• @[email protected]
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      25 days ago

      There are literally tens of thousands of people in academia who could build a transparent, open-source, non-profit publishing system of their own.

      Why don’t they?

        • @[email protected]
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          1125 days ago

          It’s happening in Germany as well. Universities are banding together to negotiate better deals with publishers - some subscriptions haven’t been renewed when the publishers weren’t forthcoming. It’s not a solution (that would be the wide establishment of independent, self organized/hosted Open Access journals - using Open Journal Systems for example) but it’s a start.

          https://deal-konsortium.de/en/

        • @[email protected]
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          1225 days ago

          Well I don’t know about “highest” level.

          It’s in some ways worse than that. it’s institutional corruption and collusion across all levels of power within institutions. Not having access to pear review, journals, the gravitas, the funding sources:it creates a monopoly of power for all players in the system where they aren’t benefited by opening up access

      • @[email protected]
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        825 days ago

        I don’t know about other fields, but we did do this for AI. It’s all community-run, papers are freely available for everyone to read, and the cost of submission in a peer-reviewed venue is to review other papers. The publishers don’t actually provide anything of value except name recognition and being “reputable”, which they maintain through momentum.

            • @[email protected]
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              124 days ago

              Sorry, I might have misunderstood - I thought there would be some journals employing that “review to submit” system you mentioned.

              • @[email protected]
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                324 days ago

                Ah, yes. I just wasn’t clear on whether you wanted to know more about the publication venues or about the value of publishers or something else.

                In AI, we normally publish in conferences rather than journals. Some of the big ones are

                There is a new journal I know of (TMLR) that’s becoming a bit more popular in these circles, but I believe they rely solely on volunteers to review rather than asking those who submit papers.

      • @[email protected]
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        325 days ago

        The big issue is that the individuals who lead these institutions are those who are successful with the status quo; perhaps some recognize the importance of changing it but I perceive that most would be unwilling to dismantle a system that worked well for them.

  • @[email protected]
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    18625 days ago

    Remember folks, if you pirate scientific papers you’re stealing from the hard working…wait a minute…

  • @[email protected]
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    15325 days ago

    Academic Authors: $0

    FAKE NEWS

    This should be in the negatives. We have to pay to get papers published in these traditional journals.

      • @[email protected]
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        1225 days ago

        Don’t forget the university libraries. Yup, researchers are paid by the university, those researchers pay the publishers to place their articles, the peer reviewers are also paid by the university. And then the university has to shell out money to the publishers, so the articles can be accessed.

        • @[email protected]
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          124 days ago

          researchers are paid by the university

          Not necessarily. A lot are paid by external research grants.

          • @[email protected]
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            120 days ago

            I must admit what I wrote was simplified.

            If you take into account that a lot of research grants are financed by tax money though…

  • @[email protected]
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    4525 days ago

    New textbooks have disappearing ink that only lasts, about one semester, until a month before finals, and then in that month they trigger dynamic pricing increases due to a stronger than typical demand…

  • @[email protected]
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    4225 days ago

    NGL if I was a college professor in this situation I’d be pirating my own work fuck these guys

    • @[email protected]
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      25 days ago

      Very frequently you can email the author of the paper and they will be super happy to send you a copy.

    • barnaclebutt
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      1725 days ago

      I do it all the time. Something something sci-hub. If you ask, the authors will almost always share a preprint.

    • @[email protected]
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      25 days ago

      vampire squid makes them sound cute, they are literally the scum of the earth: They are leeching billions from what is normally a tax funded sector and on the side heavily polarising publishing and access to science in favor of rich countries.

  • @[email protected]
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    3325 days ago

    I too want to open a business where both customers and suppliers pay me. Do you know any more gullible sectors? Academics are pretty extorted already it seems.

  • @[email protected]
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    3125 days ago

    Reviewers and writers actually do get a stipend, but it’s a token amount like 200 bucks a year. This industry is the most ass backward incentive structure we could possibly create, the only reason writers would provide articles to a journal is literally for the clout.

    • @[email protected]
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      3225 days ago

      Really? I’ve reviewed and published a good chunk of papers and never received any financial compensation.

    • barnaclebutt
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      1225 days ago

      I’ve never gotten a stipend or heard of someone getting a stipend for publishing or reviewing manuscripts. The only thing I’ve been offered is access to the journal.

      • @[email protected]
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        25 days ago

        Depends on the journal I guess, my wife worked at multiple publishers and there’s normally an insultingly small stipend for the editorial board members and writers

    • @[email protected]
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      They all got bought up by venture capitalists like a decade or more more ago, and this is the result.

      They were already backward, but now they are backward, ruthless about cost cutting, and care about nothing but profits.

    • @[email protected]
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      125 days ago

      I’ve heard of some journals promising to pay their reviewers Amazon gift cards which they never end up sending out

  • @[email protected]
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    2224 days ago

    As much as I’m against parasitic practices, I wonder how the inevitable corruption of money would (further) skew research if academia was well paid for their papers.

    • @[email protected]
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      1024 days ago

      We’re not saying pay the authors a bunch, we’re saying make the papers free to read. Or at least don’t charge authors and readers both, while keeping all the money for yourself.

    • @[email protected]
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      724 days ago

      And I wonder how, not having the pressure to “succeed” research (to gain further grants), would increase the quality of said research.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 days ago

        I quit a physics phd path just under a decade ago because my experimental results were turning up negative and the uni I was at pushed me to doctor my results so we would keep getting funded. I also wonder about this