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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 t

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.

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.