When will scientists just self-publish? I mean seriously, nowadays there is nothing between a researcher and publishing their stuff on the web. Only thing would be peer-reviewing, if you want that, but then just organize it without Elsevier. Reviewers get paid jack shit so you can just do a peer-reviewing fediverse instance where only the mods know the people so it’s still double-blind.
This system is just to dangle carrots in front of young researchers chasing their PhD
maegul@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Yea, academics need to just shut the publication system down. The more they keep pandering to it the more they look like fools.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
It’s chicken/egg or “you first” problem.
You spend on your work. You probably have loans. Your income is pitiful. And this is the structural thing that gets you out. Now someone says “hey take a risk, don’t do it and break the system.”
Well…you first 🤷♂️
Rolando@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There are a couple things we can do:
angrymouse@lemmy.world 4 months ago
100% ppl need stop thinking big changes can be made “by individuals”, this kind of stuff needs regulation and state alternatives or is impossible to break as an average worker.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 4 months ago
Funding agencies have huge power here; demanding that research be published in OA journals is perhaps a good start (with limits on $ spent publishing, perhaps).
maegul@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
I’m sympathetic, but to a limit.
There are a lot of academics out there with a good amount of clout and who are relatively safe. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything remotely worthy on these topics from any researcher with clout, publicly at least. Even privately (I used to be in academia), my feeling was most don’t even know how to think and talk about it, in large part because I don’t think they do think and talk about it all.
And that’s because most academics are frankly shit at thinking and engaging on collective and systematic issues. Many just do not want to, and instead want to embrace the whole “I live and work in an ideal white tower disconnected from society because what I do is bigger than society”. Many get their dopamine kicks from the publication system and don’t think about how that’s not a good thing. Seriously, they don’t deserve as much sympathy as you might think … academia can be a surprisingly childish place. That the publication system came to be at all is proof of that frankly, where they were all duped by someone feeding them ego-dopamine hits. It’s honestly kinda sad.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 4 months ago
more like the only way to float, not just move up. good luck getting grants without papers in this scum of the Earth publishers
mayo_cider@hexbear.net 4 months ago
I feel like most of the academia in the research side would be happy to see it collapse, but the current system is too deeply tied in the money for any quick change
I worked in academia for almost a decade and never met a researcher who wouldn’t openly support sci-hub (well, some warned their students that it was illegal to type these spesific search terms and click on the wrong link downloading the pdf for free)
mayo_cider@hexbear.net 4 months ago
One lecturer actually had notes on their slides for the differences between the latest version and the one before it of the course book, since the latest one wasn’t available for free anywhere but they wanted to use couple chapters from the new book (they scanned and distributed relevant parts themself)
TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 4 months ago
So you’re saying the problem is capitalism… thinkin-lenin
maegul@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Yep. But that is all a part of the problem. If academics can’t organise themselves enough to have some influence over something which is basically owned and run them already (they write the papers and then review the papers and then are the ones reading and citing the papers and caring the most about the quality and popularity of the papers) … then they can’t be trusted to ensure the quality of their practice and institutions going forward, especially under the ever increasing encroachment of capitalistic forces.
Modern day academics are damn well lucky that they inherited a system and culture that developed some old aristocratic ideals into a set of conventions and practices!
Ragdoll_X@lemmy.world 4 months ago
As someone who’s not too familiar with the bureaucracy of academia I have to ask: Can’t the authors just upload all their studies to ResearchGate if they want? I know that they can share it privately with others when they request a paper, so can they post it publicly too?
veganpizza69@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Publishing comes with IP laws and copyright. For example, open access articles should be easy to upload without concern. “Private” articles being republished somewhere without license is “piracy”, and ResearchGate did get in trouble for it. It’s complicated. www.chemistryworld.com/news/…/4018095.article
Pre-prints are a different story.
maegul@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
The problems are wider than that. Besides, relying “individuals just doing the right thing and going a little further to do so” is, IMO, a trap. Fix the system instead. The little thing everyone can do is think about the system and realise it needs fixing.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
you’re risking copyright nastygrams, but people still do it, and even upload preprints and full articles to scihub, because fuck that and it’s maybe free citations
ID411@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Imagine there must be a payoff for them ? Wider distribution ?
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Nope, you just can’t get a job unless you suck it up and publish in these journals, because they’re already famous. And established profs use their cosy relationships with editors to gatekeep and stifle competition for their funding :(