[impendia]

As an academic, I agree with almost everything you say -- but I wouldn't blame policies in universities. As much as I hate all the bureaucracy, I can't blame it here.

Academics are periodically called upon to pass judgment on other academics. It's an unsavory part of our job, but given that there are fewer jobs, less grant funding, etc. than the number of strong applications, it's a necessary evil.

To the best we can, we try to evaluate their research record directly. But it is maddeningly difficult to evaluate work even slightly out of your field, and so journals serve as a signaling mechanism.

And here I agree again with what you say: we are paying millions to Springer, Elsevier, etc. for the use of their names. ("Ooh, this person published in Inventiones Mathematicae!") Which we we made great.

As much as I despise this system, if you believe that universities can change this, at the level of policy, I am very curious to hear what you propose.

[sonzohan]

> As much as I despise this system, if you believe that universities can change this, at the level of policy, I am very curious to hear what you propose.

MIT did not renew their contract with Elsevier in 2020, a major reason being their inequitable profit model, and refusal to honor open access agreements. They have a postmortem saying the loss had little impact to their researchers.

How about that for a policy change?

> we are paying millions to Springer, Elsevier, etc. for the use of their names.

As an academic researcher, you are (or your institution is) paying them millions in publication and subscription fees so you can keep your job. Publish or perish.

[jasode]

>MIT did not renew their contract with Elsevier in 2020, a major reason being their inequitable profit model, and refusal to honor open access agreements. They have a postmortem saying the loss had little impact to their researchers.

This "fact" about MIT cancelling the Elsevier subscription is often cited but in isolation, it's misleading because it makes seem like MIT students and faculty don't even need Elsevier articles. That's not true.

What happened is that MIT switched to a pay-per-article or library loan method: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/how-to-access...

MIT in providing some other access methods to the same Elsevier articles for their researchers -- at the cost of some extra inconvenient steps -- is actually proving the opposite of the anti-publisher stance: The Elsevier publisher's articles are still valuable to us.

It's the subscription they cancelled and not the articles.

[sonzohan]

> It's the subscription they cancelled and not the articles.

Correct. Before the UC system also cancelled their subscription with Elsevier they reported paying $11 million annually.

> The Elsevier publisher's articles are still valuable to us.

Yes, but not $11 million/year with a 3 year lock-in. UC reported (at the time of ending the contract) that they have a perpetual license to ~95% of relevant work on Elsevier, so that $11 million/year went to access 5% of Elsevier's library.

What we do see is publishers shifting to open access (OA), which appears to result in lower Uni costs, but shifts the expense burden to researchers. Researchers in the UC system are now asked to use grant funding to help pay OA APC fees.

[lesuorac]

> As an academic researcher, you are (or your institution is) paying them millions in publication and subscription fees so you can keep your job. Publish or perish.

This ultimately sounds contradictory to your comment about MIT. It seems that by not renewing the Elsevier contract a university would have more funding for jobs?

[sonzohan]

Could you explain the contradiction you are seeing further?

Cost cutting and increased personnel funding are not related. Just because MIT library is saving millions by cutting a publisher agreement doesn't mean those savings will be directed towards increased staff.

[g-b-r]

Gather together and begin publishing your own journals (even just in the form of a website)?

If it's you who made the existing journals great, you probably can do it again?

[impendia]

This is a coordination problem.

There are some efforts in this direction; for example, the researchers who led the Elsevier boycott

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

started a free open-access journal

https://discreteanalysisjournal.com/about

in which I'm proud to have a paper accepted.

But it's difficult to dislodge the existing system quickly, even if everyone involved wants to.

[g-b-r]

That's one good news!

Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some kicbacks involved, at some universities

[da_chicken]

That's just kicking the can down the road.

[g-b-r]

In what way? I meant freely accessible journals, of course (making journals, or "journals", of their own, would probably cost much less than the subscriptions they're currently paying)