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Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

insidehighered.com

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Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#111

Post by Vinnl »

simula67 wrote: post #110
Vinnl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there isn't really anything the leadership can do. The profit margins they are able to attain now are artificial, and anything those in the technology team can think of doing will be very unlikely to achieve those margins. All Elsevier can do is postpone the inevitable for as long as possible, and prepare for the period after that. (Which they're doing somewhat, btw, but probably not in the way those in t…

Kodak and Fujifilm faced a similar dilemma when digital photography emerged. Fuji adapted while Kodak collapsed. But there market forces where at work. Usually when a company faces issues like this it is very difficult to adapt because existing power structures within the company benefits from the status quo. Usually you need an external force to destabilize the existing system. It has been discussed here on HN that…

I think the situation is somewhat different. Kodak was a regular market leader making regular profit margins. I'm not sure how much of it is true, but I recall reading that they invented the digital camera and then shelved it because it would compete with their own business. That implies that they could've produced it, perhaps at the cost of their analogue business, but at least with the potential of becoming market leader in this new market and reaching similar margins.

For Elsevier, that's simply unlikely to be possible. Even if they manage to successfully transform into an analytics business, the margins they'd be able to achieve would be far lower, because prices would no longer be artificially inflated.

But yes, there are external forces now pressurising them, and I think that's why they're transforming into an analytics company - to survive afterwards. But they're holding on to the old model as long as possible, because they're going to take a loss.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#112

Post by Vinnl »

robertwalsh0 wrote: post #102

Making academic journals more accessible is a problem that I’ve been working on the last few years with my project, Scholastica. We provide software that allows journals to manage their entire toolchain from peer-review to publication. Homepage https://www.scholasticahq.com Two journals that use our software: https://www.surveypractice.org (OA journal published by American Association for Public Opinion Research) htt…

Heh, I mentioned you above :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18921700

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#114

Post by jcobber »

this is a bold move for something that as controversial in the academic community about publications. I think this puts into perspective that there are certain biases on which studies gets published aka if you have money you can certainly get published on this paid publications.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#115

Post by watwut »

simula67 wrote: post #110
Vinnl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there isn't really anything the leadership can do. The profit margins they are able to attain now are artificial, and anything those in the technology team can think of doing will be very unlikely to achieve those margins. All Elsevier can do is postpone the inevitable for as long as possible, and prepare for the period after that. (Which they're doing somewhat, btw, but probably not in the way those in t…

Kodak and Fujifilm faced a similar dilemma when digital photography emerged. Fuji adapted while Kodak collapsed. But there market forces where at work. Usually when a company faces issues like this it is very difficult to adapt because existing power structures within the company benefits from the status quo. Usually you need an external force to destabilize the existing system. It has been discussed here on HN that…

Elsevier issue is not primary technological issue, it is issue of power and control. They profits are from being must-publish-in and must-buy-it for most ambitious scientists and institutions. Therefore they are able to charge prices that would not work in competitive market environment.

Afaik, Kodak could adapt, because its issue was technological change at its core.

With Elsevier, the issue is that institutions that actually benefited from being the only one able to pay those high prices (and thus less rich scientific institutions being disadvantaged even more) are not benefiting from that anymore and rebel.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#116

Post by jacobush »

Vinnl wrote: post #111
simula67 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kodak and Fujifilm faced a similar dilemma when digital photography emerged. Fuji adapted while Kodak collapsed. But there market forces where at work. Usually when a company faces issues like this it is very difficult to adapt because existing power structures within the company benefits from the status quo. Usually you need an external force to destabilize the existing system. It has been discussed here on HN that…

I think the situation is somewhat different. Kodak was a regular market leader making regular profit margins. I'm not sure how much of it is true, but I recall reading that they invented the digital camera and then shelved it because it would compete with their own business. That implies that they could've produced it, perhaps at the cost of their analogue business, but at least with the potential of becoming market…

Kodak even began shifting, they produced their own sensors, their own cameras etc, they sold their sensors to top camera makers. They had a good plan. They didn't expect the very sudden disruption of digital cameras though.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#117

Post by piano »

bertil wrote: post #32
globuous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, github does too. Some projects have 0 stars, some have 16k; some have 0 contribs, some have thousands; some have no forks, some have hundred. You know what I mean ? All these variables are a pretty good measure of recognition, I check them every time I add dependencies to my projects. And just like any other measure, it isn't perfect and is hackable in ways I haven't imagined yet. Forks are similar to citatio…

The number of stars on GitHub is significant because most people whose opinion you’d care about are on GitHub, they wouldn’t star project that they were not interested in and there aren’t widespread fake accounts. I don’t believe that there is an equivalent in academia, one that would capture the h-index dynamic (copied by PageRank) that a star from a prestigious professor is worth a lot more. It’s trivial to build,…

> The number of stars on GitHub is significant because most people whose opinion you’d care about are on GitHub, they wouldn’t star project that they were not interested in and there aren’t widespread fake accounts.

I am on Github and have been active in FOSS for years and yet I rarely star any projects at all, Github stars to me seem like vanity (just like likes on Facebook) indicative of perhaps hype but not of value.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#118

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

afpx wrote: post #40

Not too long ago, I had communications with Elsevier's technology team, and through that experience, I also spoke with some of their directors. Let me say that the experience was kind of mind-boggling and surreal. My impression is that Elsevier is a company locked into the past by a couple of decades. The leadership that I spoke with seemed to have worked in publishing for a very long time. And, probably because of t…

Executives are paid a lot of money, this money comes from the Elsevier business model of high subscription fees. Different business model means probably less revenue hence less executive pay. So they are riding it out as long as it lasts. They are not interested in saving the company and will move on to other high paying jobs in the end.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#119

Post by chr1 »

Fomite wrote: post #82
avar wrote: post #37

There seems to be an even more effective solution to closed journals than just telling scientists that if they take money their paper needs to be in an open journal. Also tell them that when they apply for funding only scientific research which is available in open journals will be considered. You'd then get people not only submitting new research in open journals, but making all their backlog available as well to in…

One problem this does is it shifts the costs of this to individual projects . In my field, the average OA field is probably around $3000. Assuming a five year project that produces 5 papers a year (not unreasonable), you get $75,000. That's almost exactly what it costs, with salary, tuition, and fringe, to support two graduate students. So funders would have to accept getting less productivity from the same projects.…

The OA is a scam. Publishing on Arxiv or putting the article on github, are much better free alternatives.

Re: Elsevier journal editors resign, start rival open-access journal

#120

Post by mszcz »

simula67 wrote: post #110
Vinnl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there isn't really anything the leadership can do. The profit margins they are able to attain now are artificial, and anything those in the technology team can think of doing will be very unlikely to achieve those margins. All Elsevier can do is postpone the inevitable for as long as possible, and prepare for the period after that. (Which they're doing somewhat, btw, but probably not in the way those in t…

Kodak and Fujifilm faced a similar dilemma when digital photography emerged. Fuji adapted while Kodak collapsed. But there market forces where at work. Usually when a company faces issues like this it is very difficult to adapt because existing power structures within the company benefits from the status quo. Usually you need an external force to destabilize the existing system. It has been discussed here on HN that…

I'm pretty sure that market forces will reach Elsevier soon enough ;) Slowly at first, then all at once.
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