Arete Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I haven't seen it posted elsewhere - forgive me if it is... A significant number of scientists have begun to boycott the major scientific publisher Elsevier. http://thecostofknowledge.com/ The reasons for the boycott: They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals. In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of their journals are essential. They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information. This goes hand in hand with the push towards open access publication of science: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~apt/ps/cacm01.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?_r=1 http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2010/08/25/does-post-publication-peer-review-work/ etc. Now I see the merits of moving science to free public access. Many of the citizen scientists on this forum simply don't have access to the peer reviewed literature because they can't fork out for numerous journal subscriptions - even though as taxpayers, they are paying for research funded by NSF, NIH, the ARC etc. Scientists like myself are effectively used as a free labor pool for both the writing of articles and the peer review of them by companies like Elsevier. Seems like the journals are getting a free ride all the way and both the academics and the public are copping the raw end of the stick. But is open source the answer? The quality of peer review in open source journals has been brought into question: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080702/full/454011a.html And the cost of publishing in open source is directly incurred by the researcher. If I had of published all of the papers from my PhD in PLoS for example, about 1/4 of my research budget would have gone directly into publishing costs, versus, well - none for submitting to propriety journals. I daresay my funding body prefers one model to the other... So what do we do? Do we write publishing costs into our grant proposals? If so how does an open sourcer compete with a non-open sourcer who can get the same amount of research done for cheaper? I'm not sure if there's an easy answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeskill Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I haven't seen it posted elsewhere - forgive me if it is... A significant number of scientists have begun to boycott the major scientific publisher Elsevier. http://thecostofknowledge.com/ The reasons for the boycott: They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals. In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of their journals are essential. They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information. This goes hand in hand with the push towards open access publication of science: http://homepages.cwi...t/ps/cacm01.pdf http://www.nytimes.c...d-for.html?_r=1 http://blogs.plos.or...er-review-work/ etc. Now I see the merits of moving science to free public access. Many of the citizen scientists on this forum simply don't have access to the peer reviewed literature because they can't fork out for numerous journal subscriptions - even though as taxpayers, they are paying for research funded by NSF, NIH, the ARC etc. Scientists like myself are effectively used as a free labor pool for both the writing of articles and the peer review of them by companies like Elsevier. Seems like the journals are getting a free ride all the way and both the academics and the public are copping the raw end of the stick. But is open source the answer? The quality of peer review in open source journals has been brought into question: http://www.nature.co...ll/454011a.html And the cost of publishing in open source is directly incurred by the researcher. If I had of published all of the papers from my PhD in PLoS for example, about 1/4 of my research budget would have gone directly into publishing costs, versus, well - none for submitting to propriety journals. I daresay my funding body prefers one model to the other... So what do we do? Do we write publishing costs into our grant proposals? If so how does an open sourcer compete with a non-open sourcer who can get the same amount of research done for cheaper? I'm not sure if there's an easy answer. What I don't understand, is why the cost of an individual paper from a science journal is so expensive compared to the cost of subscribing. At the very least, they could decrease the price per paper for readers without subscriptions to, like, $2.00 per or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewmon Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Scientists like myself are effectively used as a free labor pool for both the writing of articles and the peer review of them by companies like Elsevier. Seems like the journals are getting a free ride all the way and both the academics and the public are copping the raw end of the stick. It does seem like a free ride for the publishers. Maybe if they had to buy the articles and pay the reviewers (in the same way that they pay printers to produce the journals), similar to the old-fashioned putting-out system of production. Perhaps if the publisher did not buy the "article" from the author, then they shouldn't own it. Authors shouldn't simply give their rights away. Maybe there should be more journals published by academic institutions, or professional non-profits (like the IEEE, the ASME, etc), which probably charge less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 versus, well - none for submitting to propriety journals. Well, most non-open source journals also charge. Some have a limited number of pages for free, or sometimes also free color images. But from my publications (none of which were open source) I only did not have top pay for two. One was an invited review and another was within the aforementioned page limits. Also some journals, including some Elsevier Journals, allow you to make your paper open source, for a fee. However many journals (I am not sure about Elsevier, though, I think they removed the possibility) allow to deposit a non-set copy in Pubmed central, especially as NIH or NSF funded projects were required to publish in publicly available depositories. Maybe there should be more journals published by academic institutions, or professional non-profits (like the IEEE, the ASME, etc), which probably charge less. Journals from societies are not necessarily cheaper. However, if you cannot pay, they may waive the publication fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arete Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Well, most non-open source journals also charge. Some have a limited number of pages for free, or sometimes also free color images. Sure, if you exceed the word/page limit and/or include color figures they sting you for it - which given the sell the printed journals is a bit rich... but my experience has beent he opposite - I've only had to pay for one article and the $150 color page fee was a lot cheaper than PLoS biology's $2900 Journals from societies are not necessarily cheaper. However, if you cannot pay, they may waive the publication fee. Sometimes if you're a member they waive the fee - e.g. if you're an SSE member they'll let you publish in Evolution for free once a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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