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MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

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Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#191

Post by roywiggins »

woofie11 wrote: post #175
ramraj07 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just came across his name yesterday when I was looking for python markdown parsers! Thinking about what happened to him, I'm a bit ambivalent. He was a great dude, for sure, but what he did with downloading the entire JSTOR database sneakily does sound a bit out there. It's definitely a Robinhood move, but Robinhood also had an arrest warrant on him. Expecting no less of a retaliation would have been naive at best. M…

There are two pieces here: How the legal system behaved, and how MIT behaved. What you're saying makes 100% sense for an aggressive prosecutor. On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil. To go back to the Robinhood analogy, I would expect the Sheriff of Nottingham to go after Robinhood with perfect dedication -- that's his job. On the other hand, if Friar Tuck made it his life's work to go afte…

It's a shame that our expectations for prosecutors are so low.

(to be clear, I share them. But, it's a shame)

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#192

Post by pessimizer »

MrGunn wrote: post #142

As a researcher, I understand the frustrations with the publishing process. I spent years complaining about it, then I decided to do something. A few years later, my company was acquired by Elsevier & everyone was calling me a sellout. What changed? The same thing that changes every time you get your hands dirty trying to fix something - you see all the hidden complexity that wasn't apparent before. Are there legacy…

> You don't want a system like this to change quickly.

I don't understand how one or two companies owning all of academic publishing doesn't count as as a quick change, but open access would.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#193

Post by wdb »

MrGunn wrote: post #142

As a researcher, I understand the frustrations with the publishing process. I spent years complaining about it, then I decided to do something. A few years later, my company was acquired by Elsevier & everyone was calling me a sellout. What changed? The same thing that changes every time you get your hands dirty trying to fix something - you see all the hidden complexity that wasn't apparent before. Are there legacy…

Personally, my opinion is that any research funded by public money shouldn't be behind a paywall and should be freely accessible to the tax payers.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#194

Post by TheKarateKid »

lazyjeff wrote: post #182
underdeserver wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a random industry software engineer. :) > In day-to-day, all researchers use these to stay informed on recent results. But how to guarantee that nobody hacks in and figures out how to change a few bytes in one paper that is 10years old? Printed versions + digitally signed and timestamped PDFs. This is a solved problem in the world, at least up to the level that Springer can solve it. > How to guarantee that these…

Everyone here is imagining all the technical ways to replace publishers. That's quite feasible as you and others point out. I think there is also real work needed to solve social (people) problems, for example: - explain to the stakeholders by preparing various text and other media about how your format/venue/website is different and better, and convince them that this solves a real problem they should care about - s…

The same way Wikipedia and Reddit manage to provide quality platforms that provide tools to address these social issues, built for longevity, and have strong community moderation.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#195

Post by bananamerica »

enriquto wrote: post #20
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #11

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ It requires that: 1. No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals. 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with gener…

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

Maybe it doesn’t make sense to think about large organizations as monolithic entities. They’re composed of numerous sub entities that may follow different rules. A platoon may be ordered to shoot, but it’s conceivable that not all soldiers will comply. This is not at all contradictory.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#196

Post by m463 »

enriquto wrote: post #20
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #11

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ It requires that: 1. No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals. 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with gener…

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

I can't help but think of the legal system.

You would think it was rigorous and logical and would have parallels in science in some way, but when you can "exclude evidence" you realize they are different animals.

as to large organizations... Look, it's just Game of Thrones all the way down.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#197

Post by CRConrad »

mywittyname wrote: post #168
njharman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much as they aren't an established company it's that that their business model has been broken/bypassed by technology. They've been reduced to being a middle-man that obstructs value rather than providing it. The only part of biz model left is "prestige" (very fickle), "customer lock in / inertia" (which is already going away re: OA), and lobbying government to prop up/expand their monopoly (ever extendin…

I disagree. It seems like you only know Elsevier as a publisher of journals, but that's only about 1/3 of their overall business. They (RELX) provide a lot of useful services to companies and governments. About half their revenue and profits come from Risk and Legal services, which are not things you hear about in the news. They offer services for police, airlines, legal firms, insurance companies, accounting firms H…

1) So they can keep doing business in those other areas.

2) Large universities are not little startups to be easily intimidated.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#198

Post by mehrdadn »

Tainnor wrote: post #157
enriquto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

Totally a tangent, but: the law of the excluded middle ("tertium non datur") doesn't state that "a and not a" is always invalid, it states that "a or not a" is always valid. This is a somewhat important distinction since there are logic systems (intuitionism) where "a or not a" is not a tautology, yet I don't know of any logic that accepts "a and not a".

I'm confused. Or maybe you're confusing AND with OR? How can "A and not A" ever be true, let alone tautologically so? Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#199

Post by NoSorryCannot »

abhv wrote: post #39
underdeserver wrote: post #22

I honestly don't understand why JSTOR, Elsevier and others like them still need to exist. Top universities should just found a non-profit, per subject, with a single paid facilitator and a single paid editor (per journal) to find peer reviewers and edit the papers into a monthly journal. Modern tech has made it ridiculously easy to type, edit and publish such a thing if the inputs are LaTeX, Word, Markdown files or a…

I'm an academic. For years, my academic niche has tried to break free from the likes of Springer/Elsevier. Here are the bottlenecks: * There are wonderful "pre-print" servers like arxiv and eprint.iacr.org. However, these do not maintain the "archival quality" document storage that is needed for academic scientific literature. In day-to-day, all researchers use these to stay informed on recent results. But how to gua…

Re: hacking, preservation - - does Elsevier make reasonable assurances in this space beyond being a strawman that can be torn apart in a lawsuit? Is there a reason an open access platform could not make technological assurances that are as good or better?

This really seems like a good and fairly low-risk opportunity for universities to form a consortium of sorts to make their own publishing platform. And then maybe "impact" would be built in because they'd all be getting high on their own supply. But these institutions are strangely prone to silos despite the collaborative spirit of academia writ large so I don't see that happening.

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