Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 313 posts

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#191

Post by effie »

aj7 wrote: post #175
api wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've seen in tech is that a patent is a straw asset to make the bean counters feel more comfortable. The value of non-capital-intensive tech companies is almost entirely ephemeral. Even for capital intensive ones most of the value is usually not in the physical capital but in the brand, ideas, collective employee knowledge, and customer relationships. A patent looks like a physical asset on the books so it makes…

No. A patent is like a nuclear missile. It’s useless until it is not. That said, you have to be very wealthy to fire those missiles, generally wealthier than your target.

That's the opposite of a nuclear missile. Those are useful now (deterrence) until they are not (when they are used).

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#192

Post by Vinnl »

filleokus wrote: post #93

I’ve always thought that a more reasonable model for academic publishing would be to disconnect the availability of the content from the peer review / “publishing”. Couldn’t the PDF’s be hosted in the open, in a repository similar to arXiv, and then be “published”. Being published would then just basically mean that your paper gets tagged in the repository as “Published in Journal of X”, almost like a Twitter verific…

Sure, and those are usually referred to as "overlay journals". They exist, but the thing that has been keeping the entire system in place now is how existing journals have a reputation upon which the academic career evaluation process is built. That allows publishers to charge ridiculous amounts of money, so they're quite keen on the current situation.

More here: https://medium.com/flockademic/the-ridiculous-number-that-ca...

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#193

Post by Vinnl »

dan-robertson wrote: post #82

Is this the first time Elsevier has cut off a major group of universities? In all the similar past occasions I know about, Elsevier would threaten to cut off access but not flow through, out of the kindness of their hearts and for the good of academia (or rather for fear that the universities might discover they don’t get much value out of Elsevier) One thing Elsevier builds their strategy on is bundling: that to get…

No, although it has indeed threatened to do so and then did not do it often in the past, in July 2018 they cut off several institutions in Germany: https://www.projekt-deal.de/elsevier-news/

Similar things have happened in a few other European countries.

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#194

Post by Vinnl »

im3w1l wrote: post #108
braythwayt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So let's go to the root of this. What is it that the funding agencies value in Elsevier publications? That if it's published there it's a mark of high quality research. Assuming Elsevier is killed off, someone else will have to put in the work of sifting good from bad. And that's not an easy problem, especially when many try to pervert the process for ideological gain.

It might not be an easy problem, but it's not a problem that has to be tied to publication, and it's not a problem that has to be pay-to-win.

(Disclaimer: I'm part of a project that tries to sift the good from bad without those things.)

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#195

Post by Vinnl »

amluto wrote: post #149
apo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elsevier owns copyrighted material, which it licenses to individuals and institutions for a fee. The fee is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, which is no different than any other intellectual property such as movies, music, books, or software. If a customer is unable or unwilling to pay the prevailing rate, then no access will be granted. The argument that Elsevier uses unpaid academic labor and therefore should fa…

> Authors signed over their copyright to Elsevier, and like any other copyright holder Elsevier can license its property toward any legal purpose that advances its business interests. I have two counter arguments here: 1. Funding agencies should not permit this. If I were to fund public research, the results should be public under an appropriate license. 2. Something is very wrong with the system if authors are willi…

> 1. Funding agencies should not permit this. If I were to fund public research, the results should be public under an appropriate license.

And more and more are they doing that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S

Unfortunately, the US is still not on board - that would make a major difference.

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#196

Post by anticensor »

natechols wrote: post #173
xiii1408 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career progress in academia is mostly based on publications in top-tier journals in your field. If those journals aren't open access, you're required to publish in closed access journals if you want to (1) get a Ph.D., (2) get tenure, etc.

Correction: you do not need to publish in closed access journals to get a PhD. However, getting a tenure-track faculty position in the life sciences at a major US university is almost impossible without publishing in Science, Nature, or Cell (an Elsevier journal), none of which is open-access (without paying an exorbitant fee).

PLOS is a top-tier indexed refereed open-access journal.

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#198

Post by patall »

btrettel wrote: post #106
HeavenFox wrote: post #62

Every 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…

There are few open access journals in my field, and the ones that will publish open access charge absurdly high fees for it. I have a spreadsheet for my field: $2000 to $3140 per article, average $2690. I tried to negotiate with one smaller and more specialized journal in my field on the fee without any luck. I've also tried to find journals willing to take my paper without copyright transfer, as if commonly done for…

Interesting that you did not succeed negotiating. We had a case where our open-access fund would only help out if the fee was $2000 maximum. We communicated that to the journal and they obliged without further comment. (Though this was after review and that journal really wanted our paper as it was obvious that we would raise their impact factor). I agree that $2000 still seems like a lot of money for an online-only document that journal is not doing anything for aside a little adjusting of the final pdf + paying the editor.

Re: Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals

#200

Post by patall »

I never understood why university libraries are not making the journals themselves instead of having them done by companies and paying for the subscription. Every university would have like 5 or 6 journals and pay everything for those and all the scientific articles would be free. I mean elife does it and it is great.
Post reply on HN