for at least some subset of UC researchers publishing in Elsevier journals.
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
    > implies that, should the breach not be healed, there will eventually be a problem for at least some subset of UC researchers publishing in Elsevier journals. What sort of a problem, what do you mean?
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      If UC’s policy goal is open access for public-funded research, eventually (whether they have a deal with publishers providing blanket terms for this or not), they are presumably going to adopt (or be part of convincing some public funding authorities to adopt) a policy with either concrete disincentives or an outright prohibition on research with certain funding sources being published in a way which doesn't provide open access.
      - jrochkind1 8y ago
        Maybe, but at the moment that would cause a faculty uproar. Someone else pointed out that a UC Office of Scholarly Communication page from while negotiations were ongoing reassured faculty that: > No matter what happens, UC authors retain the right to publish in the journal of their choice. > By providing article processing charge (APC) support through the UC Libraries as well as an opt-out option, UC is working hard to ensure that authors have maximum flexibility in determining where and how they want to publish. https://web.archive.org/web/20190209202821/https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/uc-and-elsevier/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190209202821/https://osc.unive... If they try to start telling faculty where they can or can't publish, faculty are gonna be really mad. I think UC is trying to figure out how to advance their financial and business agenda here _without_ making faculty mad, which is why they were reassuring faculty that these negotiations would not impact their right to publish in the journals of their choice.
- colourlessgreen 8y ago
  Well, there's UCLA -- at least as of December last year https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Talks-With-Elsevier-UCLA/245311 https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Talks-With-Elsevier-UCL...
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
    True, they _asked_ professors to _consider_ publishing elsewhere. In general, professors trying to get tenure will publish wherever they can the quickest to give them the most prestige, it's a minority (or well-established professors with tenure) who are going to take any moral or political considerations into account. "publish or perish" is for real, these folks are scrambling for it. It is not an oversight that the particular announcement in the OP doesn't even _mention_ publishing. But sure, UCLA even asking professors to consider that is a good step, and probably scares Elsevier. I'm in favor of it. I just wouldn't count on it quickly having an immediate effect on it's own. It could be part of a slow trend though. Now, if UC takes the money they're saving from not paying Elseiver, and spends it on organizing and setting up and supporting some open access journals, figuring out how to get the right people involved to get the new journals prestige, that could help the trend...
    - colourlessgreen 8y ago
      UC does put money toward OA. UC already have an OA journal publishing platform: escholarship.org UC Press have an open access books program, Luminos: https://www.ucpress.edu/openaccess https://www.ucpress.edu/openaccess UC Davis & LA participate in the TOME open access books project: https://www.arl.org/focus-areas/scholarly-communication/toward-an-open-monograph-ecosystem https://www.arl.org/focus-areas/scholarly-communication/towa... finally there's the UC open access policies for published research articles from 2013/2015 to be made open access on escholarship.org: http://uc-oa.info http://uc-oa.info
      - jrochkind1 8y ago
        For sure! Now what if they take say half of the money they're not gonna be paying to Elsevier and do even more of that and more, that'd be exciting!

gh02t 8y ago

It's mostly a problem in more specialized fields where there are only really one or two journals servicing it. If Elsevier owns the only journal(s) in your field then you're gonna be in a tough spot. Organizing and launching a new journal is challenging, which is one of the reasons Elsevier has been so hard to overthrow despite almost everyone being unhappy with them. What is also needed is for more journals to be founded or defect. Elsevier's big subscribers can exert some leverage, but Elsevier's strategy has been to lock down their control of publishing in entire fields, meaning that you may not have much alternative.

jrochkind1 8y ago

Note this announcement doesn't say anything about submitting to journals, doesn't say that even UC researchers will no longer submit to Elsevier journals (or no longer be on Elsevier journal editorial boards). They can and presumably will keep submitting to Elsevier journals. UC just won't pay for licenses to access those journals. If UC tried to tell faculty which journals they were or were not allowed to submit to, that would be a LOT more controversial to them. I mean, this _could_ have been controversial too, but that would be even more so. If this actual decision wasn't controversial among faculty, my guess is it's because they're all using sci-hub anyway.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Note this announcement doesn't say anything about submitting to journals, or even UC researchers no longer doing that. The policy which resulted in it—UC’s push for open access for public-funded research, and Elsevier’s unwillingness to allow open access on terms UC was willing to accept—implies that, should the breach not be healed, there will eventually be a problem for at least some subset of UC researchers publishing in Elsevier journals.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  > implies that, should the breach not be healed, there will eventually be a problem for at least some subset of UC researchers publishing in Elsevier journals. What sort of a problem, what do you mean?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    If UC’s policy goal is open access for public-funded research, eventually (whether they have a deal with publishers providing blanket terms for this or not), they are presumably going to adopt (or be part of convincing some public funding authorities to adopt) a policy with either concrete disincentives or an outright prohibition on research with certain funding sources being published in a way which doesn't provide open access.
    - jrochkind1 8y ago
      Maybe, but at the moment that would cause a faculty uproar. Someone else pointed out that a UC Office of Scholarly Communication page from while negotiations were ongoing reassured faculty that: > No matter what happens, UC authors retain the right to publish in the journal of their choice. > By providing article processing charge (APC) support through the UC Libraries as well as an opt-out option, UC is working hard to ensure that authors have maximum flexibility in determining where and how they want to publish. https://web.archive.org/web/20190209202821/https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/uc-and-elsevier/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190209202821/https://osc.unive... If they try to start telling faculty where they can or can't publish, faculty are gonna be really mad. I think UC is trying to figure out how to advance their financial and business agenda here _without_ making faculty mad, which is why they were reassuring faculty that these negotiations would not impact their right to publish in the journals of their choice.
colourlessgreen 8y ago
Well, there's UCLA -- at least as of December last year https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Talks-With-Elsevier-UCLA/245311 https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Talks-With-Elsevier-UCL...
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  True, they _asked_ professors to _consider_ publishing elsewhere. In general, professors trying to get tenure will publish wherever they can the quickest to give them the most prestige, it's a minority (or well-established professors with tenure) who are going to take any moral or political considerations into account. "publish or perish" is for real, these folks are scrambling for it. It is not an oversight that the particular announcement in the OP doesn't even _mention_ publishing. But sure, UCLA even asking professors to consider that is a good step, and probably scares Elsevier. I'm in favor of it. I just wouldn't count on it quickly having an immediate effect on it's own. It could be part of a slow trend though. Now, if UC takes the money they're saving from not paying Elseiver, and spends it on organizing and setting up and supporting some open access journals, figuring out how to get the right people involved to get the new journals prestige, that could help the trend...
  - colourlessgreen 8y ago
    UC does put money toward OA. UC already have an OA journal publishing platform: escholarship.org UC Press have an open access books program, Luminos: https://www.ucpress.edu/openaccess https://www.ucpress.edu/openaccess UC Davis & LA participate in the TOME open access books project: https://www.arl.org/focus-areas/scholarly-communication/toward-an-open-monograph-ecosystem https://www.arl.org/focus-areas/scholarly-communication/towa... finally there's the UC open access policies for published research articles from 2013/2015 to be made open access on escholarship.org: http://uc-oa.info http://uc-oa.info
    - jrochkind1 8y ago
      For sure! Now what if they take say half of the money they're not gonna be paying to Elsevier and do even more of that and more, that'd be exciting!