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Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

experimental-history.com

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Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#21

Post by bonsai_spool »

D-Machine wrote: post #14

The other factor preventing a fix is that people with no actual serious experience of academic publishing and peer review will defend these journals, because they still think that (journal-based) peer review acts like some kind of meaningful quality filter. But, it really doesn't. Because someone is surely going to try to defend journals via peer review in this thread, I want to provide a counter to the arguments tha…

I am sympathetic to the argument you wish to make, that peer review is no panacea, but the actual evidence you offer has nothing to do with this claim.

You are trying to say that high profile journals have more retractions, which is well known as you share.

How does that have anything to do with peer review? Are you saying that there is more review or less review in some cases and that influences retraction rate? In what evidence? In what world does the arxiv system moderate this discrepancy?

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#22

Post by bsoles »

> So the solution here is straightforward: every government grant should ...

People who write such sentences have no idea what they are talking about or are being intentionally naive for whatever reason.

Just because your one-sentence solution reads simple doesn't make the actual solution simple. Because such a solution involves changes to laws, changes to entrenched interests, changes to distribution of money involved in the whole system, and changes to balance of powers between stakeholders. Unless the push for such changes is significant enough to overcome the current state of affairs (due to public opinion, redistribution of power or money, etc.), nothing will happen.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#23

Post by bad_haircut72 »

glitchc wrote: post #10

We already have open-access publications: Just put it on arXiV. Most researchers I work with do this already. The problem isn't access, it's citations. arXiV is not considered a credible citation source since anyone can publish anything. TPCs don't use it in their list of citations, neither do grant funding agencies or government institutions. The current academic enterprise relies heavily on third-party gatekeeping.…

Unfortunately I think charging money is a necessary signal that this particular gatekeeper is doing a good job. We should recognise that money is a necessary part of this process, else there is no gate to keep. But we shpuld reverse the economics by having people pay to get their stuff peer reviewed. Imagine if reviewing research papers was something you could get paid to do, the incentive then isnt to rubber stamp things, actually your rating as a reviewer would come down to quality of reviews

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#24

Post by D-Machine »

snowwrestler wrote: post #18
MarkusQ wrote: post #4

Part of the problem is we got tricked into thinking "peer reviewed" meant "true," or at least something like it. It doesn't. Not even close. Peer review doesn't even mean that it's free from errors, free from fraud, free from methodological mischief; it doesn't mean anything at this point. Yet we continue to act like it does. Darwin's work wasn't peer reviewed. Nor Einstein's. It's something we cooked up in the mid 1…

> Part of the problem is we got tricked into thinking "peer reviewed" meant "true," or at least something like it. No actual working scientist thinks this. “Glitchc” has it right elsewhere in this thread: the motivating force behind journals is prominence and reputation, not truth.

Ah, but the naive public still broadly believes in peer review, and that high profile journals do good review. And the prominence and reputation that comes from these journals arguably then relies on this (increasingly false) public perception.

Would scientists feel the same if the public was more educated about how bad journals and peer review are? Not so easy to disentangle IMO.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#25

Post by D-Machine »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #21
D-Machine wrote: post #14

The other factor preventing a fix is that people with no actual serious experience of academic publishing and peer review will defend these journals, because they still think that (journal-based) peer review acts like some kind of meaningful quality filter. But, it really doesn't. Because someone is surely going to try to defend journals via peer review in this thread, I want to provide a counter to the arguments tha…

I am sympathetic to the argument you wish to make, that peer review is no panacea, but the actual evidence you offer has nothing to do with this claim. You are trying to say that high profile journals have more retractions, which is well known as you share. How does that have anything to do with peer review? Are you saying that there is more review or less review in some cases and that influences retraction rate? In…

> How does that have anything to do with peer review?

I already addressed this. People know peer review can be bad, but some think "good journals" still do good peer review. This is not so clear.

> In what world does the arxiv system moderate this discrepancy?

Open systems allow the scientific community to figure out ways to properly assess research quality and value more cheaply, and without passing through (often arbitrary and random) small numbers of gatekeepers that don't even do a reliable or good job gatekeeping in the first place.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#26

Post by snowwrestler »

glitcher wrote: post #6
bjackman wrote: post #3

I have had so many "why don't you just" conversations with academics about this. I know the "why don't you just" guy is such an annoying person to talk to, but I still don't really understand why they don't just. This article pointed to a few cases where people tried to do the thing, i.e. the pledge taken by individual researchers, and the requirements placed by certain funding channels, and those sound like a solid…

I like the author's idea: > So the solution here is straightforward: every government grant should stipulate that the research it supports can’t be published in a for-profit journal. That’s it! If the public paid for it, it shouldn’t be paywalled. The article then acknowledges this isn't a magic solution to all the problems discussed, but it's so simple and makes so much sense as a first step. I'm no expert here and…

Imagine being a scientist and reading “if you take this grant, you cannot publish your results in any of the most prominent journals in your field.” Sounds good?

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#27

Post by amluto »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #23
glitchc wrote: post #10

We already have open-access publications: Just put it on arXiV. Most researchers I work with do this already. The problem isn't access, it's citations. arXiV is not considered a credible citation source since anyone can publish anything. TPCs don't use it in their list of citations, neither do grant funding agencies or government institutions. The current academic enterprise relies heavily on third-party gatekeeping.…

Unfortunately I think charging money is a necessary signal that this particular gatekeeper is doing a good job. We should recognise that money is a necessary part of this process, else there is no gate to keep. But we shpuld reverse the economics by having people pay to get their stuff peer reviewed. Imagine if reviewing research papers was something you could get paid to do, the incentive then isnt to rubber stamp t…

> I think charging money is a necessary signal that this particular gatekeeper is doing a good job.

I’ve never seen the slightest relationship between the charge to read a paper and the quality of review.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#29

Post by RGamma »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #23
glitchc wrote: post #10

We already have open-access publications: Just put it on arXiV. Most researchers I work with do this already. The problem isn't access, it's citations. arXiV is not considered a credible citation source since anyone can publish anything. TPCs don't use it in their list of citations, neither do grant funding agencies or government institutions. The current academic enterprise relies heavily on third-party gatekeeping.…

Unfortunately I think charging money is a necessary signal that this particular gatekeeper is doing a good job. We should recognise that money is a necessary part of this process, else there is no gate to keep. But we shpuld reverse the economics by having people pay to get their stuff peer reviewed. Imagine if reviewing research papers was something you could get paid to do, the incentive then isnt to rubber stamp t…

Yeah review takes time and time is money. This needs to be priced in somehow. Bonus side effect: Frauds get discovered and filtered out (in theory).

But who watches the watchers? I guess review fraud will need to be considered as well.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#30

Post by bonsai_spool »

D-Machine wrote: post #25
bonsai_spool wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sympathetic to the argument you wish to make, that peer review is no panacea, but the actual evidence you offer has nothing to do with this claim. You are trying to say that high profile journals have more retractions, which is well known as you share. How does that have anything to do with peer review? Are you saying that there is more review or less review in some cases and that influences retraction rate? In…

> How does that have anything to do with peer review? I already addressed this. People know peer review can be bad, but some think "good journals" still do good peer review. This is not so clear. > In what world does the arxiv system moderate this discrepancy? Open systems allow the scientific community to figure out ways to properly assess research quality and value more cheaply, and without passing through (often a…

Your argument depends on worse peer review at top journals - but fundamentally, you fail to show how doing any peer review is strictly worse than doing no peer review.

I understand that we want arxiv to exist, and it does, and it’s growing. That doesn’t mean we don’t want Nature or Science to triage the most compelling stories.

Importantly, we can already begin the search for these ‘cheaper’ review strategies while not losing the helpful information filter we get by seeing where things are presented/published

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