Elsevier still hasn't dared to cut off the German Universities, or have there been developments I've missed?
Might get interesting now.
Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
71–80 of 313 posts
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#72The key to all this is that for a person to get a PhD or grants they usually need to publish papers. Self-publishing often isn’t recognized, so expensive journals thrive. Maybe that is slowly changing...
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The steel man for the Elsevier side is that nobody is forcing scientists to submit content to Elsevier journals or to read Elsevier journals. It’s a product that they create, so they have the right to price it as they see fit. If Elsevier was really providing no value, why don’t scientists simply submit their work elsewhere? Clearly scientists and universities don’t really care about open access. If it was that impor…
It's not "prestige." Framing it that way makes it sound like Elsevier is in the vanity business, and academics are vain. In actual fact, Elsevier is a gatekeeper to obtaining funding and making a living in research. Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling.
>Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling
Got it in one! And until that changes, the status quo remains - regardless of sites like schihub
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
An attempt at an honest answer: In my case it's related to the continual drumbeat of news stories that seems to show them being transformed from bastions of free inquiry into centers of political indoctrination. It's been reinforced in the last couple of years by a friend who sent his sweet, friendly, apolitical hard working daughter to a liberal arts college, and she returned as a politicized tattooed pierced foul m…
I'm really sorry that your daughter was exposed to critical thinking and new ideas, but understand that not everyone treats college as cubicle job training.
You know, you did not even get to read his post right.
How can you make such assumptions then?
(It was the daughter of a friend)
You kind of add to the cliche of a sjw. Quick to critizise, despise and condemn, before understanding how something works.
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#75Every time I read about the incredibly exploitative scientific publishing industry, I can’t help but think: can we just make scientific papers not copyrightable? Researchers and their institutions don’t benefit from the copyright protection; they barely make any money from their work. Sure, someone can take your work and claim it as their own, but we already handle them as plagiarism rather than copyright infringemen…
Not sure why you'd want to start making scientific papers non-copyrightable.
The easiest solution is just have scientists publish in open-access journals. Easy right? Nope, they are judged by the impact of their papers and it's higher in better quality journals.
That's the value these journals offer - exclusivity.
Scientists and universities could solve this issue immediately. Scientists publish in open-access journals and universities stop judging based on the journals "impact factor". However, neither one wants to do that.
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#76I am an academic at a UC who publishes in Elsevier journals. I support this. I don't want copyright for anything I work on. I also work in a field where patent/IP stuff would not be relevant, so I view all of my work as public domain as far as I am concerned. With my code I either do CC0 or MIT licenses.
I have had to publish in journals that are not open access -- mostly I just make pre-prints available to anyone who wants them and encourage my students to use sci-hub if they need to find something we don't subscribe to.
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#77It never makes any sense that people have to pay to access public funded research results. And it's not even paying to the researchers but a mostly unnecessary middleman.
Great job UC!
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#78Can anyone steelman the Elsevier side? I don't want to be caught in the headlights of I have to debate this.
I can't believe I've never heard of this expression.
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're not a fan of PLoS? I always thought their model seemed fair.
Good question. COnsider: First, PLoS fees are lower and as a nonprofit only have to support operation (no profit). Also as a nonprofit there is some transparency as to where those fees go, so I assume that publishing there really does cost something like $1600. Second PLoS's fee rules include the sentence "Authors' ability to pay publication fees will never be a consideration in the decision whether to publish." Else…
> (I'm looking at you, MIT!)
You couldn't choose a worse example than that. MIT famously screwed Aaron Swartz legally over public domain (pre-1923) papers, by baselessly claiming that his access had been "unauthorized" when in fact it was entirely consistent with their own pre-existing policies! They are a bad actor in this whole issue and aren't going to do a thing.
Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals
#80Papers produced using any amount of taxpayer money should be required to be publicly available. Not doing so is like stealing a farmer's crops so you can sell him food made from them.
Interesting that you mention farmers crops. Should crops produce with government subsidies also be publicly available for free?
Yes.