Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
theguardian.com
Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
1–10 of 254 posts
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#2The always entertaining question of do you pay for value or cost
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#3The always entertaining question of do you pay for value or cost
And another question - did you already pay for value through your taxes?
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#4Good. I hope their alternative journal takes off. Scientists want to be published in these journals for the prestige that it brings. Hopefully a cost recovery priced journal with high standards of peer review can be successful in attracting papers.
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#5The always entertaining question of do you pay for value or cost
That's not really the interesting part.
The interesting question is: Is there a quasi-monopolistic predatory exploitation of a historically captive market? And what are the mechanisms to destroy it?
From my perspective, it's clear that we have a multi-billion dollar/year heist by corporations whose value proposition (logistics, layout, quality assurance) are quickly eroding. They need to die yesterday.
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#6The always entertaining question of do you pay for value or cost
The "value" here is a racket though, right?
The publishing companies do not create anything of value, they hold a resource (prestige) that they do nothing to improve, transform or grow. Academies do all that labour for free, and the publishers rent-seek on that free labour and run a racket ("publish here or else").
It's a feudal setup: a king controls the land but does nothing with it. The serfs do all the labour and then pay the king for "access" to the land.
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#7Curious what is the leading open source system being used for publication of journals where academics are trying to get out of such exploitative practices? Or is it a collection of bespoke setups with no clear leader?
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#8By watching the vintage TV show Miami Vice I learned that many people make a living out of selling an image (one of the cornerstones of Sonny Crockett's policing philosophy). TED comes to mind. Or WEF in Davos. They are all basically just marketing operations. (TED sells the hip/green young futurists and WEF plays the conspiracy angle.) Same with this science stuff here. Of course the professional scientists love the prestige that comes from such a publication, but that's the reason why they are gamed by these publishers in the first place.
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#9The always entertaining question of do you pay for value or cost
The "value" here is a racket though, right? The publishing companies do not create anything of value, they hold a resource (prestige) that they do nothing to improve, transform or grow. Academies do all that labour for free, and the publishers rent-seek on that free labour and run a racket ("publish here or else"). It's a feudal setup: a king controls the land but does nothing with it. The serfs do all the labour and…
> It's a feudal setup:
Yes it is, but why hasnt it changed in the past 30 years? Because the serfs (academics) cannot agree on a replacement ruler. It's not like there arent many good open access publishers. But there aren't many open 'prestige givers'
Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees
#10You cannot really blame Elsevier here. They are just taking advantage of a dysfunctional academic system. The cost of reviewing a paper properly is high, but academia is not paying that cost by simply not doing a proper review. If the money saved by cutting Elsevier out (in this case £2700 per accepted paper) would actually be added to a pool out of which reviews are financed, I would see the point. But as it is, they will just continue to pretend that reviews are free, and the quality continues to go down the drain. Elsevier itself obviously adds very little to no value, but it is laughable that reviews are supposed to be free. If reviews were priced properly, the £2700 would probably appear to be a minor cost not worth worrying about.