4 ms·

So basically, the society pays money to do research and then pays again to access PDF/HTML files with enormous license fees. Looks like a win-win strategy from

So basically, the society pays money to do research and then pays again to access PDF/HTML files with enormous license fees. Looks like a win-win strategy from publishers. They have effectively co-opted "open access" to make public institutions pay even more money to host PDF files.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
Isn’t the % cost of journal access as a total of govt. R&D sub 1%?
gruez 6y ago
How hard would it be for the government to issue an edict like "from 2025 all research must be published in an open access journal to receive public funding"?
- Bancakes 6y ago
  Probably harder than simply creating and standardising a .gov website that hosts research. It's difficult to demonstrate how journals are more than (or utilised better than) search engines.
  - 6510 6y ago
    Maybe the science education should involve some basic marketing training to teach the scientist that the fruits of their skills + months of their work + expensive equipment + other funding doesn't add up to something they can just give away. Maybe if they paid for everything themselves it would be ethical. Either way it is just incredibly dumb and we should punish them for spending tax money like that if they don't grow up soon. Maybe just bill them as an extra tax if they want to publish behind closed doors. Gradually increase the tax until they see the light. Or call it a fine if you like.
  - gruez 6y ago
    AFAIK the problem isn't with finding a place to host the papers, but that the non-open access journals require you to sign over the paper's copyright to them.
    - Bancakes 6y ago
      I think the problem with open access and such is that they're relatively unknown. When you have a standardised, credible, authoritative source, well, that's all journals have for them. Only this time it's government-guaranteed instead of an appeal to corporate authority.
      - czzr 6y ago
        An issue with open access is that you have to pay thousands of dollars up front to get published - fine if you’re in a rich western lab, not so great if you’re in India or some other emerging country.
        freeone3000 6y ago
        Why do you have to pay thousands of dollars up front though? It doesn't cost that to host a paper. Reviewers don't get paid. Where does the money go?
        esyir 6y ago
        To the Journal. They want money too, but for open access it comes from the researchers. For closed access, it comes from the subscriptions. Forcing open access is still the same as just paying for the subscription, as far as it goes, since if public funds are used for this, it's all the same thing.
        2Gkashmiri 6y ago
        Why cant we just use scihub to host these "open access" stuff... What is the benefit for an end user like me or to the author or to the reviewer to necesarily pay a third party like a publisher in 2021 ? Why cant we just let them die in their circlejerk copyrights with only old content?
- enriquto 6y ago
  > How hard would it be for the government to issue an edict like "from 2025 all research must be published in an open access journal to receive public funding"? In France it is more or less like that. You have to upload your publications to http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr you want them to "count" (from the point of view of public research).
  - redraga 6y ago
    I wasn't aware of this. The model actually works great since I've personally accessed multiple papers from INRIA/IRISA from the HAL archives.
- shash 6y ago
  Well considering that much of the research one would want to access might be published outside the country, pretty hard...
- g_p 6y ago
  This has happened in the UK and Europe already, I believe. The UK definitely - research only counts if it is open access and deposited within a certain number of days of being accepted. Otherwise it doesn't "count" towards evaluation of research output when reviewed.
acomjean 6y ago
Certain public funding sources (nih in the us) require publications be accessible to the public. https://publicaccess.nih.gov/ https://publicaccess.nih.gov/ Some journals like to issue a “surcharge” for this so some of the cost is passed on to the authors. Eg: https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/elsevier-nih-policy-statement https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/elsevier-nih...
vinay_ys 6y ago
I think they are saying Indian taxpayer funded research will be made available to public for free by passing a law and for international scientific journals they will make a deal for a country-wide subscription and make it available to the whole country for free. As a taxpayer I would want to see some usage statistics (not asking for ROI or such, just usage).
Ericson2314 6y ago
Yeah this is silly, but I think this could be progress: - Before: institutions paying the rent might be lame and want to hoard the benefits to themselves. - Now: everyone gets the same benefits so there is no competitive advantage of being the institution able to pay. Of course, this opens up regulatory capture where few notice the rent seeking on the government, but I hope that there is enough buzz around this issue that that phenomenon can be avoid.
softwaredoug 6y ago
This might not be as crazy as it sounds. One group selects research to fund in the social good. This is the INPUT to the scientific process. The publishers filter the OUTPUT: they select what is noteworthy and (ostensibly) good science produced with those funds. If I got a pile of cash to pursue an interesting cancer treatment, you’d want some filter on the output to know whether, indeed, I did anything noteworthy with the cash.
- afrojack123 6y ago
  This assumes the public is stupid. Citizen scientists and readers can decide what is good and what is not. Think of a Substack or Patron model as opposed to Fake News(NY times, Washington Post, CNN, etc).
- tchalla 6y ago
  > The publishers filter the OUTPUT: they select what is noteworthy and (ostensibly) good science produced with those funds. You may want to check this assumption. The publishers do not filter the output. It is done for free by the scientific community. Source : I have been a reviewer for many of these publications over the years.
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    These publishers are just glorified PDF hosting companies? Do they do anything?
    - pirocks 6y ago
      Glorified pdf hosting would probably be an accurate way of describing them. Also sometimes they print the pdfs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Isn’t the % cost of journal access as a total of govt. R&D sub 1%?

gruez 6y ago

How hard would it be for the government to issue an edict like "from 2025 all research must be published in an open access journal to receive public funding"?

Bancakes 6y ago
Probably harder than simply creating and standardising a .gov website that hosts research. It's difficult to demonstrate how journals are more than (or utilised better than) search engines.
- 6510 6y ago
  Maybe the science education should involve some basic marketing training to teach the scientist that the fruits of their skills + months of their work + expensive equipment + other funding doesn't add up to something they can just give away. Maybe if they paid for everything themselves it would be ethical. Either way it is just incredibly dumb and we should punish them for spending tax money like that if they don't grow up soon. Maybe just bill them as an extra tax if they want to publish behind closed doors. Gradually increase the tax until they see the light. Or call it a fine if you like.
- gruez 6y ago
  AFAIK the problem isn't with finding a place to host the papers, but that the non-open access journals require you to sign over the paper's copyright to them.
  - Bancakes 6y ago
    I think the problem with open access and such is that they're relatively unknown. When you have a standardised, credible, authoritative source, well, that's all journals have for them. Only this time it's government-guaranteed instead of an appeal to corporate authority.
    - czzr 6y ago
      An issue with open access is that you have to pay thousands of dollars up front to get published - fine if you’re in a rich western lab, not so great if you’re in India or some other emerging country.
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        Why do you have to pay thousands of dollars up front though? It doesn't cost that to host a paper. Reviewers don't get paid. Where does the money go?
        esyir 6y ago
        To the Journal. They want money too, but for open access it comes from the researchers. For closed access, it comes from the subscriptions. Forcing open access is still the same as just paying for the subscription, as far as it goes, since if public funds are used for this, it's all the same thing.
        2Gkashmiri 6y ago
        Why cant we just use scihub to host these "open access" stuff... What is the benefit for an end user like me or to the author or to the reviewer to necesarily pay a third party like a publisher in 2021 ? Why cant we just let them die in their circlejerk copyrights with only old content?
enriquto 6y ago
> How hard would it be for the government to issue an edict like "from 2025 all research must be published in an open access journal to receive public funding"? In France it is more or less like that. You have to upload your publications to http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr you want them to "count" (from the point of view of public research).
- redraga 6y ago
  I wasn't aware of this. The model actually works great since I've personally accessed multiple papers from INRIA/IRISA from the HAL archives.
shash 6y ago
Well considering that much of the research one would want to access might be published outside the country, pretty hard...
g_p 6y ago
This has happened in the UK and Europe already, I believe. The UK definitely - research only counts if it is open access and deposited within a certain number of days of being accepted. Otherwise it doesn't "count" towards evaluation of research output when reviewed.

acomjean 6y ago

Certain public funding sources (nih in the us) require publications be accessible to the public. https://publicaccess.nih.gov/ https://publicaccess.nih.gov/ Some journals like to issue a “surcharge” for this so some of the cost is passed on to the authors. Eg: https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/elsevier-nih-policy-statement https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/elsevier-nih...

vinay_ys 6y ago

I think they are saying Indian taxpayer funded research will be made available to public for free by passing a law and for international scientific journals they will make a deal for a country-wide subscription and make it available to the whole country for free. As a taxpayer I would want to see some usage statistics (not asking for ROI or such, just usage).

Ericson2314 6y ago

Yeah this is silly, but I think this could be progress: - Before: institutions paying the rent might be lame and want to hoard the benefits to themselves. - Now: everyone gets the same benefits so there is no competitive advantage of being the institution able to pay. Of course, this opens up regulatory capture where few notice the rent seeking on the government, but I hope that there is enough buzz around this issue that that phenomenon can be avoid.

softwaredoug 6y ago

This might not be as crazy as it sounds. One group selects research to fund in the social good. This is the INPUT to the scientific process. The publishers filter the OUTPUT: they select what is noteworthy and (ostensibly) good science produced with those funds. If I got a pile of cash to pursue an interesting cancer treatment, you’d want some filter on the output to know whether, indeed, I did anything noteworthy with the cash.

afrojack123 6y ago
This assumes the public is stupid. Citizen scientists and readers can decide what is good and what is not. Think of a Substack or Patron model as opposed to Fake News(NY times, Washington Post, CNN, etc).
tchalla 6y ago
> The publishers filter the OUTPUT: they select what is noteworthy and (ostensibly) good science produced with those funds. You may want to check this assumption. The publishers do not filter the output. It is done for free by the scientific community. Source : I have been a reviewer for many of these publications over the years.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  These publishers are just glorified PDF hosting companies? Do they do anything?
  - pirocks 6y ago
    Glorified pdf hosting would probably be an accurate way of describing them. Also sometimes they print the pdfs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]