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Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

newscientist.com

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Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#241

Post by dooglius »

em-bee wrote: post #150
dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. And when you start peeling back the onion of how academics are assessed, given jobs, given tenure, etc you start seeing how hard changing behavior can be. there is no doubt about that. but maybe it's time to question how science is done in general. in the end the goal is to advance our knowledge and bring humanity forward. but instead of everyone cooperat…

> readers upvote good papers and good reviews, so that the most upvoted and most reviewed papers float to the top

I suspect such a system would devolve into clickbait and politics very quickly

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#242

Post by [deleted] »

dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

[deleted]

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#243

Post by chrisseaton »

jamesrcole wrote: post #238
chrisseaton wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why don’t publishers pay > No reviewers are ever paid either > reviewers are never paid > Nobody in the review or author role gets paid It's all through this thread, and every thread on this topic.

These are all complaints about the reviewers never being paid by the publisher , which is a completely different and completely valid point. The complaints are all about the publisher. Have you ever seen a complaint that's simply about having to do peer review itself without being paid?

People are asking things like

> How do peer reviews happen, then, if nobody gets paid to do them?

They're not asking about the publisher paying. They're asking about being paid at all.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#244

Post by jamesrcole »

chrisseaton wrote: post #243
jamesrcole wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all complaints about the reviewers never being paid by the publisher , which is a completely different and completely valid point. The complaints are all about the publisher. Have you ever seen a complaint that's simply about having to do peer review itself without being paid?

People are asking things like > How do peer reviews happen, then, if nobody gets paid to do them? They're not asking about the publisher paying. They're asking about being paid at all.

Where?

You claimed "It's all through this thread, and every thread on this topic", so it shouldn't be hard to find plenty of examples.

The example you gave is not an example of it. Notice the "if" in it? Go read that comment again, and read the comment it is replying to. The person is not expressing a positive belief. They're not familiar with the system, are trying to make sense of the parent comment's statement, and are asking how it works.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#245

Post by gjm11 »

neilwilson wrote: post #187

Surely the system should be like ... Hacker News. We publish here, and the stuff that is good rises to the top with upvotes from our peers, and it is all subject to review in the comments where many an interesting discussion is had. We all gain by sharing ideas as widely as possible. We just need a way for that to happen.

Systems like HN and Reddit work (when they do, and to the extent that they do) mostly because they _don't matter_.

If you tried to use them for things that people care more intensely about, like determining what gets to be part of The Academic Literature, then they would instantly become the subject of concerted efforts at manipulation. Even now, HN has to deal with voting rings and the like; it would be much, much worse if people's careers were riding on it.

It's Goodhart's law: as soon as a measure becomes a _target_ it rapidly stops being a good measure.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#246

Post by randomsearch »

chrisseaton wrote: post #167
randomsearch wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to turn the tables a little: - why don’t publishers pay reviewers for the extensive time they spend reviewing the paper? - why don’t publishers pay academics who edit journals, another time consuming task? - why don’t publishers pay academics or institutions for a product they sell? I can’t comment on your company, but the above is the status quo for most of academia. Do you think this business model is ethi…

Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications. It’s a society. You publish papers which get reviews, and you also work to review other people’s papers. Everyone contributes to make it work.

> Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications.

This is inaccurate. This is not a part of a postdoc's job description, for example, in the UK. The university does not pay you to do this - you have to review on top of your day job.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#247

Post by randomsearch »

randomsearch wrote: post #159
dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

Allow me to turn the tables a little: - why don’t publishers pay reviewers for the extensive time they spend reviewing the paper? - why don’t publishers pay academics who edit journals, another time consuming task? - why don’t publishers pay academics or institutions for a product they sell? I can’t comment on your company, but the above is the status quo for most of academia. Do you think this business model is ethi…

As the parent didn't reply, I will fill in:

People trying to change or improve the publishing process _do_ understand academia - most of them work or have worked in academia.

The reason they're not engaging with you is likely that that your model is so obviously broken, and arguably unethical, that they don't want to help you or work with you - they want to put you out of business. Personally, I think that is an entirely reasonable response to the behaviour of academic publishers. Publishers have had more than enough time to reform.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#248

Post by em-bee »

dooglius wrote: post #241
em-bee wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. And when you start peeling back the onion of how academics are assessed, given jobs, given tenure, etc you start seeing how hard changing behavior can be. there is no doubt about that. but maybe it's time to question how science is done in general. in the end the goal is to advance our knowledge and bring humanity forward. but instead of everyone cooperat…

> readers upvote good papers and good reviews, so that the most upvoted and most reviewed papers float to the top I suspect such a system would devolve into clickbait and politics very quickly

well, if it's just like stackoverflow, possibly. although one might take votes solely as a popularity count, and not put any serious academic value to them. for academic value the number and quality of reviews and citations would be more relevant.

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#249

Post by dsjoerg »

randomsearch wrote: post #246
chrisseaton wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications. It’s a society. You publish papers which get reviews, and you also work to review other people’s papers. Everyone contributes to make it work.

> Because those people are already being paid anyway - their full time jobs, whether that’s PhD student, lecturer, professor, or industrial researcher, includes the job of reviewing and editing for publications. This is inaccurate. This is not a part of a postdoc's job description, for example, in the UK. The university does not pay you to do this - you have to review on top of your day job.

What do you mean "have to"? What happens if you don't?

Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

#250

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

dougmccune wrote: post #115

Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online. I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company. If anyone is interested in trying to understand what makes the indust…

If I peel back the onion further, I find the root of the problem is how to measure someone who is good at science. How should we measure scientific output to determine compensation (not just monetary or tenure, reputation itself can be considered a form of compensation)? That the way we reward scientist means that few are pushing to reform academic publishing is barely a footnote compared to some of the problems produced by our current model. Look at the lack of replication that occurs because replication is far less rewarded than new research even when the new research fails replication (once someone does eventually get around to it). The way to fix this is to find a method to measure good science that works better than the current method, but given that us tech people can't even figure out a decent way to measure proficiency in our own field, the outlook isn't hopeful for our ability to disrupt science.
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