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MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

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Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#121

Post by kashunstva »

dsr_ wrote: post #97
PopePompus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're certainly right about authors and peer-reviewers, but are you sure that editors don't get paid with some of that money?

Yes. The "editors" for most such publications do not edit, they make publishing decisions. Copy-editors are expensive, and paid for by the researchers, not the journals.

> The "editors" for most such publications do not edit, they make publishing decisions.

My spouse is an editor at an academic journal in her field and does some of both. In papers selected for publication, she does exert editorial input. In terms of remuneration, it is a compensated position; but how the money flows between the academic society, the journal and Elsevier, that part is lost on me.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#122

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

rtpg wrote: post #109
mywittyname wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effect. "Everyone" subscribed to Elsevier, so if you wanted your papers to get visibility and citations, you tried to get it published in their journals. They are a relic of a bygone era. They made sense when journals were physical publications in the library. Elsevier was the one-stop-shop for all of the major academic journals. But with the internet, they make less sense and kept their position through iner…

Curation is, theoretically, a value-add that doesn't magically disappear with the internet. "This paper is not utter garbage" is a nice signal, if it's true.

Anybody can curate. Curating a work doesn't require an exclusive copyright to publish that work. Michelin curates restaurants without charging their guests for admission.

You can even start a subscription newsletter titled "rtpg's best of Arxiv", containing curated links to a shortlist of the highest quality research you can find. It could become very prestigious for researchers to be mentioned in your newsletter, and your own reputation will hinge on the quality of the papers you link to (and the ones you leave out). Even so, this service still doesn't require that you host or own copyright to those works!

Nor does this arrangement require that any one work be found on only one single curator's shortlist and no others.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#123

Post by dsr_ »

PopePompus wrote: post #115
dsr_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The "editors" for most such publications do not edit, they make publishing decisions. Copy-editors are expensive, and paid for by the researchers, not the journals.

I have published papers in scientific journals. I had to pay page charges to the journal (well, my employer did), but I never directly paid any editor or copy-editor.

Did any copy-editing happen? Frequently it does not. Which is another issue... copy-editing on scientific papers requires major cooperation between the authors and the editor.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#124

Post by rmholt »

echelon wrote: post #117
mncharity wrote: post #69

Some random bits of context. This conflict goes back a long time. In the early 1990's, with online journals just getting started, MIT was able to insist on principles like "anyone physically in the library has full access, even if they are not otherwise affiliated with MIT". A couple of years later, power shifted, and Elsevier could "our terms, take it or leave it". Then three decades, a human generation, of Elsevier…

> "our terms, take it or leave it". So many monopolies do this and they should all be disrupted. This is our world, and anyone telling us they get to gatekeep information exchange is not an ally. Google with Chrome, Apple with iPhone. > Societal change can be so very slow, nonmonotonic, and profoundly discouraging. And yet here we are, making progress. Encouraging, but we lost Aaron.

Disrupted implies by a new competitor which I'm not sure is always possible. We need strong anti-monopoly laws and strong enforcement of them.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#125

Post by a_bonobo »

levocardia wrote: post #88
mullingitover wrote: post #78

I wonder how far California could go on its own in destroying the journal cartels. They really are a parasitic racket, and I don't think the average voter understand how bad it really is. I feel like one basic ballot measure to the effect of "All state funded research shall be released to the public domain, and all prior contract terms to the contrary are hereby void" might be enough to knock over the first domino, h…

> "All state funded research shall be released to the public domain, and all prior contract terms to the contrary are hereby void" That's already a requirement for a huge amount of research.

Yes but you still need the journal's stamp of approval for your CV - in my past life having the paper on biorxiv did not count towards anything.

The number of papers per year in the top 20% of journals in the field was one of two metrics they assessed my career progression by (along with grant money). As long as universities and funders require similar journal-based KPIs we will not make any progress.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#126

Post by cortesoft »

mmooss wrote: post #54
mlhpdx wrote: post #19

> MIT presented its principles to the publisher’s representatives as the basis for new contract negotiations. This is an incredibly important and powerful strategy, as a customer or a vendor. When everything is negotiable, trouble follows. The instant gratification of a "win" doesn't help move an organization forward. Having and sticking to principles does, with practical benefits. Trust grows and culture improves. C…

The effect on experienced negotiators is different: Portraying it as a principle, a policy ('our policy is ...'), an emotional issue, etc. are all just window dressings for what they want, and everyone tries to portray their wants to be as non-negotiable as possible in order to drive up the price they can demand. One basic tactic is to act angry about your want; some politicians love to do this one - it's a new outra…

The university could make them binding and difficult to rollback if they wanted.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#127

Post by rtpg »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #122
rtpg wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curation is, theoretically, a value-add that doesn't magically disappear with the internet. "This paper is not utter garbage" is a nice signal, if it's true.

Anybody can curate. Curating a work doesn't require an exclusive copyright to publish that work. Michelin curates restaurants without charging their guests for admission. You can even start a subscription newsletter titled "rtpg's best of Arxiv", containing curated links to a shortlist of the highest quality research you can find. It could become very prestigious for researchers to be mentioned in your newsletter, an…

I agree! I don't think these actions need to be bundled together. I'm mainly just saying that curation is helpful, IMO.

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#128

Post by causality0 »

Try explaining to a space alien the concept of "well first we tax the people to raise money, and the that money is given to scientists to conduct research, and then we sell that research back to the people on an individual basis so long as they can afford access to it."

Re: MIT leaders describe the experience of not renewing Elsevier contract

#130

Post by Something1234 »

hbbio wrote: post #101
mncharity wrote: post #69

Some random bits of context. This conflict goes back a long time. In the early 1990's, with online journals just getting started, MIT was able to insist on principles like "anyone physically in the library has full access, even if they are not otherwise affiliated with MIT". A couple of years later, power shifted, and Elsevier could "our terms, take it or leave it". Then three decades, a human generation, of Elsevier…

> we're today using X Windows instead of CMU's Andrew And in that world, TypeScript would have to find another name! Now, good luck googling Andrew Typescript :) Edit: Found it... https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~AUIS/ljdocs/mkmost/fig4.gif

I'm going to need more history here on exactly what you linked this is insanely interesting. Alternate windows things in unix land are always interesting
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