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Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

newscientist.com

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Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#231

Post by chaosite »

vanderZwan wrote: post #207
chaosite wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, maybe not. An academic article is not a blog post. Also, only the most popular posts get discussed here -- tons of stuff is lost if it's not initially popular. Timing your submission allows for gaming the system. All scholarly articles need to go through peer review and receive honest, constructive feedback -- especially the bad ones, and Hacker News (and Reddit and Slashdot and any system like that which doesn't…

> All scholarly articles need to go through peer review and receive honest, constructive feedback Which is also a system that can be gamed, by the way. For example, by the reviewers: - "Oh dammit, we got scooped... better use the insights from here to help us past our hurdles, while stating this work is not original enough to be published so we can quickly submit our own and get published earlier after all!" - "I see…

Of course it's human politics. Science is a human endeavor, and you can't remove human behavior from it.

My argument is that a blog aggregator style system is a bad fit which doesn't meet the requirements we desire from a replacement of the current commercial publishing scheme.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#232

Post by em-bee »

im3w1l wrote: post #205
em-bee wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same can be done by independent reviewers. i would not trust a commercial entity whose goal is profit, to be able to decide for me what research is good, the same way that i don't trust movie distributors. i'll look for outside reviewers who earned my trust because they understand the subject matter.

There are two types of outsiders, individuals and institutions. For an individual, choosing a reviewer to trust can potentially work but it does get harder if you have to pick multiple different reviewers to get good coverage. For institutions, especially those in charge of grants, something more stringent and organized is needed than "I like that science guy". And those organizations will need to be payed somehow, p…

how about the institutions themselves? it's their money after all.

we pay you to do research, you send us your results, and we publish them.

or someone higher up, if the institutions get their money from the government, then that same government could fund a separate institution to review the results (so as to see whether the money is well spent)

there is still a room for commercial publishers, but instead of controlling access to the papers they publish, they get to republish what their audience thinks is interesting. so they are no longer gate-keepers, but add value instead.

and whoever thinks that added value is worth it, will pay for it. universities, and especially individual researchers need not pay for it, because they can go directly to the source.

magazines like nature or national geographic for example. but it could also be a company like microsoft that funds reviews of papers that are interesting for their business. or some independent thinktank. or the government of a different country.

everyone gets free access to the original research. that's what open access is all about. and anyone can fund reviews to suit their needs.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#233

Post by iicc »

dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

It's frustrating because it isn't a technology problem, it's a tragedy of the commons.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#234

Post by jamesrcole »

chrisseaton wrote: post #221
mcv wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the publisher is the one making the profit here. From other people's work, that other people pay for. The publisher doesn't add any real value to the process. They charge a high price for people to access other people's work. At no point does the publisher pay anyone for anything, yet they do get all the profit. It's pretty clear why this is a stupid system, isn't it? Simply saying "but that's the way it is" is n…

> It's pretty clear why this is a stupid system, isn't it? Maybe! I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have. Fewer misconceptions is better for the discussion about the remaining issues like whether the system is stupid or not.

> I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have.

I don't recall seeing that misconception. I had a quick look in the comments here and I don't see it. Can you see any examples?

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#235

Post by mrunkel »

BurnGpuBurn wrote: post #223
dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

> Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. Well I think we should all be grateful then that your Highness has come down to us 99% one-sided thinkers void of nuance or reason. Way to start a discussion, asshole. > I…

This is an unnecessarily rude response and if you look around, you're pretty much the only person striking such a tone.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#236

Post by jamesrcole »

Vinnl wrote: post #192
panic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. Everyone realizes this. The problem is that you're abusing your position in this reputation system for profit. Do you think $40 is a fair price to read a paper from 1987? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/109434208700100...

> Everyone realizes this. They absolutely don't. Every time this subject comes up, there are plenty of people wondering how expensive it can be to host a PDF. It's not; the price they're asking is not for the service of hosting a PDF, but for granting you the privilege of using their brand. A publisher has a monopoly on its brands, which means that there's almost no downwards price pressure.

There are two issues

1. why the system is as it is (and why it's hard to change)

2. what work are the publishers doing that is actually contributing value

The hosting cost is a point regarding 2, and making that point is consistent with understanding 1.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#237

Post by chrisseaton »

jamesrcole wrote: post #234
chrisseaton wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty clear why this is a stupid system, isn't it? Maybe! I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have. Fewer misconceptions is better for the discussion about the remaining issues like whether the system is stupid or not.

> I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have. I don't recall seeing that misconception. I had a quick look in the comments here and I don't see it. Can you see any examples?

> why don’t publishers pay

> No reviewers are ever paid either

> reviewers are never paid

> Nobody in the review or author role gets paid

It's all through this thread, and every thread on this topic.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#238

Post by jamesrcole »

chrisseaton wrote: post #237
jamesrcole wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have. I don't recall seeing that misconception. I had a quick look in the comments here and I don't see it. Can you see any examples?

> why don’t publishers pay > No reviewers are ever paid either > reviewers are never paid > Nobody in the review or author role gets paid It's all through this thread, and every thread on this topic.

These are all complaints about the reviewers never being paid by the publisher, which is a completely different and completely valid point.

The complaints are all about the publisher. Have you ever seen a complaint that's simply about having to do peer review itself without being paid?

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#239

Post by mcv »

chrisseaton wrote: post #237
jamesrcole wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just explaining why the reviewers aren't doing the work unpaid on their own time, which is a misconception people seem to have. I don't recall seeing that misconception. I had a quick look in the comments here and I don't see it. Can you see any examples?

> why don’t publishers pay > No reviewers are ever paid either > reviewers are never paid > Nobody in the review or author role gets paid It's all through this thread, and every thread on this topic.

But that's the point: the reviewers are paid, but by the tax payer, not by the publisher. The publisher profits, while the tax payer has to pay 3 times to finally get what they paid for. The publisher is getting a free ride here.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#240

Post by impendia »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #162
impendia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No reviewers are ever paid either That's almost true. Elsevier once surprised me with a $100 Amazon gift card, which they said was in recognition for a particularly good job of peer review that year. I'd laugh at the prospect of Elsevier rewarding me with "recognition" -- certainly something I would not put on my CV -- although I did take their money. Another time, the American Mathematical Society (which is non-pr…

What's your hourly rate? How many hours did you spend reviewing? Divide that $100 by the hours and see if it was worth it.

> What's your hourly rate?

This is not how I think about my job. Rather, the university pays me a salary, and expects me to engage in "scholarship" and "professional service" -- and I get to decide where I think I can make the biggest contributions.

This luxury is not available to everyone. Universities are hiring more and more non-tenure-track instructors, at lower rates of pay, with less job security, with higher teaching loads, and (usually) without any research expectations. In the future, we might be obliged to think about our jobs in more transactional terms.

But for now, I have the luxury of not having to think very much about questions like yours.

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