4 ms·

probably any of them that publish to a journal, the scientist could make it public themselves if they wanted to. This is theft...

colejohnson66 6y ago
My understanding is that the universities have contracts with the journals that mandate the professors and researchers publish in the journal with almost no exceptions. You’re putting the blame in the wrong place.
- danielyaa5 6y ago
  then they are stealing money from universities... essentially the scientist is agreeing to work pay free for the university by attending it. What do you think the money for the university is used for?
  - nimih 6y ago
    Who, exactly, do you think gets the money from journal access fees? I'll give you a hint, it's not the people who write the articles, nor the people who peer-review them, nor the universities who employ either group.
  - krastanov 6y ago
    > the scientist is agreeing to work pay free for the university by attending it This statement makes me think you significantly misunderstand how scientists / universities function. The scientists (graduate students, postdocs, professors, staff) are all salaried employees of the university. The university does take some of the grant money given to lead professors (e.g. to pay the aforementioned salaries).
  - armoredkitten 6y ago
    Universities around the world collectively pay billions of dollars to gain access to journals, many of which their own researchers contribute to. The University of California cut ties with Elsevier because of the extremely high cost of accessing their work.[1] And that is a huge deal for a major US university like that to end things with the world's largest academic publisher. The universities are not making money from journals -- they're paying exorbitant amounts to for-profit companies with some of the largest profit margins in any industry. If someone were to snap their fingers tomorrow and make it so that scientists could publish their work without having to deal with these for-profit publishers, universities would save millions of dollars (per school), taxpayers would save money, and the general public would also have greater access to the work that they themselves funded through public grants. [1] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-pub...
    - unishark 6y ago
      It's confusing but "the University of California" as used here actually refers to the entire system of ten schools, from Berkeley to, uh, Merced. The system collectively negotiates for journals. There was also a big fight over prices with Nature about 10 years ago.
- gautamdivgi 6y ago
  Universities have contracts with journals through their libraries to provide their staff full access to publications. Universities rarely tell scientists where to publish. That is determined by the scientists, the quality of the paper and the editor of the journal. Scientists and PhD students need to publish in high impact factor journals for their work to be recognized, for promotions, graduation, etc. There is a lot of work that goes into a scientific publication. It's not a blog (which most people equate it to when they say why isn't it free). Scientists can make their publications available on their personal website. Generally google scholar will give you a pdf if its available. Some labs maintain papers on their site, other scientists don't. Generally, finding older publications is a challenge. I've commented on this earlier. Asking the researcher to not publish in these journals is pointless. You need to legislate access. But in general, most scientists will have access to these journals from their university libraries (at least in US/Canada/Europe).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Fomite 6y ago
  This is inaccurate. Universities have contracts with publishers to get their faculty access to the journals. I've never encountered a mandate to publish in certain journals because the university has contracts with them. On occasion there are incentives like breaks on open access fees essentially because the university pre-paid, and there are field specific norms on where to publish.
Fomite 6y ago
Hell, I use Sci-Hub on occasion to find my own papers because it's the fastest way to get to them.
- markus92 6y ago
  Same. Had to pirate my own paper once as my institution didn't have a subscription to that specific journal. Zero qualms here about that.
cossatot 6y ago
A whole lot of us post our papers on our websites. Those that don't are typically afraid of getting their employers in legal trouble, or don't know how to set up a website beyond the faculty bio page that their department makes for them.

colejohnson66 6y ago

My understanding is that the universities have contracts with the journals that mandate the professors and researchers publish in the journal with almost no exceptions. You’re putting the blame in the wrong place.

danielyaa5 6y ago
then they are stealing money from universities... essentially the scientist is agreeing to work pay free for the university by attending it. What do you think the money for the university is used for?
- nimih 6y ago
  Who, exactly, do you think gets the money from journal access fees? I'll give you a hint, it's not the people who write the articles, nor the people who peer-review them, nor the universities who employ either group.
- krastanov 6y ago
  > the scientist is agreeing to work pay free for the university by attending it This statement makes me think you significantly misunderstand how scientists / universities function. The scientists (graduate students, postdocs, professors, staff) are all salaried employees of the university. The university does take some of the grant money given to lead professors (e.g. to pay the aforementioned salaries).
- armoredkitten 6y ago
  Universities around the world collectively pay billions of dollars to gain access to journals, many of which their own researchers contribute to. The University of California cut ties with Elsevier because of the extremely high cost of accessing their work.[1] And that is a huge deal for a major US university like that to end things with the world's largest academic publisher. The universities are not making money from journals -- they're paying exorbitant amounts to for-profit companies with some of the largest profit margins in any industry. If someone were to snap their fingers tomorrow and make it so that scientists could publish their work without having to deal with these for-profit publishers, universities would save millions of dollars (per school), taxpayers would save money, and the general public would also have greater access to the work that they themselves funded through public grants. [1] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-pub...
  - unishark 6y ago
    It's confusing but "the University of California" as used here actually refers to the entire system of ten schools, from Berkeley to, uh, Merced. The system collectively negotiates for journals. There was also a big fight over prices with Nature about 10 years ago.
gautamdivgi 6y ago
Universities have contracts with journals through their libraries to provide their staff full access to publications. Universities rarely tell scientists where to publish. That is determined by the scientists, the quality of the paper and the editor of the journal. Scientists and PhD students need to publish in high impact factor journals for their work to be recognized, for promotions, graduation, etc. There is a lot of work that goes into a scientific publication. It's not a blog (which most people equate it to when they say why isn't it free). Scientists can make their publications available on their personal website. Generally google scholar will give you a pdf if its available. Some labs maintain papers on their site, other scientists don't. Generally, finding older publications is a challenge. I've commented on this earlier. Asking the researcher to not publish in these journals is pointless. You need to legislate access. But in general, most scientists will have access to these journals from their university libraries (at least in US/Canada/Europe).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Fomite 6y ago
This is inaccurate. Universities have contracts with publishers to get their faculty access to the journals. I've never encountered a mandate to publish in certain journals because the university has contracts with them. On occasion there are incentives like breaks on open access fees essentially because the university pre-paid, and there are field specific norms on where to publish.

Fomite 6y ago

Hell, I use Sci-Hub on occasion to find my own papers because it's the fastest way to get to them.

markus92 6y ago
Same. Had to pirate my own paper once as my institution didn't have a subscription to that specific journal. Zero qualms here about that.

cossatot 6y ago

A whole lot of us post our papers on our websites. Those that don't are typically afraid of getting their employers in legal trouble, or don't know how to set up a website beyond the faculty bio page that their department makes for them.