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Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

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Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#121

Post by SubiculumCode »

butILoveLife wrote: post #48
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.…

>The first thing an academic does is check where a paper is published, before even reading it. It's a crutch. This is actually what ruined my respect for Academia. My Science PhD buddy looked at the journal title and the claim, then said: "Its true!" I look at him with horror. Who cares about the journal, I want to know data and methodology. I've basically never forgiven Academia since this. I see even Ivys put out b…

Complete hogwash of a comment, based almost entirely on your limited experiences, to denigrate academic scientists.

If you even knew these people, you'd know that most that remain in academia never considered industry in the first place. These people were not rejected by industry. In fact, it is the other way around. *They rejected industry*. They did so, despite knowing they'd make more money, but chose to remain in academia because they wanted to spend their life pursuing research topics that interested them with independence. Sometimes they feel the fool when money is tight and the hours are relentlessly long, but never have I seen it happen because they were rejected by industry.

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#122

Post by jpeloquin »

Is the goal to get rid of the journals or ensure open access? Because the US already has open access mandates for federally funded research. Immediate and without embargo. https://www.lib.iastate.edu/news/upcoming-public-access-requ...

Re: Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals

#123

Post by abought »

haritha-j wrote: post #54

Arxiv isn't the solution. But i think computer science conferences are. These have the same scientific rigour and standards in the review process as journals in other scientific fields, but don't price gouge. Yes, conferences are also a bit expensive, but you get a lot for your money, and they usally aren't out to make a big profit.

Conferences can be truly wonderful, but not a universal replacement for publishing.

If you think journals are expensive, try sending your whole lab to a conference in another country. That may not let you in. Where some of the attendees have to fill out paperwork before talking to a foreign national. (does that ever make for awkward small talk...)

For all their many faults, journals provide access to a really wide audience, and- in theory- make it possible to form connections who wouldn't be able to meet directly.

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

#124

Post by SubiculumCode »

currymj wrote: post #115
phil21 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think folks in academia have come to terms with how much the above attitude has completely and nearly entirely undermined the credibility of the entire scientific and academic community in the eyes of the general public. You don’t need a degree to understand how much utter junk science is being published by those who think they are superior to you. Just read a few actual papers end to end and look at the data…

On the whole you should rarely read papers, you want to read a whole literature in an area. Academics embedded in the field can do this easily. Academics outside of an area know to do this, and to bounce things off an expert to make sure you have the context and aren't over-indexing on a flashy result. Everybody learns the painful lesson in grad school to not just read a paper and believe everything will work as it s…

I wouldn't be surprised if the parent's complaint about his academic buddy who didn't read the paper's methods yet declared their findings as true, had misunderstood why his friend did so... which could have well been due to their additional knowledge about similar past findings/studies.

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

#125

Post by jltsiren »

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…

There are hundreds of reputable research universities around the world. Top-5 departments can't meaningfully change the culture of a field on their own. Top-100 perhaps could, but the coordination problem is much bigger on that level.

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

#126

Post by sega_sai »

jpeloquin wrote: post #122

Is the goal to get rid of the journals or ensure open access? Because the US already has open access mandates for federally funded research. Immediate and without embargo. https://www.lib.iastate.edu/news/upcoming-public-access-requ...

it is open access, but often 'golden' or 'diamond' OA, where the researcher has to pay few K$ for this.

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

#127

Post by shellfishgene »

jpeloquin wrote: post #122

Is the goal to get rid of the journals or ensure open access? Because the US already has open access mandates for federally funded research. Immediate and without embargo. https://www.lib.iastate.edu/news/upcoming-public-access-requ...

This is discussed in the article.

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

#128

Post by gus_massa »

SoftTalker wrote: post #96
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.…

Why isn't a citation just a citation. It's a pointer to a source, that's all. If it implies some standards have been applied or editorial or scientific review has been done, then that's going to have to be paid for by someone. TFA implies that doesn't happen: [and then] we stop doing all that stuff and then the cash just pours out. So a citation to an article in Nature isn't any better than one on arXiV.

> So a citation to an article in Nature isn't any better than one on arXiV.

The real problem is that nobody can grade and compare article in different topics, so there are proxies like number of articles in "serious" journals (whatever that means[1]) and number of citations in "serious" journals (whatever that means[1]).

Do we count also citations in X/Tweeter, FaceBook, WordPress [2], StackOverflow, ... ?

If links in HN also count as citations, there are 3 additional citations for my last paper:

http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf

http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf

http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf

[1] Which journals are serious and which are paper mills? In the extremes the difference is clear, but there in the middle there is a gray zone.

[2] A citation in Tao's blog in WordPress should be worth at least half official citation, or perhaps a whole point.

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

#129

Post by bo1024 »

mathisfun123 wrote: post #52
bo1024 wrote: post #51

This is not how computer science publishing works, however. Post it on arxiv, submit to a conference, get 3 peer reviews, accepted, “published”. 99% of papers are effectively open access for free.

The title of the article of "science" not "computer science".

Yes, and it opens by talking about STEM fields. I consider CS part of both STEM and science generally.

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

#130

Post by kleiba »

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.…

There's also a middle ground, i.e., renowned publishers who aren't free but still publish everything as OA. One example is Dagstuhl Publishing for CS research papers.
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