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“You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

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Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#91

Post by p4bl0 »

ikeboy wrote: post #88
SeanDav wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could publish online for much lower cost, under a CC licence. Current profits are extortionate, to say nothing about the bullying tactics employed by Elsevier, who abuse a monopoly and force libraries and other institutions to take a lot of publications they do not want to access those they do want.

The distribution isn't where the cost comes from, it's editing, reviewing, and so on.

That is false. Reviewing does not cost a cent to publishers, it is entirely the work of the scientific community.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#92

Post by chombier »

jcizzle wrote: post #18

By this notion, I should get free tickets to all college football games. And my driver's license registration should also be free, don't my taxes already go to paying for the DMV? Wait, should anything that is even remotely funded by taxpayer dollars now be free for everyone that pays taxes?

Not quite, because in your examples the producer and consumer are different, whereas researchers are to a large extent the main consumers of the knowledge they (as a whole) produce.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#93

Post by ikeboy »

p4bl0 wrote: post #91
ikeboy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distribution isn't where the cost comes from, it's editing, reviewing, and so on.

That is false. Reviewing does not cost a cent to publishers, it is entirely the work of the scientific community.

Someone paid by the publisher needs to look at every paper.

Some journals calculate internal costs of up to $40,000 per paper (see http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie...). You seem to be skeptical of such claims, but simply asserting that the expenses don't exist isn't enough.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#95

Post by Paul-ish »

thaw13579 wrote: post #15

I think the most important point was brushed over in the article--that journals offer prestige. Scientists are entirely aware of the problems, yet they still volunteer to submit their work to them, because they significantly improve the chances of promotion and tenure. These things are already tremendously competitive, so most would rather not volunteer for a handicap by publishing in other venues.

Grant giving institutions could adopt something like NIH's NIH Public Access Policy[1], which requires articles to be available to the public within 12 months of publication. It isn't perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. It essentially causes everyone in that field at once to switch over to the new system, so that research don't need to stick their career on the line to make a statement about publishing.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIH_Public_Access_Policy

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#96

Post by p4bl0 »

ikeboy wrote: post #93
p4bl0 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is false. Reviewing does not cost a cent to publishers, it is entirely the work of the scientific community.

Someone paid by the publisher needs to look at every paper. Some journals calculate internal costs of up to $40,000 per paper (see http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie... ). You seem to be skeptical of such claims, but simply asserting that the expenses don't exist isn't enough.

> Someone paid by the publisher needs to look at every paper.

Is that true? If so, what is the use of that? I don't see any scientific added value. I never even noticed such an activity myself. We can get rid of it where it still exists.

> Some journals calculate internal costs of up to $40,000 per paper

$40k per paper ? Haha sorry but I just don't buy that.

I'm not asserting these expenses don't exist. However (see my other comments in this thread), I'm showing that you can avoid them, and how the same quality control of publication can be obtained without having publishers around. And in the example I took close to everything is done in the traditional way. Which in turns is a demonstration that publishers added-value is minimal.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#97

Post by p4bl0 »

ufo wrote: post #87
ikeboy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, not all open access journal are charging author, that is a lie installed by publishers lobbying (and this is how they actually spend money). You can research "diamond open access" or "overlay journal" for some examples of economical models where journal are high quality, open access and free to submit to. Those all seem to be sponsored. That won't scale to every paper unless some large organization funds it. T…

Its hard to answer your argument directly because publishers like Elsevier never publish transparent accounting numbers. For all we know, their costs could mostly be "Hollywood Accounting". (not to mention, the profit they do report is already through the roof). It all does strike me as obviously inefficient though. In my day to day research as a grad student I almost never benefit from work the publishers did. I don…

Exactly. I strongly believe that the majority of their expenses are related to lobbying and paying professional lawyers to scam public research librarians into signing awful contracts with them.

By the way, these contracts most often contains non-disclosure as legal requirements, which I find outrageous for public money, especially because it gives a strong advantages to publishers in negotiating these contracts.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#98

Post by Paul-ish »

Houshalter wrote: post #80

I hate how copyright now lasts indefinitely. There are many papers from the 50's by people who are dead, and these companies are still claiming ownership over them. Copyright should last a relatively short time, and maybe be even shorter if you don't pay a fee to get it extended. Perhaps even a special exemption for scientific research. If you could read all papers published 10 years ago for free, that would be incre…

Although copyright technically is limited in term [1], it is practically forever, as in I will never see a work created today go into the public domain. Next time a bill is introduced to extend copyright term, I think the community should speak out against it.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#99

Post by p4bl0 »

HillRat wrote: post #24
jcizzle wrote: post #18

By this notion, I should get free tickets to all college football games. And my driver's license registration should also be free, don't my taxes already go to paying for the DMV? Wait, should anything that is even remotely funded by taxpayer dollars now be free for everyone that pays taxes?

It's more like a private company has bought the only access road to a public park and is now charging you to get there.

> It's more like a private company has privatized at no expenses the only access road to a public park and is now charging you to get there.

FTFY.

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