4 ms·

> These editors offer no real added value Peer reviewing maybe?

by hk__2 12y ago

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
Done by scientists that don't see a dime in the process.
- yrochat 12y ago
  Of course they see a dime: they receive public money. Elsevier are such geniuses: public money paid papers need to be paid a second time, and still, they remain unavailable for the public who has paid for it (twice). Rich geniuses.
  - p4bl0 12y ago
    Al-Khwarizmi was not talking about the publisher but about the scientists actually doing the peer-reviewing work: they don't see a dime from the publisher for this work (which is normal because it is part of their job as scientist to peer-review, what is abnormal is that the result of this work is given for free to private companies who put it behind paywalls).
    - yrochat 12y ago
      I wasn't implying that the publishers but the reviewers were getting public money for that. Having spent around 12 hours between Sunday and Monday to write a single review for a journal paper, I must say that I am pretty surprised that this system has been working until now… The scientists are united in making their reviews, while someone on top is getting so much money for it (this catches up with your argument). I can't help myself considering us as naive people.
      - p4bl0 12y ago
        I see. Naive I don't know, not interested by money, certainly. Otherwise we would be following much more lucrative career paths, which are well, basically anything else than public research. That said, I've encountered many scientists who simply never thought about it before we discussed it, and who now think the situation is absolutely crazy, as anyone would. The questions are: What can they do about it? Do they have the time to do it? How can they do it without hurting themselves? Indeed, it's hard enough to get a position as it is, refusing to publish in prestigious journal owned by asshole publishers won't help young scientists. Older scientists often work with young ones, and they can't tell them "no we won't publish in the asshole-owned prestigious journal because it's the right thing to do", it wouldn't be fair. The reality is that the solution can't really come only from individuals, it has to be a legal battle, not only for future publications (which is the easiest part), but also for all the past ones. The entire Elsevier "Freedom Collection" for example should be seized by governments (UN?) and made available for free to anyone on the internet and in public libraries worldwide. But in this "free-market" economy, this is not something people seems to be ready to ear, let alone understand.
        masklinn 12y ago
        > Indeed, it's hard enough to get a position as it is, refusing to publish in prestigious journal owned by asshole publishers won't help young scientists It seems to vary strongly by field though, some fields seem much more bullish on "open access" than others.
        Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
        I think the solution has to come from public funding agencies (i.e. from governments). If my country's government says that from 2015 onwards, only publications that can be freely accessed count towards public grant requests, tenure and positions in public institutions, etc.; in a year no one would be published in the asshole-owned journals. Instead, my government has policies that actively incentivize publishing in said journals (basically ISI JCR journal papers are what counts for everything).
        im2w1l 12y ago
        >What can they do about it? Do they have the time to do it? How can they do it without hurting themselves? Get the top people in a field to collectively decide to create/back a new journal. Because they are the top, what they publish in will "automatically" become prestigious, assuming the journal is selective. Once the journal is well established, the up and coming will start publishing there too.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > Of course they see a dime: they receive public money. Scientists receive money for the work they do, but that money is generally in the form of grants for their own sciencing, I've never heard of "review grants".
orian 12y ago
But instead of building more decentralized, open and independent network they are strengthening a private company which already has strong position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge
masklinn 12y ago
The "peer" part of "peer review" means it's other scientists in the field doing the reviewing. The editor only acts as matchmaker/anonymisation filter, and maybe does the most trivial part of reviews (typos, layout, that sort of thing).
- emotionalcode 12y ago
  What if you can't trust the other scientists to review the work of their peers fairly?
  - redacted 12y ago
    Why, then you simply get an incredibly negative review, or one with impossible requirements, or some other nebulous reason why your work should not be published in that journal. Source: currently working in academia in a full-time research position
    - emotionalcode 12y ago
      No, I mean, that there is some probability that someone intelligent within the system is manipulating the infrastructure of the peer review system for an advantage. I don't understand why I was downvoted for asking a question. I just meant to imply that there must exist some middle infrastructure, and I do not believe that it is a trivial problem to solve. Source: I studied computer security systems that attempted to automate the flow of information to maintain security level thresholds on information types. When code 'touches' other code, meaning that it uses code with information at one security level to reason about code with information at another security level, unless you are particularly careful in the structure and organization of the code, information can leak out, structures can be manipulated, rules can be broken. I am not saying scientists are unethical, I am saying they are human and prone to emotional reaction occasionally before objectivity (unless they are perfect). Combining information inference, intelligence, and an understanding of the flaws of an automated system; they are capable of 'accidentally' tweaking those things in their favor. It's not in the interest of science when this happens, and it requires a substantial amount of real intelligence to moderate. It's basically 'accidental bias'.
p4bl0 12y ago
As other pointed out, the peer reviewing is not done by the publishers. It is done by other scientists and coordinated by the editorial board of the journal, which most of the time consists in more scientists who are not paid by the publishers either. However, I don't see any point in downvoting you as it seem people did, what you ask is a very common misconception that benefits to publishers and is thus amplified by them.

> These editors offer no real added value Peer reviewing maybe?

by hk__2 12y ago

> These editors offer no real added value Peer reviewing maybe?

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago

Done by scientists that don't see a dime in the process.

yrochat 12y ago
Of course they see a dime: they receive public money. Elsevier are such geniuses: public money paid papers need to be paid a second time, and still, they remain unavailable for the public who has paid for it (twice). Rich geniuses.
- p4bl0 12y ago
  Al-Khwarizmi was not talking about the publisher but about the scientists actually doing the peer-reviewing work: they don't see a dime from the publisher for this work (which is normal because it is part of their job as scientist to peer-review, what is abnormal is that the result of this work is given for free to private companies who put it behind paywalls).
  - yrochat 12y ago
    I wasn't implying that the publishers but the reviewers were getting public money for that. Having spent around 12 hours between Sunday and Monday to write a single review for a journal paper, I must say that I am pretty surprised that this system has been working until now… The scientists are united in making their reviews, while someone on top is getting so much money for it (this catches up with your argument). I can't help myself considering us as naive people.
    - p4bl0 12y ago
      I see. Naive I don't know, not interested by money, certainly. Otherwise we would be following much more lucrative career paths, which are well, basically anything else than public research. That said, I've encountered many scientists who simply never thought about it before we discussed it, and who now think the situation is absolutely crazy, as anyone would. The questions are: What can they do about it? Do they have the time to do it? How can they do it without hurting themselves? Indeed, it's hard enough to get a position as it is, refusing to publish in prestigious journal owned by asshole publishers won't help young scientists. Older scientists often work with young ones, and they can't tell them "no we won't publish in the asshole-owned prestigious journal because it's the right thing to do", it wouldn't be fair. The reality is that the solution can't really come only from individuals, it has to be a legal battle, not only for future publications (which is the easiest part), but also for all the past ones. The entire Elsevier "Freedom Collection" for example should be seized by governments (UN?) and made available for free to anyone on the internet and in public libraries worldwide. But in this "free-market" economy, this is not something people seems to be ready to ear, let alone understand.
      - masklinn 12y ago
        > Indeed, it's hard enough to get a position as it is, refusing to publish in prestigious journal owned by asshole publishers won't help young scientists It seems to vary strongly by field though, some fields seem much more bullish on "open access" than others.
      - Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
        I think the solution has to come from public funding agencies (i.e. from governments). If my country's government says that from 2015 onwards, only publications that can be freely accessed count towards public grant requests, tenure and positions in public institutions, etc.; in a year no one would be published in the asshole-owned journals. Instead, my government has policies that actively incentivize publishing in said journals (basically ISI JCR journal papers are what counts for everything).
      - im2w1l 12y ago
        >What can they do about it? Do they have the time to do it? How can they do it without hurting themselves? Get the top people in a field to collectively decide to create/back a new journal. Because they are the top, what they publish in will "automatically" become prestigious, assuming the journal is selective. Once the journal is well established, the up and coming will start publishing there too.
- masklinn 12y ago
  > Of course they see a dime: they receive public money. Scientists receive money for the work they do, but that money is generally in the form of grants for their own sciencing, I've never heard of "review grants".

orian 12y ago

But instead of building more decentralized, open and independent network they are strengthening a private company which already has strong position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge

masklinn 12y ago

The "peer" part of "peer review" means it's other scientists in the field doing the reviewing. The editor only acts as matchmaker/anonymisation filter, and maybe does the most trivial part of reviews (typos, layout, that sort of thing).

emotionalcode 12y ago
What if you can't trust the other scientists to review the work of their peers fairly?
- redacted 12y ago
  Why, then you simply get an incredibly negative review, or one with impossible requirements, or some other nebulous reason why your work should not be published in that journal. Source: currently working in academia in a full-time research position
  - emotionalcode 12y ago
    No, I mean, that there is some probability that someone intelligent within the system is manipulating the infrastructure of the peer review system for an advantage. I don't understand why I was downvoted for asking a question. I just meant to imply that there must exist some middle infrastructure, and I do not believe that it is a trivial problem to solve. Source: I studied computer security systems that attempted to automate the flow of information to maintain security level thresholds on information types. When code 'touches' other code, meaning that it uses code with information at one security level to reason about code with information at another security level, unless you are particularly careful in the structure and organization of the code, information can leak out, structures can be manipulated, rules can be broken. I am not saying scientists are unethical, I am saying they are human and prone to emotional reaction occasionally before objectivity (unless they are perfect). Combining information inference, intelligence, and an understanding of the flaws of an automated system; they are capable of 'accidentally' tweaking those things in their favor. It's not in the interest of science when this happens, and it requires a substantial amount of real intelligence to moderate. It's basically 'accidental bias'.

p4bl0 12y ago

As other pointed out, the peer reviewing is not done by the publishers. It is done by other scientists and coordinated by the editorial board of the journal, which most of the time consists in more scientists who are not paid by the publishers either. However, I don't see any point in downvoting you as it seem people did, what you ask is a very common misconception that benefits to publishers and is thus amplified by them.