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UC faculty to Elsevier: Restart negotiations, or else

30 points by cracker_jacks 7y ago

hjhjkj 7y ago
just use sci-hub
rainyMammoth 7y ago
I don't understand why those journals are still a thing. It seems that almost all universities in the world agree that Elsevier and similar journals are predatory. Why can they not all agree to all switch journals at once to something managed by committee, similar to what is done in the open source world. Is the status-quo that difficult to break? In this specific case why are all those biologist not starting a new journal, pushing other people in biology to join them and boycott Elsevier?
- DocTomoe 7y ago
  > Why can they not all agree to all switch journals at once to something managed by committee, similar to what is done in the open source world. That would mean that committee being staffed by volunteers - and the people that are qualified for that kind of job (scholars) already have enough on their plate. Elsevier & Co. sell convinience, not scientific articles.
  - jhbadger 7y ago
    But the thing is, almost all of the work is already done by volunteers! Reviewers and even most editors for journals are academics giving their time for free. Basically the one thing journals due these days is typeset. As weird as it may sound for those in math and physics, most of the scientific world doesn't use TeX/LaTeX. Instead, they submit a manuscript in Microsoft Word that needs to be typeset.
olliej 7y ago
My question is why /any/ UC employees are still working for Elsevier, and why are they submitting to those journals. Cus are tax payer funded, and Elsevier makes its money by taking exclusive right to publish that research and then selling that at 100% profit.
londons_explore 7y ago
This would be solved if just a few universities released a statement along these lines: * We will not teach, employ, cite, publish or peer review for people published, employed by, or reviewing for the Cell journal after January 1st 2020. By making the process of being published in the journal affect their careers, I can bet that very few researchers will publish there. At the same time, employees will leave, and reviewers will leave.

30 points by cracker_jacks 7y ago

just use sci-hub

I don't understand why those journals are still a thing. It seems that almost all universities in the world agree that Elsevier and similar journals are predatory. Why can they not all agree to all switch journals at once to something managed by committee, similar to what is done in the open source world. Is the status-quo that difficult to break? In this specific case why are all those biologist not starting a new journal, pushing other people in biology to join them and boycott Elsevier?

DocTomoe 7y ago
> Why can they not all agree to all switch journals at once to something managed by committee, similar to what is done in the open source world. That would mean that committee being staffed by volunteers - and the people that are qualified for that kind of job (scholars) already have enough on their plate. Elsevier & Co. sell convinience, not scientific articles.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  But the thing is, almost all of the work is already done by volunteers! Reviewers and even most editors for journals are academics giving their time for free. Basically the one thing journals due these days is typeset. As weird as it may sound for those in math and physics, most of the scientific world doesn't use TeX/LaTeX. Instead, they submit a manuscript in Microsoft Word that needs to be typeset.

olliej 7y ago

My question is why /any/ UC employees are still working for Elsevier, and why are they submitting to those journals. Cus are tax payer funded, and Elsevier makes its money by taking exclusive right to publish that research and then selling that at 100% profit.

londons_explore 7y ago

This would be solved if just a few universities released a statement along these lines: * We will not teach, employ, cite, publish or peer review for people published, employed by, or reviewing for the Cell journal after January 1st 2020. By making the process of being published in the journal affect their careers, I can bet that very few researchers will publish there. At the same time, employees will leave, and reviewers will leave.