Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

a3_nm wrote: post #172

esfandia wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. That's right, and that's also why the prestigious researchers and universities, those with an already established reputation, have a responsibility: collectively leave the editorial boards of for-profit publishers, set up alternative venues with the help of university libraries. Share the archival, indexing and discovery effort among universities via pe…

The problem is that the vast majority of established researchers do not care that the system is broken. Why work against the system once you're at the top? Most of them haven't ever thought about it, and the ones who know usually don't do much, because, hey, that's the way it was always done, they are used to the current journals and conferences being prestigious, and they don't want to bother with the unglamorous wo…

I agree with you and particularly with the funding agencies being the most effective catalysts for change. The good news is that it's working. STM publishing is moving toward open access, the momentum continues to build (most recently with Plan S) and we're moving toward a future where government-funded research will be OA. It'll still take time to get there, but I'm pretty confident that's where we'll get. And yes, that future will likely involve those funders paying a few thousand dollars per article in APCs. And that future will continue to be dominated by the large publishers, Elsevier in particular. But access will be better, so I'd call that a huge win.

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

#252

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #184

em-bee wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. And when you start peeling back the onion of how academics are assessed, given jobs, given tenure, etc you start seeing how hard changing behavior can be. there is no doubt about that. but maybe it's time to question how science is done in general. in the end the goal is to advance our knowledge and bring humanity forward. but instead of everyone cooperat…

> which is technology, and reviewers, which are academics. There is another factor to consider - the outsiders. They need to know which research is good and which isn't and independent journals giving a stamp of approval to create "branded" science helps.

Some folks are trying to do this. The Conversation [1] is meant to be a bridge between academic research and layman's news stories about that research. And Kudos[2] is trying to encourage academics to write more layman-focused summaries of papers to explain the research and appeal to the larger world outside of your particular subfield.

[1] http://theconversation.com/us

[2] https://www.growkudos.com/

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

#253

Post by ailideex » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #118

HERE is a trivia question for you: what is the most profitable business in the world? You might think oil, or maybe banking. You would be wrong. The answer is academic publishing. Its profit margins are vast, reportedly in the region of 40 per cent. 40% are very normal and consider healthy margins for many businesses. The business with largest possible profit margins I know of is political donations. For mere $100K,…

Please give the name of a mining company with more than 40% profit margin.

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

#254

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #247

randomsearch wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to turn the tables a little: - why don’t publishers pay reviewers for the extensive time they spend reviewing the paper? - why don’t publishers pay academics who edit journals, another time consuming task? - why don’t publishers pay academics or institutions for a product they sell? I can’t comment on your company, but the above is the status quo for most of academia. Do you think this business model is ethi…

As the parent didn't reply, I will fill in: People trying to change or improve the publishing process _do_ understand academia - most of them work or have worked in academia. The reason they're not engaging with you is likely that that your model is so obviously broken, and arguably unethical, that they don't want to help you or work with you - they want to put you out of business. Personally, I think that is an enti…

I didn't mean engage with the publishers to work together with them. I meant engage in the conversation to really understand why changing the behavior of academics is so hard, so that you can be more effective at doing whatever you are trying to do to put publishers out of business. There are a lot of things that publishers don't like about academic publishing (journal impact factor is highly contentious within the industry), and yet changing the behavior of the academic community is incredibly difficult.

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

#255

Post by notyourday » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #150

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…

You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. And when you start peeling back the onion of how academics are assessed, given jobs, given tenure, etc you start seeing how hard changing behavior can be. there is no doubt about that. but maybe it's time to question how science is done in general. in the end the goal is to advance our knowledge and bring humanity forward. but instead of everyone cooperat…

> in the end the goal is to advance our knowledge and bring humanity forward.

That's not true. The end goal of scientists is to get get grants to they can get paid. As they climb higher, they get more money for less work. Soon they get to attach their name ( sometimes in the first position ) to academic papers when they did no work on it what so ever. To do that they means they need to generate papers and publish papers.

Publishers are exploiting this.

> the only thing that i see publishers doing is to edit the journals and decide what to publish. but shouldn't exactly that, also be done by academics?

Academics do not have any interest in this. My wife was a PE at a major STEM publisher with a portfolio of dozens journals and supervisory responsibility for about a hundred. Academia's technological adaption ( which is necessary for efficient editing/producing workflow ) is terrifying. Corrections are done by hand. Proofs are faxed. Dropbox blows people mind. Papers that are accepted by EICs are unreadable -- EICs simply kick the paper to publisher to get it "produced".

If academics are not going to do publishers' job then publishers are going to control the process and decide what to charge.

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

#256

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #146

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…

I'm not sure people are trying to fix academic publishing so much as burn Elsevier to the ground. Whether or how they are replaced is a separate question. https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2016/12/12/why-i-still-wont-...

Totally fair. You can definitely take the stance that without knowing what a substitute is for publishers it's still worth trying to destroy them, and have faith that something will rise up to fill the void. My argument would be that you need to be careful to not underestimate the publishers, particularly Elsevier. The shift to OA hasn't yet harmed the publishers. In fact, all the major publishers are among the largest publishers of OA articles. Elsevier is full of incredibly smart people who can adapt. So if your goal is to put them out of business, you need more than just a strategy to burn their business model (although if you could figure out how to remove money entirely from the process you'd succeed I suppose).

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

#257

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

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…

Can you write a more full-length post with more details and put it on here? I find your post intriguing but you left most of the problems in the background, vague and undefined. Let's hear what they are, please!

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

#258

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #148

dougmccune wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're asking about the role that academic journals play in general, or about what specific actions publishers do. Journals in general serve to curate an ever-increasing body of research and provide a crude method of gauging scientific quality, relevance to your field, and importance. They provide a crude method of judging the impact of scholars without having to read every single paper ever published. Pu…

What you say about journals is correct. But what you say about commercial academic publishers is a relatively recent development. Traditionally, universities and professional societies ran journals. As you say, publishers did the grunt work. However, they did it on a work-for-hire basis. It wasn't until the 50s or so that profiteers took over the academic publishing industry.

This is true. Someone else in this thread posted the long-form article about the history of Robert Maxwell, which is absolutely worth the read. I'm definitely not of the opinion that the existing publishing system is the only way (or the best way) for science to be conducted.

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

#259

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #246

chrisseaton wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications. It’s a society. You publish papers which get reviews, and you also work to review other people’s papers. Everyone contributes to make it work.

> Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications. This is inaccurate. This is not a part of a postdoc's job description, for example, in the UK. The university does not pay you to do this - you have to review on top of your day job.

If your job is an academic then of course the job implicitly includes reviewing papers. That's what being an academic involves. It's part of your normal paid day-job if you have an academic position, either in industry or in a university.

Do you think academics and industrial researchers take holiday when they have to travel to a program committee meeting? No of course not, they do it during work time and are paid for it and their employer pays for flights etc.

While I was in academia I was specifically tasked with reviewing papers for an external conference, and so were all my colleagues.

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

#260

Post by dougmccune » Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 2:46 PM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #250

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…

If I peel back the onion further, I find the root of the problem is how to measure someone who is good at science. How should we measure scientific output to determine compensation (not just monetary or tenure, reputation itself can be considered a form of compensation)? That the way we reward scientist means that few are pushing to reform academic publishing is barely a footnote compared to some of the problems prod…

Yes, at the core of the problem is how we measure good science. If you want to try to crack that nut I absolutely salute you. Improvements here could pay massive positive dividends for society as a whole. Meta[1], which was bought by Chan Zuckerberg[2], is sort of trying to do this (in addition to trying to tackle better discovery of the literature) by using an AI model to try to identify important research trends earlier in the process.

[1] https://meta.org/ [2] https://www.chanzuckerberg.com/science