131–140 of 230 posts
Why not adopt the law school approach? Let the grad students publish the journals.
The article mentioned that MIT saved 80%, and that they are paying $300,000 to purchase on a per article basis. So their previous contract with Elsevier was $1.5M annually. Elsevier's net income is £2.02 billion (2022)(Wikipedia). So the loss to Elsevier from MIT is about 0.04% of net income. Which makes sense: MIT is one of around 2000 universities worldwide. I hope this catches on elsewhere, too.
However there is also the loss of prestige for Elsevier. MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.* The loss of MIT gives permission to other institutions who may be more concerned about reputation to do the same (they don’t want to generate whispers of “did they do this because they are having money troubles?”). It may also cause authors to submit other prestigious journals…
MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do these numbers work out though? MIT probably isn't the richest university there is, but I would expect it to be pretty far up there. Even if all 2000 unis spent as much as MIT did, it would only add up to roughly 80% of the profit — and I would expect most universities to have far less budget than MIT. So is there a set of big whale universities who are paying way more?
According to Wiki, MIT has an endowment of ~25B USD -- #6 in the US. It is incredibly rich. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit... I don't know how this ranks internationally, but I guess that US universities have the largest endowments globally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
However there is also the loss of prestige for Elsevier. MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.* The loss of MIT gives permission to other institutions who may be more concerned about reputation to do the same (they don’t want to generate whispers of “did they do this because they are having money troubles?”). It may also cause authors to submit other prestigious journals…
Nothing against the overall sentiment, and even considering the audience here, but surely the quote below isn’t serious: MIT is one the the preeminent universities in the world, perhaps the preeminent one.
The difference in approach, outcome and size of expenditure between MIT and the University of California System in their negotiations with Elsevier interests university libraries everywhere when considering their own publications strategies. It is great that both institutions have been open about their budgets, their negotiation stance, and the outcome.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wiki, MIT has an endowment of ~25B USD -- #6 in the US. It is incredibly rich. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit... I don't know how this ranks internationally, but I guess that US universities have the largest endowments globally.
Not specifically aimed at MIT, but wouldn’t such a large unspent endowment not (at least casually) suggest a failure to invest in research / students / etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wiki, MIT has an endowment of ~25B USD -- #6 in the US. It is incredibly rich. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit... I don't know how this ranks internationally, but I guess that US universities have the largest endowments globally.
Not specifically aimed at MIT, but wouldn’t such a large unspent endowment not (at least casually) suggest a failure to invest in research / students / etc.
> 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…
As a result, universities rarely make decisions like corporations, where the CEO decides and everyone in the organisation toes the line. A policy like this is made by consultation with stakeholders, extensive and ongoing. As the article describes, this takes years even in a small university like MIT.
It's simply not within the power of the negotiators to reach a decision outside that policy: they'd be ignored by the university faculties, who would then make their own individual arrangements, and the funds available to the negotiators would not be agreed to (and far worse outcomes are possible, efforts by 'the administration' to make decisions against consensus are a common reason for the head of a university to be sacked). If the negotiators genuinely can't reach agreement, then negotiations have to be suspended, the progress reported to many interested parties within the university, and then a new consensus reached about the negotiation parameters.
Now no two universities are the same, and the degree of centralisation varies. But I hope this helps you understand that the 'policy' referred to in this article was itself the result of years of negotiation, and "you can change them at any time; they are your choices" doesn't describe the situation.