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Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

theguardian.com

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Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#161

Post by anonymouskimmer »

6nf wrote: post #71
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

Is our tax dollars funding science or not? If it is tax funded why can’t I have a damn opinion? It’s my money.

I presume you can still email the author for a free copy.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#162

Post by anonymouskimmer »

fabian2k wrote: post #92
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

The big difference here is that prestige has nothing to do with cost, unlike your Louis Voutton comparison. Prestige is entirely based on the perception of the journals among scientists and on the prestige of the papers themselves that are published in them. And the scientists individually don't have a choice unless they are closer to the end of their career. Intentionally publishing in less prestigious journals will…

> And the scientists individually don't have a choice unless they are closer to the end of their career. Intentionally publishing in less prestigious journals will sabotage your career, period.

I think it would be helpful if corporate scientists published more. They too value prestige for bragging rights, or whatever, but a corporate career is more about patents and blockbuster products than about publication. So corporate scientists could sabotage the prestige of publications.

Many corporations could also afford to hire editors and self-publish their own journals. For students looking for jobs in industry, or for PIs who want to place their students in industry, publishing in the corporate journals would be better than publishing in tier 1 journals.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#163

Post by gavinsyancey »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #158
fast_neutron wrote: post #123

Elsevier is far from the only offender in the academic publishing space. This price gouging is rampant, and it affects everyone you could call a "customer." The only variable is who gets stuck with the bill. When I was in grad school, I easily went through 1000+ articles via my institution's library, most of which were dead ends. My school even had to drop the subscription of a journal I was actively using because th…

I wonder how much of the journal bureaucracy, such as peer-review, actually adds value. Do we really need vetted journals? Are pre-print upload sites with the ability to comment good enough?

Peer reviewers are fellow academics who are not paid. Peer review does not add any cost to publishing. The cost all goes to for-profit companies making record profits.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#164

Post by ModernMech »

tsbischof wrote: post #15
AraceliHarker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article states that peer review is done on a volunteer basis, right? All Elsevier does, at best, is put PDFs of the papers on their servers.

They also manage the review process (screen papers, find reviewers, communicate with authors and reviewers), make sure that papers are accessible long-term (decades to centuries), typeset manuscripts, print paper issues, and several other tasks. But yes, reviewers are not paid. A half-decent review can easily take 3-4 hours, and a typical paper gets 2-3 reviews, so something like 8-12 hours of PhD-level labor which a…

> But yes, reviewers are not paid. A half-decent review can easily take 3-4 hours, and a typical paper gets 2-3 reviews, so something like 8-12 hours of PhD-level labor which are not currently compensated.

They aren't paid, but that doesn't mean they aren't compensated; those reviewers will later submit papers which will receive reviews, for which they don't have to pay.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#165

Post by anonymouskimmer »

gavinsyancey wrote: post #163
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of the journal bureaucracy, such as peer-review, actually adds value. Do we really need vetted journals? Are pre-print upload sites with the ability to comment good enough?

Peer reviewers are fellow academics who are not paid. Peer review does not add any cost to publishing. The cost all goes to for-profit companies making record profits.

Someone is getting paid to loop in the peer-reviewers in the first place. Probably not a lot for any given article, but it's something.

I guess peer-reviewers may save money by doing some editing that the paid editor would have to do instead. I don't know how this balances out.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#166

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

[deleted]

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#167

Post by froh »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #158
fast_neutron wrote: post #123

Elsevier is far from the only offender in the academic publishing space. This price gouging is rampant, and it affects everyone you could call a "customer." The only variable is who gets stuck with the bill. When I was in grad school, I easily went through 1000+ articles via my institution's library, most of which were dead ends. My school even had to drop the subscription of a journal I was actively using because th…

I wonder how much of the journal bureaucracy, such as peer-review, actually adds value. Do we really need vetted journals? Are pre-print upload sites with the ability to comment good enough?

if only the reviewers were paid I'd understand the question in the context of price gauging. however the journal does _not_ pay the reviewers.

the question how to best organize academic peer review is independent from the price gauging.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#168

Post by spamizbad »

Someone wrote: post #157
spamizbad wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument makes no sense. Journal publishers don’t weigh in on tenure or grant decisions. While they provide a conduit for materials that impact such things (the researchers papers), they have no say in anything (including, incidentally, sometimes what gets published) A publisher provided distribution. That’s it. They aren’t even the chef in this analogy: they’re FOH staff. Journal editors are faculty at academic…

> A publisher provided distribution. That’s it. throwawaaarrgh argues that they provide prestige, too. I agree. Certainly, I can’t see that publishers only provide distribution, as that should be almost trivial to replicate, and lead to a race to the bottom, price-wise, and the entire process would long have been “replaced by a CMS solution hosted in the cloud” .

That prestige exists because of its editors and its history in a specific field of study. There’s no “value” being created by the publisher itself in this respect.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#169

Post by lores »

gavinsyancey wrote: post #163
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of the journal bureaucracy, such as peer-review, actually adds value. Do we really need vetted journals? Are pre-print upload sites with the ability to comment good enough?

Peer reviewers are fellow academics who are not paid. Peer review does not add any cost to publishing. The cost all goes to for-profit companies making record profits.

Peer review absolutely add costs. Finding a reviewer who's qualified, free and willing takes time and effort, and that's increasing by the day. Frankly, I think peer review is doomed. There's now a flood of AI-generated papers that journals need to weed out, and even 99% success is not good enough for peer-reviewers' workload and continued respect. On top of that, natural demographics, the cuts to university funding in the West and the improvement of education in Africa, Asia and South America mean there is a greater and greater proportion of young researchers to experienced, overburdened researchers, and that's just too much load to bear.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#170

Post by fastneutron »

fast_neutron wrote: post #123

Elsevier is far from the only offender in the academic publishing space. This price gouging is rampant, and it affects everyone you could call a "customer." The only variable is who gets stuck with the bill. When I was in grad school, I easily went through 1000+ articles via my institution's library, most of which were dead ends. My school even had to drop the subscription of a journal I was actively using because th…

The closest analogy I can think of is a highway billboard. Say there’s a really good spot with lots of traffic, and you want drivers to see your ad. The billboard company provides a venue for you to put up the ad, and takes care of the printing and real estate. Other than that, the rest of the process of making that ad poster is up to you, your company and any partners you rely on.

The publisher is like the billboard company in that they provide the venue, maybe with good visibility, handle the printing and hosting, and connect you with unpaid peer reviewers.

The only one making money off of all this is the publisher. The benefit you get is that someone else gets to read your work, and maybe you got a “good billboard spot” to get the most impact.

The extra part of this is that academic researchers are a captive market, similar to users who have only one ISP to choose from like Comcast. You have to publish on That Specific Billboard or you risk career suicide. If you were the billboard owner, you have a strong incentive to charge outrageous prices because you know that your customers rely on you, and have nowhere else to go.

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