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Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

cr.yp.to

61–70 of 97 posts

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#61

Not only is that link really old, the IEEE has their own preprint server now, TechRxiv: https://innovate.ieee.org/techrxiv_launch/ Everybody should use preprint servers, and TechRxiv deserves more love and attention than it gets.

*Disclosure: I run a preprint server that "competes" with TechRxiv at https://engrxiv.org.

I'm a little salty about TechRxiv/IEEE as IEEE has a copyright transfer policy that permits posting preprints at approved servers. I applied to have engrXiv recognized as an approved server but received no response. Shortly after that TechRxiv was launched. Currently the only approved servers are still ArXiv and TechRxiv.

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as I despise this system, if you believe that universities can change this, at the level of policy, I am very curious to hear what you propose. MIT did not renew their contract with Elsevier in 2020, a major reason being their inequitable profit model, and refusal to honor open access agreements. They have a postmortem saying the loss had little impact to their researchers. How about that for a policy chang…

> As an academic researcher, you are (or your institution is) paying them millions in publication and subscription fees so you can keep your job. Publish or perish. This ultimately sounds contradictory to your comment about MIT. It seems that by not renewing the Elsevier contract a university would have more funding for jobs?

Could you explain the contradiction you are seeing further?

Cost cutting and increased personnel funding are not related. Just because MIT library is saving millions by cutting a publisher agreement doesn't mean those savings will be directed towards increased staff.

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#63
As someone who published multiple papers during his academic days under auspices of ACM, USENIX and IEEE, I never saw a case where they demanded that authors not host a copy of the paper for themselves for their "own" audience on their own website.

Furthermore, the concept of a "public domain" paper in academia just seems weird to me. the concept of "public domain" means that the contents can be reused in whole or in part without attribution of any sorts to the original author(s). that goes against the ethos of academia (i.e. plagiarism) in regards to authoring papers, so unsure what public domain for the actual paper gives users vs. the document being what I'd refer to as "freely available" (i.e. no one else can charge for access to the document, only the 'copyright' holder can).

If the author has a right to freely distribute the document (and anyone who gets the document from the author maintains the same right), I don't see what public domain "assignment" gains anyone. i.e. copyright assignment (to the publisher) with the ability to freely distribute the paper accomplishes all these goals. The only thing (I can imagine) that it doesn't accomplish is giving others the ability to collect a bunch of papers together and sell it for "profit". But that doesn't seem to be a something DJB views as needed (and in fact, rails against the publishers who are requesting the copyright assignment for that very purpose).

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#64
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gather together and begin publishing your own journals (even just in the form of a website)? If it's you who made the existing journals great, you probably can do it again?

That's just kicking the can down the road.

In what way? I meant freely accessible journals, of course (making journals, or "journals", of their own, would probably cost much less than the subscriptions they're currently paying)

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as I despise this system, if you believe that universities can change this, at the level of policy, I am very curious to hear what you propose. MIT did not renew their contract with Elsevier in 2020, a major reason being their inequitable profit model, and refusal to honor open access agreements. They have a postmortem saying the loss had little impact to their researchers. How about that for a policy chang…

>MIT did not renew their contract with Elsevier in 2020, a major reason being their inequitable profit model, and refusal to honor open access agreements. They have a postmortem saying the loss had little impact to their researchers. This "fact" about MIT cancelling the Elsevier subscription is often cited but in isolation, it's misleading because it makes seem like MIT students and faculty don't even need Elsevier a…

> It's the subscription they cancelled and not the articles.

Correct. Before the UC system also cancelled their subscription with Elsevier they reported paying $11 million annually.

> The Elsevier publisher's articles are still valuable to us.

Yes, but not $11 million/year with a 3 year lock-in. UC reported (at the time of ending the contract) that they have a perpetual license to ~95% of relevant work on Elsevier, so that $11 million/year went to access 5% of Elsevier's library.

What we do see is publishers shifting to open access (OA), which appears to result in lower Uni costs, but shifts the expense burden to researchers. Researchers in the UC system are now asked to use grant funding to help pay OA APC fees.

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Publishing in Academia is a scam Relatively soon after starting work on my PhD, one of my more-experienced colleagues explained the affect of "impact factor" on academic publishing. Back then I was young and naive, and assumed that at least impact factor itself would be some kind of open system based on freely-available data. Many years later, I read up on this and discovered Web of Science/Clarivate :( How is it p…

My reply is that people want to live in a capitalist country, but don't want to live with the consequences of that. This is one of the consequences.

Based on what OP is saying, if capitalism was really working here then Springer would be out of business - because they don't provide any value.

It seems what we have here is a cultural problem.

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#67
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an academic, I agree with almost everything you say -- but I wouldn't blame policies in universities. As much as I hate all the bureaucracy, I can't blame it here. Academics are periodically called upon to pass judgment on other academics. It's an unsavory part of our job, but given that there are fewer jobs, less grant funding, etc. than the number of strong applications, it's a necessary evil. To the best we can…

Gather together and begin publishing your own journals (even just in the form of a website)? If it's you who made the existing journals great, you probably can do it again?

This is a coordination problem.

There are some efforts in this direction; for example, the researchers who led the Elsevier boycott

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

started a free open-access journal

https://discreteanalysisjournal.com/about

in which I'm proud to have a paper accepted.

But it's difficult to dislodge the existing system quickly, even if everyone involved wants to.

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#68

in german law it's even impossible to transfer copyright (Urheberrecht). There is but one way: inheriting. What can be transferred though is usage right - licensing.

I just found this explanation on the linked site:

Many Germans incorrectly believe that copyrights cannot be abandoned. The actual situation in German law is as follows:

"Nutzungsrechte" (literally "usage rights") include the rights of copying, modification, distribution, etc. These rights can be waived, as in other countries.

"Urheberrechte" (literally "originator rights") include reputation rights and generally cannot be waived. This protection against fraud, libel, etc. has nothing to do with whether something is in the public domain.

https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reply is that people want to live in a capitalist country, but don't want to live with the consequences of that. This is one of the consequences.

Based on what OP is saying, if capitalism was really working here then Springer would be out of business - because they don't provide any value. It seems what we have here is a cultural problem.

Honestly, you have an idealized view on capitalism.

It's still the most productive system humanity has ever used at scale, but capitalism favors monopolies, cartels and every other anti-competitive behavior you can think of.

That's why we have regulations against such behavior. Even if - as it turns out- these regulations can still be weaponized by bad acteurs to ultimately strengthen their hold on markets

Re: Don't Publish with IEEE (2005)

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Publishing in Academia is a scam Relatively soon after starting work on my PhD, one of my more-experienced colleagues explained the affect of "impact factor" on academic publishing. Back then I was young and naive, and assumed that at least impact factor itself would be some kind of open system based on freely-available data. Many years later, I read up on this and discovered Web of Science/Clarivate :( How is it p…

My reply is that people want to live in a capitalist country, but don't want to live with the consequences of that. This is one of the consequences.

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