The problem is that they used to be needed, in the pre-Internet era, so the entire academic community has evolved around the publishing ecosystem. Or rather, the incentive system has evolved that way. Journals like Science/Nature/Cell are essentially the gatekeepers to tenure-track jobs at top universities, at least in the biomedical sciences. If you're a typical postdoc trying to move to the next stage of your career, "just post it on Biorxiv" isn't very helpful advice.

I would love nothing more than to see the entire publishing system revamped and parasites like Elsevier and NPG disappear, but until you solve the basic problem of academic hiring and promotion, it's an uphill battle.

I don't know. All the real power is in the hand of the academics. For example, Don Knuth managed to persuade the editorial board of the Elsevier Journal of Algorithms to resign, and they started the ACM Transactions on Algorithms with a different, lower-priced, not-for-profit publisher instead, and (if I understand correctly) take along the prestige. The Journal of Algorithms folded a few years later.

Why oh why don't more editorial boards do this????

I agree. Right now the only way for universities or funders to know whether other researchers have thoroughly looked at and approved of the work of someone they're considering for tenure or a grant, is to look at whether their work has the stamp of approval of being published in a "reputable" journal. We need an alternative to that.

(Full disclosure: I'm working on such an alternative. It just launched, but if any of you come across research you think it's good, do consider publicly endorsing it using https://plaudit.pub/extension/. It's all open data, and non-profit.)

At UC we have eScholarship https://escholarship.org

eScholarship has a repository for UC, and also publishes open access journals.

(disclaimer: I'm the tech lead of the group that runs this site)

inertia.

yes, a website could solve the issue today, but not 30 years ago.

Elsevier predates internet by more than a century (it is 139 years old)

this exists.

look up "Green OA" (https://openscience.com/green-oa-vs-gold-oa-which-one-to-cho...) or "Institutional Repositories".

the reasons these sites haven't taken over academic publishing are many and varied:

  - they are woefully underfunded (library services are low-status, gendered work, that never receive the funding they deserve).
  - publishing in established journals is singularly the most important thing in academic careers.
  - scholarly societies (IEEE is referenced elsewhere in this thread), publishers, and other entrenched interests have significant influence on policy.
  - etc...

in short, this isn't a technical problem. if it were, it would have been solved over a decade ago.

Why can't you upload a copy in Institutional Repository and publish it in a journal? Do journals set any rules?

> Why can't you upload a copy in Institutional Repository and publish it in a journal? Do journals set any rules?

Generally, when a researcher publishes a work in a journal, they either assign copyright to the journal or give the journal an exclusive publishing license.

Ordinarily, that prevents researchers from making their papers publicly available elsewhere, and "Green" and "Gold" open access policies are the exception.

Typesetting, proofreading, copy editing, indexing, graphics editing etc. come in mind.

Just look at random "not so well formed" Word file like for example:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.07133.pdf

Not commenting the bad typography of text, math, tables, etc., just try to estimate the effort for converting the references in well-formed and validated BibTeX entries.

Journals already impose formatting and submission rules on scientists. Asking them to send them a BibTeX file would be no major issue, given that all reference managers can import and export BibTeX.

I know that a lot of smart scientists struggle with computers and they cling on MS word because they have invested a lot of time and effort into learning how to use it. But I think, we should try to convince them that there are better, simpler and more reliable ways to author papers.

If you've ever had an article typeset/proofread/copyedited by Elsevier then you know how little they contribute in this area.

Out of curiosity I went to Elsevier and looked at random article from an economic journal (open access):

https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1303070118300945/1-s2.0-S13030701183...

The 3B2 PDF looks much better than a Word file and especially the references are all clean, linked, and downloadable as a BibTeX file. There is also a HTML version of the work. I can see definitely a lot of added value to the scientific document there.

> I can see definitely a lot of added value to the scientific document there.

You fail to see that nonprofit publishers (IEEE, AIP, APS, AMS, etc.) also typeset and copyedit articles just like Elsevier, and that too at a much smaller price. The point is that you don't have to charge customers exorbitantly if the only thing they are gaining on publishing with Elsevier is neatly typeset articles. Further, Elsevier outsources the production of its papers to companies [1] in India. If it's production quality that one wants, those companies can probably do it at a fiftieth of the price Elsevier finally charges the customer.

[1]: http://rivervalleytechnologies.com/#clients

Universities have working paper series, generally.

However, Arvix and co. are a centralized platform, and there are lot of scale benefits (for everyone) in using such as platform - which is why everyone publishes there.

In that sense, decentralized working paper series are not a solution. However, the system can be "decentralized" in terms of control, and run much more efficient with greater consumer benefit.