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German research institutions boycott Elsevier

sub.uni-goettingen.de

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Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#41

Post by hannob »

JorgeGT wrote: post #37
Fomite wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The biggest and most meaningful way to do this would be for people sitting on search committees and tenure/promotion committees to say publicly that candidates wouldn't be punished for deliberately publishing in OA journals.

Nobody punishes you for publishing in OA journals, what matters is the IF and JCR rank of the journal, not if it's OA or not.

Impact factors and similar metrics are part of the problem. These are metrics that support flashy research, not good research. If anything the Impact Factor is a sign of sloppy research (there's a lot of evidence for that, e.g. the higher the IF the more likely there's a retraction).

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#42

Post by JorgeGT »

Fomite wrote: post #26
jmcdiesel wrote: post #23

Forgive my absolute ignorance on the topic - I genuinely don't understand this environment even though I'm interested, so please don't take this as a stupid or inflammatory questions... Why are these publishers needed? What service do they provide these days? It seems their role is similar to publishers in other media (TV, movie, music, etc) that can and have been replaced due to the distribution ease of the internet…

Publishers provide three major things: 1. They coordinate the submission of papers, and their dispatch for peer review. 2. They handle layout, typesetting, copyediting, etc. 3. For journals with print editions (of which there are many), they handle distribution. All of those things could be replaced by the internet, but they take time, and they cost either time or money. And I much prefer reading journals with profes…

If anyone is wondering "how much do points 1 and 2 cost?!" the financial overview of notorious not-for-profit publisher PLOS is a good starting point: https://www.plos.org/financial-overview

Article Processing Fees for their journals range from $1500 to $3000 per article: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#43

Post by throwaway729 »

mattkrause wrote: post #40
JorgeGT wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody punishes you for publishing in OA journals, what matters is the IF and JCR rank of the journal, not if it's OA or not.

If you find an OA journal with cachet matching Nature or Science , I would be happy to submit stuff there. As far as I know, there's nothing even particularly close. In other words, I doubt anyone is explicitly penalized for submitting to PLoS Biology instead of Journal of Neuroscience. However, there is an implicit penalty for not submitting to Nature/Science/Cell. [As an aside, I really hate the obsession with IF a…

Yes, they are pointless and arbitrary metrics.

Competition for positions in academia has gotten so bad that it doesn't matter. Like Google rejecting perfectly good candidates just because they can, but in Academia even south central Kansastucky state university has enough excellent applicants that arbitrary metrics do more good than harm.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#44

Post by mattkrause »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
mattkrause wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love a world where publishing papers is cheap and reading papers, particularly taxpayer-funded ones, is free. However, I'd also like a job and none of the "top tier" biomedical journals are open access. While I'd like to think that the quality of my work would speak for itself, the imprimatur that one gets from Nature , Science , Cell , and Neuron is worth quite a bit when applying for jobs and grants. Unless…

> none of the "top tier" biomedical journals are open access Is this solely a product of network effects? Or could there be some truth to the top journals' ability to organise the review process?

Pretty much. The review process seems to be about the same across most journals. In fact, there's probably a niche for some journals that have an actual editorial process where an editor actually...edits the prose.

Nature/Science/Cell are popular because everyone recognizes their "brand" and associates them with interesting, high-impact science. Thus, it's easy for anyone "Hey, we should fund/hire her because she's got a bunch of Nature papers!" It's not miles from the old "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" bit.

In contrast, it's unlikely that one person--let alone more-on the committee has carefully read your J. Soc. Whatever paper and says "This is well done! Get him instead!"

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#45

Post by antennas »

mattkrause wrote: post #17
hannob wrote: post #4

The thing is, scientists have a much more powerful tool to stop bad publishers: Don't give them your texts. And maybe even more important: Don't demand from your applicants that they have published in high impact journals from the very same publishers that make your life hard. That might really change things. Everyone has been complaining about Elsevier for years now. They still have publications and they still seem…

I would love a world where publishing papers is cheap and reading papers, particularly taxpayer-funded ones, is free. However, I'd also like a job and none of the "top tier" biomedical journals are open access. While I'd like to think that the quality of my work would speak for itself, the imprimatur that one gets from Nature , Science , Cell , and Neuron is worth quite a bit when applying for jobs and grants. Unless…

It's a prisoner's dilemma. If you (researcher) defect (publish in Elsevier journals), you perpetuate Elsevier's business, a shitty situation. But it's not as bad as cooperating (not publishing), because there's a chance that everyone else defects and you screw up your career, a really shitty situation. So out of self-interest everyone defects and perpetuates Elsevier's business.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#46

Post by JorgeGT »

mattkrause wrote: post #40
JorgeGT wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody punishes you for publishing in OA journals, what matters is the IF and JCR rank of the journal, not if it's OA or not.

If you find an OA journal with cachet matching Nature or Science , I would be happy to submit stuff there. As far as I know, there's nothing even particularly close. In other words, I doubt anyone is explicitly penalized for submitting to PLoS Biology instead of Journal of Neuroscience. However, there is an implicit penalty for not submitting to Nature/Science/Cell. [As an aside, I really hate the obsession with IF a…

At least in my country, I'm thankful for these quantitative measurements, that difficult corrupt practices: Oh, I assure you he's a great researcher, just not in any measurable way. He's my nephew you say? Well, that's not the point...

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#48

Post by JorgeGT »

hannob wrote: post #41
JorgeGT wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody punishes you for publishing in OA journals, what matters is the IF and JCR rank of the journal, not if it's OA or not.

Impact factors and similar metrics are part of the problem. These are metrics that support flashy research, not good research. If anything the Impact Factor is a sign of sloppy research (there's a lot of evidence for that, e.g. the higher the IF the more likely there's a retraction).

But it's not an easy problem. How do you grade from 0 to 10 good research from a candidate?

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#49

Post by robotresearcher »

carbocation wrote: post #34
Fomite wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not going to back messing up using evidence in scientific papers to strike back at a journal publisher.

By restricting access to the material whose copyright is owned by a journal publisher, this is what Germany is doing, to a degree.

It's the publisher who restricts access by charging a fee and taking a profit, not the university for choosing not to pay it.

The author and reviewers gave their work for free. Journals should charge enough to cover costs and be sustainable, and no more.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#50

Post by dagw »

hannob wrote: post #41
JorgeGT wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody punishes you for publishing in OA journals, what matters is the IF and JCR rank of the journal, not if it's OA or not.

Impact factors and similar metrics are part of the problem. These are metrics that support flashy research, not good research. If anything the Impact Factor is a sign of sloppy research (there's a lot of evidence for that, e.g. the higher the IF the more likely there's a retraction).

there's a lot of evidence for that, e.g. the higher the IF the more likely there's a retraction

The higher the IF, the more likely it is the researcher trying to do something 'hard' and the more people will scrutinise the results. These two factors alone will lead to more retractions.

Someone publishing something completely uninteresting in a journal no one reads will never be in a position to have to retract their paper, no matter how flawed, because no one will notice and no one will care.

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