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German research institutions boycott Elsevier

sub.uni-goettingen.de

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Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#81

Post by rsfern »

carbocation wrote: post #54
robotresearcher wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm fine with that characterization, too. I'm just saying that any barrier to access will shift the degree to which articles get cited away from what they (perhaps) "should" be based on their scientific value.

This is a really interesting point. I've definitely passed on reading papers that seemed potentially relevant because my institution didn't have a subscription to the journal.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#84

Post by tnecniv »

mattkrause wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 g…

> 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.

Some journals do this. I've had PhD student friends inform me that when they've published to some (well-regarded) journals, after being accepted, they spent months going back and forth with the editor polishing the article.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#86

Post by Fomite »

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.

But given the IF and ranks of OA journals, that's effectively the same thing. What you'd have to do is essentially give OA journals a handicap.

Not to mention the opportunity cost associated with OA fees, which can add up if you're talking about lab startup.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#87

Post by Fomite »

mattkrause wrote: post #56
JorgeGT wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Couldn't you just require people to recuse themselves from hiring decisions involving relatives? Particularly for early career people, I suspect most of these "quantitative" measurements are basically reflecting where and wtih whom you worked.

There's also less nepotistic problems. For example, I've moved between different sides of the same overall field several times. That means, for any given reader of my CV, only about half the "impressive" papers read to them as impressive using most subjective measures.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#88

Post by Fomite »

mattkrause wrote: post #36
Fomite wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but it's after a time. It's not actually weakly enforced - we've been told we can't take credit for publications on grant reports if they're not in PMC.

Don't you need to include the PMC ID number for each paper on the progress report/renewal? I vaguely remember doing something like this for our last one....

Yep - you need the ID number, and if its not there, it doesn't count.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#89

Post by ianderf »

udp wrote: post #29
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…

The journals have an "impact factor", an arbitrary metric that determines how noteworthy they are. My impression is that very few journals are actually read directly - most papers are found via Google Scholar and the journal they're in doesn't matter. However, in academia, the "prestige" of the journals you have published to is hugely important. Good journals, in theory, are more selective about what they publish, so…

> Good journals, in theory, are more selective about what they publish, so the assumption is that if you have publications in a good one you must have done more groundbreaking research.

I wonder why nobody created a single peer-reviewed platform for all scientists to use? Elsevier is just piggybacking on other people's work and funds.

Re: German research institutions boycott Elsevier

#90

Post by dmichulke »

swehner wrote: post #83

I look at titles and abstracts, not at journal names, in my literature searches.

Because that makes sense.

Unfortunately that doesn't matter.

What matters is where the people who have/distribute the money look at.

That last sentence holds in principle everywhere, from company politics to financial markets.

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