6 ms·

The universities aren't the ones collecting the money. In fact, they the main targets of the extortion. Most professors care mostly about prestige (reputation

The universities aren't the ones collecting the money. In fact, they the main targets of the extortion. Most professors care mostly about prestige (reputation for being smart, wise or innovative) and would prefer to ignore or disdain the economic and legal aspects of life. OK, that is a little unfair: most profs want to focus on their specialty and sometimes don't pay enough attention to how their actions interact with the law and the economy to affect university libraries far away. Academic publishers, e.g., Elsevier, give professors prestige in exchange for the professors' assigning copyright (legal ownership) of the professor's writings to the publishers with the result that a university library (which is typically far away from the publishing professor's own university) must pay the publishers to give its students and faculty access the academic literature without constantly running into the paywalls that people who are not students or faculty run into.

danaris 6y ago
I can't speak for "most" professors, since I haven't done any kind of scientific survey. However, I work in academia, and every professor I personally know hates Elsevier, and wants to get away from them in any reasonable way. But when the journals that literally define their field are monopolized by Elsevier, there's only so much they can do for the time being. To avoid them, they'd have to accept their research being ignored, their careers stagnating, and their ability to continue to do their jobs properly being threatened.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  SciHub is missing an opportunity by not providing a platform for researchers to self organize and run the peer review process directly on SciHub (or a new sister domain safe from interference). That would give them immediate legitimacy.
- ravel-bar-foo 6y ago
  Couple funny stories about Elsevier. I published with them, and created an account. They started sending me spam advertising new journals. So I logged in and unsubscribed from all their mailing lists. Reliably, exactly one year after unsubscribing I get spam from them. When I go to unsubscribe I find a new category of mailing list, opted in automatically. One might call it a mistake, but is remarkably suspicious that the spam regularly arrives exactly one year (to the day) after I most recently unsubscribed. There are the financial aspects to their exploitation, but I guess this struck a nerve because it is scummy behavior that affects me more personally.
  - randomswede 6y ago
    As a possible hypothesis test, next time, could you leave the new opt-in in place for a month before unsubscribing? If that reliably then has a new list added exactly one year later, it is a strong signal that it indeed based on you unsubscribing. But, if it instead happens at 11 months, it is a string signal that new lists are added at a specific month/day. I mean, I would not be surprised if it happens one year later, due to Elsevier tracking when you unsubscribed, but this is a testable hypothesis, so testing it would be a Good Thing.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
I think it's extraordinarily unfair to think of this as extortion. The professors have always been free to publish wherever they like and they each chose the copyrighted journals. Do we say that a fancy hotel "extorted" the fees from the guests who chose to book a room? Some young researchers often claim that they feel pressured by the system to choose the so-called prestige journals. This pressure is coming from older researchers who are making a decision from their experience. They don't need to reward journal writers but they do. Indeed, the open access professors could announce that they will penalize the tenure reviews for those who publish in copyrighted journals. But they don't, and I think it's because they realize that, for all of the costs, the copyrighted journals do a good job curating the information.
- Vinnl 6y ago
  If I give you the choice between a bullet through the head or a slap in the face, it'd be ridiculous for me to claim that you were free not to choose the slap in the face. Sure, it's not the publishers themselves that are de facto forcing researchers to publish with them, but they do make use of the fact that they're being put in a position of being a rent-seeker, and they lobby a lot to keep it that way. Of course, the question is not "who's to blame?", but "how to change this"? And indeed, the publishers aren't too relevant to that question - it's the incentive structures that should change. (Disclosure: I contribute to https://plaudit.pub https://plaudit.pub, which aims to change these incentive structures.)
- hollerith 6y ago
  I agree that it is unfair to call it extortion. I'll try to be more careful in the future. >But they don't, and I think it's because they realize that . . . They don't realize any such thing: they're just doing what benefits them personally (e.g., surviving as a professor or apprentice professor) at the expense of the broader ecosystem. It is a problem of coordination: if the professors, students and the governments and foundations that fund research acted in unison (and were sufficiently informed and clear-thinking), then the entire academic literature would probably be available without restriction (like, e.g., Wikipedia is) on the internet by now. Such an arrangement would satisfy the values of the professor, students, etc, better than the current system does. But it is hard to get there because it is hard for 10s of 1000s to act in unison.
setr 6y ago
I think prestige is a very unfair characterization. It’s my belief that most people just want their research to be seen and engaged with by their peers (it is, of course, the fundamental purpose of producing a paper). Universities however want prestige, and enforce the policy “publish or perish”. The problem is still as you say — the only way to do so reliably is to give up your ownership to a prestigious journal (because prestigious journals are widely read by the relevant folk). Ultimately the fix is up to the top universities. If Stanford suddenly says all CS papers are now being published on SciHub first (or through some new filter), who’s going to argue? Every CS researcher will immediately add it to their reading list... because they want the good shit
- Vinnl 6y ago
  > Ultimately the fix is up to the top universities. If Stanford suddenly says all CS papers are now being published on SciHub first (or through some new filter), who’s going to argue? Unfortunately, if they have staff that also intend to, or should prepare for, working somewhere else after Stanford (which is very common in an academic career), then those are likely to revolt. You could see this happen with the introduction of "Plan S" in many European countries, where researchers were afraid that "top" journals were no longer accessible to them and that that would hurt their standing in the field and future opportunities in, primarily, the US.
- hollerith 6y ago
  I agree that it was harsh for me to focus on the desire for prestige. It would've been kinder of me to focus on the need for the professor or apprentice professor to remain employed and, like you say, to have a positive influence on the community of professors.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > It’s my belief that most people just want their research to be seen and engaged with by their peers (it is, of course, the fundamental purpose of producing a paper). Universities however want prestige, and enforce the policy “publish or perish”. The two are one and the same. What you call "Universities" is simply "professors at the universities". Department policies for tenure are set by a bunch of professors. The dean of the college is always a professor. There's no "us" vs "them".

danaris 6y ago

I can't speak for "most" professors, since I haven't done any kind of scientific survey. However, I work in academia, and every professor I personally know hates Elsevier, and wants to get away from them in any reasonable way. But when the journals that literally define their field are monopolized by Elsevier, there's only so much they can do for the time being. To avoid them, they'd have to accept their research being ignored, their careers stagnating, and their ability to continue to do their jobs properly being threatened.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
SciHub is missing an opportunity by not providing a platform for researchers to self organize and run the peer review process directly on SciHub (or a new sister domain safe from interference). That would give them immediate legitimacy.
ravel-bar-foo 6y ago
Couple funny stories about Elsevier. I published with them, and created an account. They started sending me spam advertising new journals. So I logged in and unsubscribed from all their mailing lists. Reliably, exactly one year after unsubscribing I get spam from them. When I go to unsubscribe I find a new category of mailing list, opted in automatically. One might call it a mistake, but is remarkably suspicious that the spam regularly arrives exactly one year (to the day) after I most recently unsubscribed. There are the financial aspects to their exploitation, but I guess this struck a nerve because it is scummy behavior that affects me more personally.
- randomswede 6y ago
  As a possible hypothesis test, next time, could you leave the new opt-in in place for a month before unsubscribing? If that reliably then has a new list added exactly one year later, it is a strong signal that it indeed based on you unsubscribing. But, if it instead happens at 11 months, it is a string signal that new lists are added at a specific month/day. I mean, I would not be surprised if it happens one year later, due to Elsevier tracking when you unsubscribed, but this is a testable hypothesis, so testing it would be a Good Thing.

xhkkffbf 6y ago

I think it's extraordinarily unfair to think of this as extortion. The professors have always been free to publish wherever they like and they each chose the copyrighted journals. Do we say that a fancy hotel "extorted" the fees from the guests who chose to book a room? Some young researchers often claim that they feel pressured by the system to choose the so-called prestige journals. This pressure is coming from older researchers who are making a decision from their experience. They don't need to reward journal writers but they do. Indeed, the open access professors could announce that they will penalize the tenure reviews for those who publish in copyrighted journals. But they don't, and I think it's because they realize that, for all of the costs, the copyrighted journals do a good job curating the information.

Vinnl 6y ago
If I give you the choice between a bullet through the head or a slap in the face, it'd be ridiculous for me to claim that you were free not to choose the slap in the face. Sure, it's not the publishers themselves that are de facto forcing researchers to publish with them, but they do make use of the fact that they're being put in a position of being a rent-seeker, and they lobby a lot to keep it that way. Of course, the question is not "who's to blame?", but "how to change this"? And indeed, the publishers aren't too relevant to that question - it's the incentive structures that should change. (Disclosure: I contribute to https://plaudit.pub https://plaudit.pub, which aims to change these incentive structures.)
hollerith 6y ago
I agree that it is unfair to call it extortion. I'll try to be more careful in the future. >But they don't, and I think it's because they realize that . . . They don't realize any such thing: they're just doing what benefits them personally (e.g., surviving as a professor or apprentice professor) at the expense of the broader ecosystem. It is a problem of coordination: if the professors, students and the governments and foundations that fund research acted in unison (and were sufficiently informed and clear-thinking), then the entire academic literature would probably be available without restriction (like, e.g., Wikipedia is) on the internet by now. Such an arrangement would satisfy the values of the professor, students, etc, better than the current system does. But it is hard to get there because it is hard for 10s of 1000s to act in unison.

setr 6y ago

I think prestige is a very unfair characterization. It’s my belief that most people just want their research to be seen and engaged with by their peers (it is, of course, the fundamental purpose of producing a paper). Universities however want prestige, and enforce the policy “publish or perish”. The problem is still as you say — the only way to do so reliably is to give up your ownership to a prestigious journal (because prestigious journals are widely read by the relevant folk). Ultimately the fix is up to the top universities. If Stanford suddenly says all CS papers are now being published on SciHub first (or through some new filter), who’s going to argue? Every CS researcher will immediately add it to their reading list... because they want the good shit

Vinnl 6y ago
> Ultimately the fix is up to the top universities. If Stanford suddenly says all CS papers are now being published on SciHub first (or through some new filter), who’s going to argue? Unfortunately, if they have staff that also intend to, or should prepare for, working somewhere else after Stanford (which is very common in an academic career), then those are likely to revolt. You could see this happen with the introduction of "Plan S" in many European countries, where researchers were afraid that "top" journals were no longer accessible to them and that that would hurt their standing in the field and future opportunities in, primarily, the US.
hollerith 6y ago
I agree that it was harsh for me to focus on the desire for prestige. It would've been kinder of me to focus on the need for the professor or apprentice professor to remain employed and, like you say, to have a positive influence on the community of professors.
BeetleB 6y ago
> It’s my belief that most people just want their research to be seen and engaged with by their peers (it is, of course, the fundamental purpose of producing a paper). Universities however want prestige, and enforce the policy “publish or perish”. The two are one and the same. What you call "Universities" is simply "professors at the universities". Department policies for tenure are set by a bunch of professors. The dean of the college is always a professor. There's no "us" vs "them".