German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier

Re:German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier by matt4077 on Monday August 14, 2017 @04:55AM (#15007352)

The problem isn't that you're somehow branded a 'rebel' if you refuse to publish with Elsevier journals. It's that, when you're applying somewhere, they'll rank you by SUM(paper_i * impact_factor(journal_i)). That score will suffer, and nobody will care about your reasons.

You're also underestimating the independence of researches at a university. They're not employees in the usual sense. In fact, the best method to stop them from publishing at some journal Y would be for the administration to tell them to publish in Y.

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Re:German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier by tankenmate on Monday August 14, 2017 @06:20AM (#15007634)

Also, in some counties (the UK is a prime example) the rules governing "impact" is largely dictated and/or influenced by central government. So not only do you need to change just your local institution but a whole country's institutions at a go; a multi-year political fiefdom protecting shambles at best.

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Re:German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier by sleavey on Monday August 14, 2017 @08:08AM (#15008074)

That "impact" scoring system is utterly useless. I hope it doesn't survive the next non-Tory government.

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Re:German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier by heavenlyblue on Monday August 14, 2017 @02:04PM (#15010917)

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15007958]. Their impact factor is now 2.450 vs 1.848. Of course I am sure it's way harder to do this for far more conservative and larger industries. At the same time it may be just the case of starting small.

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Re:German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier by codesnik on Monday August 14, 2017 @05:48AM (#15007526)

that easy? "You should publish only in Elsevier journals!"

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