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MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

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Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#61

Post by rini17 »

enriquto wrote: post #20
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #11

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ It requires that: 1. No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals. 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with gener…

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

Ruthlessly applying logical rules onto reality tends to create singularities :)

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#62

Post by marcosdumay »

Nextgrid wrote: post #32
enriquto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

> they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules This is caused by managers' and middle-managers' performance metrics being tied to the wrong outcomes. The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome. The bottom layer's (the worker) target is also clear, it's to do whatever their manager says to do. In the middle is where it often breaks down; their objectives are short-sighted a…

> The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome.

Kinda. Top managers tend to have a much shorter time preference than shareholders. The incentives are aligned only when all shareholders are of the active trading kind (if that ever happens on any company).

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#63

Post by pfortuny »

foepys wrote: post #58
pfortuny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear, the burden of organizing peer-review and of consolidating some sort of "quality" stamp (I said "some sort of") is much more expensive than "nothing". I am not pro-Elsevier, I am just stating a fact.

The only people getting paid in the reviewing process are the journals that are only coordinating the reviews. Actual reviewers (aka other researchers in the same field as the paper) are working for free.

I know: I just stated that "organizing" it was expensive.

I do know that reviewing is free (I have done it).

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#64

Post by pfortuny »

meej wrote: post #54
pfortuny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear, the burden of organizing peer-review and of consolidating some sort of "quality" stamp (I said "some sort of") is much more expensive than "nothing". I am not pro-Elsevier, I am just stating a fact.

And yet much of the work of peer review is done on a volunteer basis.

Organizing it and providing the "quality stamp" is what I was referring to.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#65

Post by pfortuny »

underdeserver wrote: post #55
pfortuny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh dear, the burden of organizing peer-review and of consolidating some sort of "quality" stamp (I said "some sort of") is much more expensive than "nothing". I am not pro-Elsevier, I am just stating a fact.

OK, maybe I exaggerated when I said nothing. Per subject, per journal, the same person who edits a journal today at Elsevier could do the same thing for the same salary at a university consortium-backed non-profit.

Yes, per subject per journal but then how many non-profits do you need? How do you organize them? How do you get a coordinated best-effort, etc...

I mean: corporations do not exist in a vacuum, they (usually) DO provide benefits to the society also.

I insist: I am not trying to defend abuses, I am trying to clarify that a for-profit corporation dealing with those many editorial issues is not bad per se.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#66

Post by ptero »

mcphage wrote: post #50
enriquto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

> you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. That's how life is, though—a jumble of rules that don't all agree and aren't all consistent. So you get used to juggling them all, making them work together as well as you can, so you can get your job done and move on.

Yes, but to me this (the contradictory nature of a large set of rules in life) is a nuisance, not a feature to be welcomed. Sometimes it is unavoidable or very expensive to clean, but we should discourage adding complex rules contradicting our existing set if possible. My 2c.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#67

Post by Vinnl »

mcv wrote: post #49
abhv wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an academic. For years, my academic niche has tried to break free from the likes of Springer/Elsevier. Here are the bottlenecks: * There are wonderful "pre-print" servers like arxiv and eprint.iacr.org. However, these do not maintain the "archival quality" document storage that is needed for academic scientific literature. In day-to-day, all researchers use these to stay informed on recent results. But how to gua…

> Many academics need publications in prestigious journals with "high impact factors" It wouldn't surprise me if this is a massive part of the problem. Any new system to replace Elsevier may be perfect in lots of ways, but it doesn't count as prestigious, which means everybody will still want/need to publish with Elsevier. How do you magically grant a new publishing platform this 'prestige'?

"Flipping" journals is an option, but doesn't happen often because it's risk for the editors with little personal benefit.

The answer the project I volunteer for [1] is that the prestige of a journal comes from the researchers who submit or review for it, so we can also employ their reputations without the middleman - by having them endorse works, thus having their names instead of the journal names attached to the works.

[1] https://plaudit.pub/

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#69

Post by bonoboTP »

nomercy400 wrote: post #42

I'm curious (playing devil's advocate): Does this mean that MIT can now do research and not be required to publish this anywhere, not even journals? And, if somebody from MIT does publish something under this framework, can they claim copyright and disallow any use of the contents of the papers if so convenient? Move away from patents and straight into copyright. We all know how well the US copyright system works, ri…

> Does this mean that MIT can now do research and not be required to publish this anywhere, not even journals?

They were never required. Scientists do research and share their results so they can be improved and combined and provide insight. It started out with private letters between scientists in the early days, then journals appeared that would distribute the incoming letters to other interested parties. Over time it became a formalized system with metrics, incentives, publish or perish etc. But the original goal was to share and announce your results.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#70

Post by dwheeler »

pfortuny wrote: post #63
foepys wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people getting paid in the reviewing process are the journals that are only coordinating the reviews. Actual reviewers (aka other researchers in the same field as the paper) are working for free.

I know: I just stated that "organizing" it was expensive. I do know that reviewing is free (I have done it).

Organizing is not expensive.

What is expensive is paying the typesetters to place the movable type in various places, and to create plates with the various graphics. Oh wait, we don't need to do that anymore.

At this point, there is no rational justification for what Elsevier is doing now except greed. They actually have some other services that makes sense, but this lock on academic papers is simply a historical accident that is no longer relevant.

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