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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

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

Loughla wrote: post #112
dredmorbius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an issue pretty much anybody who's gone through a tertiary academic institution should have some awareness of. That's well over half the adult population these days in the US and likely EU. Being cut off from library access was a huge shock for me on leaving uni.

Again, not really. Most professions, once you leave University, do not consult research materials. They have no reason to. And when these folks are in university, the materials are all super easily accessible. It's literally a non-issue for, I would bet, a majority of people. It just doesn't exist in their day to day. Regardless of how that actually impacts the world.

Maybe it's the other way around - or at least a feedback loop? That is, because they're cut off from easy access to research materials, most people don't consult them past graduation -- which ensures there's no expectation or benefit from consulting academic work outside of few specific professions, effectively keeping people dumb and stumbling in the dark relative to what they'd otherwise be.

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

#152

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mrandish wrote: post #142
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 prior contract terms to the contrary are hereby void" I don't think this second part you suggest is something the state can just unilaterally do if there's an existing valid contract and the other party doesn't agree. You could mandate that no contracts may be renewed and all contracts should be terminated as soon as the terms permit.

> I don't think this second part you suggest is something the state can just unilaterally do

If the state does not enforce a contract through the courts, what is it really worth?

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

#153

Post by kaitocross »

Loughla wrote: post #112
dredmorbius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an issue pretty much anybody who's gone through a tertiary academic institution should have some awareness of. That's well over half the adult population these days in the US and likely EU. Being cut off from library access was a huge shock for me on leaving uni.

Again, not really. Most professions, once you leave University, do not consult research materials. They have no reason to. And when these folks are in university, the materials are all super easily accessible. It's literally a non-issue for, I would bet, a majority of people. It just doesn't exist in their day to day. Regardless of how that actually impacts the world.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem. It doesnt exist in their day to day because they cant access it legally. Also, the political space would profit from more open access. How can I base my arguments on facts and logic if the primary sources of the facts are not accessible to me? How can I show others the facts if they cant access the source without getting into legal trouble?

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

#154

Post by photonthug »

Loughla wrote: post #93
burningChrome wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I don't think the average voter understand how bad it really is. Unless you're in academia, you'd have no idea. I spent a few years in academia while pursuing my Masters. Dropped out for various reasons and never had any idea this was such a huge thing - mainly because as a university student, you just always had access. I got a small glimpse when I got a job a few years later working for a rather large legal publ…

I think it's because not a lot of professions access these research journals for their day to day outside of medicine, engineering, and academia. It's just not an issue for most people's everyday. So it's just not an issue.

> It's just not an issue for most people's everyday.

Sure, but if you look at any of the fairly ridiculous and designed-to-be-divisive issues that pretty much decide every bit of our political conversation.. anything can be an issue. Making the military more diverse is a good example, because while it's absolutely important, it also affects less than 1% of people directly, and less than 3% indirectly. I'd hazard a guess that open-access to research affects more than 1% of people directly, and roughly 100% of people indirectly.

> state funded research shall be released to the public domain, and all prior contract terms to the contrary are hereby void

This phrasing from GP works great because it pushes people's "freedom" buttons, and also their "curb government corruption" buttons, and for the more academically inclined, appeals to everything from accelerationist futurism to enlightened humanism. And it's not even divisive! This isn't controversial at all for anyone except the rent-seeking journal owners, and it seems like an easy win for anyone who wants to champion it. All by itself, this would be an amazing legacy, even for someone who exits political life immediately afterwards.

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

#156

Post by whoitwas »

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…

Imagine government that actually tries to help people. California seems decent.

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

#157

Post by Vinnl »

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…

Almost the entirety of Europe, together with big funders like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, took a good stab at battling the cartels to get them to make articles Open Access, with Plan S: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S

Unfortunately, the impact seems to have been limited, primarily because the US didn't sign up to it.

So I'm afraid I don't see California being able to go on its own.

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

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

maeil wrote: post #147
mmooss wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the face of it, this sounds like a modern-capitalism take that reduces to "People don't actually have principles, they only care about money". Which is probably correct in 95% of modern business transactions. But surely a skilled negotiator should be able to tell when they're dealing with a party for whom this assumption does not hold. That's one of the main things that being a skilled negotiator is about; the abi…

> modern-capitalism take that reduces to "People don't actually have principles, they only care about money"1

This is not a modern-capitalism take, maybe just a modern-capitalism phrasing. If you read "money" as common unit of value (which it is), not just dollars in hand specifically, then the statement is effectively true for 99%+ of people; the few for which it doesn't hold are considered insane[0], and we try to fix them or lock away in institutions, for the safety of everyone else[1].

There's no absolute value you won't compromise if the cost of keeping it is high enough, or equivalently, the benefit of breaking it is high enough. Having principles, integrity, is a way to boost the cost of some behaviors ahead of time, so you won't be tempted to engage in them even if presented with substantial rewards. It's particularly effective if other people know your stated principles and will hold you accountable. But it's still a finite threshold that can be overcome (especially with of companies, where principles generally are just pure marketing).

A skilled negotiator understands that everyone will sell out on their principles if the reward is big enough - but they also understand that it cuts both ways. Negotiation is a dance of allocating costs and benefits so that everyone actually gets something out of it[2]. It makes little sense otherwise.

--

[0] - Absolute principles are like probabilities 0 and 1 in probability theory - they break the math. Or zero in general whenever you want to do multiplication or division. You don't want absolute principles, or anything you do will be defined purely by them.

[1] - And/or stuck in cults as followers; notably cult leaders tend to be very much pragmatic and money-oriented.

[2] - Relative to the non-negotiated/fought outcome. "Your money or your life" sucks for the mugging victim either way, but the victim prefers being alive to being dead and the mugger prefers theft to theft + murder, so a negotiation is still worthwhile for both.

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

#159

Post by andyjohnson0 »

Something1234 wrote: post #130
hbbio wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Undoubtedly a reference to CMU's Andrew project [1], which was an experimental distributed computing environment from the 1980s - with an emphasis on providing infrastructure for pedagogy.

Ideas developed by Andrew and Project Athena [2] can still be seen in contemporary software today: window managers, distributed file systems and authentication, compouns documents , etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Project

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Athena

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

#160

Post by DrScientist »

Power has shifted - what the publishers provided was the infrastructure to publish - designing, manufacturing physical journals, marketing and distributing them.

With the shift to online, the barrier to entry is much lower.

There is still a role as a curator, with the an ability to garner attention ( and because the publishing barrier is lower, this has become more important ) - in a similar way to a radio DJ, but unlike music there is no need for a monetarisation platform from an authors perspective.

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