UC’s termination of Elsevier contract has had limited negative impact (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: UC’s termination of Elsevier contract has had limited negative impact (2020)

#91

Post by a3_nm » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #2

Elsevier knows this. We have just finish negotiating a new national contract with them, and to our surprise did they agreed to all of our demands. They know which way the wind is blowing and are trying to pivot as quickly as an old lumbering giant can.

The wind is blowing towards gold open access, i.e., the research remains published at Elsevier, it is open-access, but publishing each article costs $1000-$2000 charged to the university via grant money or "subscriptions to publish" in place of the existing subscriptions to read.

I don't think Elsevier is really worried. This gold OA model is just sending the same quantities of money to them, just under a different name, and with the side benefit that everyone can read the published articles.

The real change will be when researchers stop publishing in the journals that they own -- noting that the costs to publish are so high because the prestige of journals means that fair competition can't happen. Sadly, it doesn't look like researchers are willing to take such a step -- or even to stop reviewing for these journals for free (see our pledge in this sense, https://nofreeviewnoreview.org/)

Re: UC’s termination of Elsevier contract has had limited negative impact (2020)

#92

Post by a3_nm » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #31

lumost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientific papers should have more limited copyright protections around distribution. No one except journals benefits from the current situation, and the service they provide around connecting submissions with reviewers seems ripe for replacement if any institution lends their credibility to the matter.

Yes! Literally the copyright for scientific articles should be 1 year. This is how we fix open access.

No, they should be immediately open-access. Why give commercial publishers a 1-year exclusivity window for free?

Re: UC’s termination of Elsevier contract has had limited negative impact (2020)

#93

Post by hyperbovine » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

a3_nm wrote: post #91

tokai wrote: post #2

Elsevier knows this. We have just finish negotiating a new national contract with them, and to our surprise did they agreed to all of our demands. They know which way the wind is blowing and are trying to pivot as quickly as an old lumbering giant can.

The wind is blowing towards gold open access, i.e., the research remains published at Elsevier, it is open-access, but publishing each article costs $1000-$2000 charged to the university via grant money or "subscriptions to publish" in place of the existing subscriptions to read. I don't think Elsevier is really worried. This gold OA model is just sending the same quantities of money to them, just under a different n…

> Sadly, it doesn't look like researchers are willing to take such a step

The incentives are misaligned for that to happen. Who publishes the most? Postdocs, assistant professors, and their grad students. Who has the most to lose from not publishing in top journals? See above.