Re:The peer review industry: implausible and outrageous
by Vinnl on Friday October 26, 2018 @02:42AM
(#18307240)
> Only large research institutions like (I’m familiar only with the CS research community) MSR, Google Research, Facebook Research, ... as well as already tenured professors can really force the issue.
Well, they can to a certain extent, by submitting their work to open access (preferably fair OA [1]) journals, thus increasing their prestige. I think a more important role here lies with funders, though, and more specifically the people that decide who to fund (although these often are researchers as well).
By currently strongly relying on journal brand names as indicators of "excellence", they're providing the incentive that keeps/forces academics to publish in traditional, paywalled or high-APC journals. They need to find other ways to decide whom to give funding to. (And perhaps have less of a focus on an ill-defined idea of "excellence" as well.)
Disclaimer: I'm part of a just-launched initiative that aims to provide such an alternative. I'd love to hear people's thoughts about this though.
Well, they can to a certain extent, by submitting their work to open access (preferably fair OA [1]) journals, thus increasing their prestige. I think a more important role here lies with funders, though, and more specifically the people that decide who to fund (although these often are researchers as well).
By currently strongly relying on journal brand names as indicators of "excellence", they're providing the incentive that keeps/forces academics to publish in traditional, paywalled or high-APC journals. They need to find other ways to decide whom to give funding to. (And perhaps have less of a focus on an ill-defined idea of "excellence" as well.)
Disclaimer: I'm part of a just-launched initiative that aims to provide such an alternative. I'd love to hear people's thoughts about this though.
[1] https://www.fairoa.org/