2 ms·

I published in refereed journals from 1997 until 2006. I was in academia - the last one, post-academia - and it was (to me) understood that having peer review

by toddm 4y ago

I published in refereed journals from 1997 until 2006. I was in academia - the last one, post-academia - and it was (to me) understood that having peer review was at least a gatekeeper for releasing information that might be useful to or otherwise heeded by the public. Maybe. Are there problems with that? Are the prices exceptionally high, especially for academic libraries (I recall that Tetrahedron Letters was on the order of $25K in 1995 for a subscription at UT-Austin)? Yes. But I keep coming back to the standards involved with friendly, neutral, or hostile people vetting your work. It's a higher standard to reach than the free market will entertain, but there is a cost. Keep you on your toes. The staff and editors need to be paid. Reprints - something from my generation, actual hard copies, some of those requiring color and not BW - cost money. It all costs money. Do the authors get something in return? Yes. We get refereed journal article citations on our CVs, and that's invaluable. Love the idea, wish there was a meeting in the middle.

habitue 4y ago
The issue is that these days the reprints and the editors and the staff are all obsolete. The valuable part you're pointing at is peer review, which academics do for free. Then the people who have been made redundant by the information age make all the money. This isn't a both sides issue, it's very clearly one sided because all the actual work is outsourced to free labor. There's no reason to meet in the middle, these companies need to die off and distribution should be free and open.
pasabagi 4y ago
There definitely is a happy medium. I think the problem is, the current model is way out, where basically everyone (sometimes including editors, usually reviewers) are unpaid, while the journal is expensive beyond reasonable bounds. This system only works because most/all academics are underwritten by the taxpayer, and are willing to put up with a pretty high level of exploitation. I think the logical solution would be just to formalize the fact that taxpayers foot the bill. Make journal access free, earmark funds for editors and staff at universities or research institutions, then just pay that directly out of taxes. It would cost a lot less than the current solution, where the taxpayer pays the wages of the contributors (so the journal doesn't have to), then pays the massively bloated subscription fee, then doesn't even get access in the end.

by toddm 4y ago

habitue 4y ago

The issue is that these days the reprints and the editors and the staff are all obsolete. The valuable part you're pointing at is peer review, which academics do for free. Then the people who have been made redundant by the information age make all the money. This isn't a both sides issue, it's very clearly one sided because all the actual work is outsourced to free labor. There's no reason to meet in the middle, these companies need to die off and distribution should be free and open.

pasabagi 4y ago

There definitely is a happy medium. I think the problem is, the current model is way out, where basically everyone (sometimes including editors, usually reviewers) are unpaid, while the journal is expensive beyond reasonable bounds. This system only works because most/all academics are underwritten by the taxpayer, and are willing to put up with a pretty high level of exploitation. I think the logical solution would be just to formalize the fact that taxpayers foot the bill. Make journal access free, earmark funds for editors and staff at universities or research institutions, then just pay that directly out of taxes. It would cost a lot less than the current solution, where the taxpayer pays the wages of the contributors (so the journal doesn't have to), then pays the massively bloated subscription fee, then doesn't even get access in the end.