It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientific publishing is

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by refurb on Sunday October 31, 2021 @08:27PM (#29061852)

This.

The academics could easily solve this by publishing elsewhere. Of course that would require researchers to be judged by something other that impact factor.

At an extreme it’s like saying the Nobel Prize committee is a scam - they offer nothing of value beyond prestige yet scientists are beholden to try and impress them.

To me this is just people trying to have their cake and eat it too - they want prestigious journals to publish in, but they also want them to be free (for author and public) and easier to publish in.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by civilized on Sunday October 31, 2021 @08:37PM (#29061916)

In some areas of math the editorial team has defected for precisely the reasons Doctorow states and founded their own journal. The old journal just recruits a new team and keeps on trucking on the strength of its name. Some academics start submitting to the new journal out of agreement with the mission of freeing publishing, but a lot keep submitting to the old journal because they don't care or even know if the public is being fleeced. The end result is two journals.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by CamperBob2 on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:15PM (#29062124)

At an extreme it’s like saying the Nobel Prize committee is a scam - they offer nothing of value beyond prestige

Well, that and 1.2 million bucks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by jhbadger on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:27PM (#29062174)

True. But realize that's per prize, not per participant. Especially in the sciences, this prize is more often given to two or three people, who share the prize money.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by anon946 on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:01PM (#29062040)

Yes, the problem is one of collective action. A single, pre-tenure faculty member would be taking a significant risk to publish only in open-access venues. Thus, they don't, and the cycle continues.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by lazyjeff on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:32PM (#29062196)

I don't think the choice is between a commercial publisher and open access venues. In fact, open access options are typically my least favorite, because they charge the authors to publish. Maybe the initial idea was good, but the term seems to be co-opted by publishers to basically mean "pay thousands of dollars to publish."

Since I was a student, I've decided as a matter of principle never to submit to either, and been able to follow that principle all the way through tenure. Though I don't discourage external collaborators from submitting papers to those places, as this principle is more about my or my group's papers.

Luckily, there's a couple other options that are very satisfying (and actually most common) in my subfield and most of CS: non-profit society publishers (e.g. ACM/IEEE), or self-publishing (arXiv or your own homepage). I've done both for each of my papers, and haven't felt like I missed anything. I've also declined reviewing for commercial publishers for a while now, and it makes me very happy to have a great excuse to decline.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientifi... by anon946 on Monday November 01, 2021 @06:34AM (#29064965)

I am also in CS. My impression is that the situation in CS is different than that in other fields (better). The only publications in commercial venues I have have been with collaborators from areas outside of CS, in journals in their areas.

[ Parent | on HN ]