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What is the reasoning for having subscriptions for journals? Does the journal work like some sort of filtering system to weed out the bad articles and only prov

What is the reasoning for having subscriptions for journals? Does the journal work like some sort of filtering system to weed out the bad articles and only provide the user with good articles?

misterdoubt 7y ago
Once upon a time, reaching out to contact editors and reviewers, getting together reviews, shepherding the editors, managing publishing decisions, formatting manuscripts into articles, and printing physical journals, and mailing them to customers cost significant amounts of money. So it was more-or-less in everyone's interest to support publishers, as a key actor in disseminating and consuming scientific knowledge. So what is the reasoning? Pure institutional inertia.
wolf0 7y ago
The peer-review process is the low-pass filter that you are talking about, and that is largely contributed to by volunteers. The subscription model seems to be an artifact from print, etc.
rotskoff 7y ago
In the chemistry / molecular biology community, that is definitely part of the role played by a journal like Cell. It is considered a very prestigious journal and tends to publish only what the editors and reviewers perceive to be very important findings. Of course, we (scientists) are imperfect reviewers and sometimes don't see the value in great work and likewise sometimes imagine greatness in mediocre work. Editors also feel pressure to select work that they believe will be rapidly and frequently cited---as the number of citations per paper in the first two years after publication affects the impact factor of the journal. Unlike math and physics, many disciplines have only recently adopted preprint servers (like bioRxiv) and there's still some bias against posting preprints within the community.
holy_city 7y ago
There are a bunch of dubious journals and conferences around the world, and researching a topic without filtering down to a handful of journals can turn up a lot of crap. There's been a number of times where I've been researching niche topics and found "peer reviewed" publications where the math was incorrect, the code examples were invalid syntax, and had results/analysis that I couldn't recreate. Sometimes I wonder if the authors submit to journals until they find one that sticks. That's not to say "good" journals don't have "bad" publications. Some have various levels of peer review, like full text/abstract only/not reviewed at all. Sometimes you wind up with content that deserves a tech blog post, not a journal article. But different strokes for different folks, it's not hard to filter out mentally once you're familiar with the literature.
- yesenadam 7y ago
  More than a bunch! The scale of it is astonishing and depressing. See Inside the Fake Science Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q

What is the reasoning for having subscriptions for journals? Does the journal work like some sort of filtering system to weed out the bad articles and only provide the user with good articles?

misterdoubt 7y ago

Once upon a time, reaching out to contact editors and reviewers, getting together reviews, shepherding the editors, managing publishing decisions, formatting manuscripts into articles, and printing physical journals, and mailing them to customers cost significant amounts of money. So it was more-or-less in everyone's interest to support publishers, as a key actor in disseminating and consuming scientific knowledge. So what is the reasoning? Pure institutional inertia.

wolf0 7y ago

The peer-review process is the low-pass filter that you are talking about, and that is largely contributed to by volunteers. The subscription model seems to be an artifact from print, etc.

rotskoff 7y ago

In the chemistry / molecular biology community, that is definitely part of the role played by a journal like Cell. It is considered a very prestigious journal and tends to publish only what the editors and reviewers perceive to be very important findings. Of course, we (scientists) are imperfect reviewers and sometimes don't see the value in great work and likewise sometimes imagine greatness in mediocre work. Editors also feel pressure to select work that they believe will be rapidly and frequently cited---as the number of citations per paper in the first two years after publication affects the impact factor of the journal. Unlike math and physics, many disciplines have only recently adopted preprint servers (like bioRxiv) and there's still some bias against posting preprints within the community.

holy_city 7y ago

There are a bunch of dubious journals and conferences around the world, and researching a topic without filtering down to a handful of journals can turn up a lot of crap. There's been a number of times where I've been researching niche topics and found "peer reviewed" publications where the math was incorrect, the code examples were invalid syntax, and had results/analysis that I couldn't recreate. Sometimes I wonder if the authors submit to journals until they find one that sticks. That's not to say "good" journals don't have "bad" publications. Some have various levels of peer review, like full text/abstract only/not reviewed at all. Sometimes you wind up with content that deserves a tech blog post, not a journal article. But different strokes for different folks, it's not hard to filter out mentally once you're familiar with the literature.

yesenadam 7y ago
More than a bunch! The scale of it is astonishing and depressing. See Inside the Fake Science Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ras_VYgA77Q