[tsurantino]

Doesn't "publishing with a paywall journal you acknowledge that your field values the prestige awarded by that journal" contract with "it's not the publishers that are dictating the prestige".

Your arguing that if I post it on a blog, it gets lost in a sea of other content. If I publish it, then I get validation.

If I understand correctly, you are saying that one of the fundamental reasons for publishers to exist is because they validate someone's work (citations, vetting, peer approval). Why does this have to happen at the expense of public access, if the research that goes through that vetting process is publicly funded?

[dougmccune]

I think we agree. It would be better if there was a different way to validate the importance/impact of research. Particularly if there was a way to evaluate the importance immediately, as opposed to waiting years to see how the impact plays out (via citations, etc). So if there was a committee that provided that evaluation entirely outside of the publishing ecosystem, that would be great (great from the viewpoint of humanity, maybe not publishers' business models).

Hell, if you were guaranteed that your tenure committee actually read your full papers and then made their decision about the importance of your work entirely on their own, then you don't need any other validation of your work. But at that point we're sadly living in a fantasy world. In the real world academics making hiring decisions need external validation to judge their applicants. Figure out a better way to provide that without losing a ton of money and you're golden.

[freyr]

>> Why does this have to happen at the expense of public access?

I didn't understand from your answer why validation and restriction of public access need to go hand-in-hand. When I left academia, I was no longer able to read tax-payer funded research papers without paying an exorbitant fee per paper. Are you saying that lowering the fees is would lead to "losing a ton of money"? Do you mean the publisher would become unprofitable, or become less profitable?

[PeterisP]

I'd iterpret that as the fact that right now, any academic or institution who chooses to unilaterally avoid the current system will lose lots of funding, as the publication metrics are actively used by the funding bodies in project evaluation.

I am not aware of any alternative that can replace the current publication metrics for this purpose. The funding bodies have no motivation, capability or resources to make a replacement themselves, so that would have to come as a ready-made replacement in order to be accepted, and actually work (have usable content) for evaluating all current academic disciplines and academics out of the box (which seems rather unrealistic) so that a multi-disciplinary funding body can actually put that metric in their next funding round official evaluation criteria.

[dougmccune]

They don't have to go hand in hand. Others have pointed out eLife as an example of high prestige open access. There's no reason, other than history and inertia, that the validation has to come at the expense of access. However, I'd argue that I haven't yet seen a good model where the validation isn't expensive (by some definition of expensive). So I definitely think curation/validation can be delinked from the paywall, but I'm not convinced they can be provided free or cheap (and yes, the standard argument that reviewers aren't paid is valid, but the idea that publishers don't have real costs managing that process is simply naive).

[tsurantino]

This makes sense. Thanks a lot for clarifying and taking the time to write your original post.

[ori_b]

> "by publishing with a paywall journal you acknowledge that your field values the prestige awarded by that journal" and then going on to say "it's not the publishers that are dictating the prestige".

No. the grandparent post is pointing out that journals do provide value in practice, because people care that someone was published in the journal. This has nothing to do with the publisher, and everything to do with the people reading the papers.

> If validation is so important, why can't there be a subset of tax dollars towards a committee?

You're confusing "ought" and "is". The system, as it works today, isn't that -- you can push for that change, but as it stands, journals add value in an academic career.

Until a researcher can actually submit their research to a tax dollar funded committee (or whatever other alternative people dram up), and get that weighted as heavily as a journal publication when applying for tenure, journals will not be replaced. Working towards replacing journals may be nice, but the parts aren't in place today.

[marincounty]

"Working towards replacing journals may be nice, but the parts aren't in place today."

You're right! Why do I feel these Institutions(including higher education) want us to debate this to death? They know "the system" has made them rich. They know we don't have the power to change. We can debate, argue, cry--they will still charge whatever they can get away with-

I just watched a speaking event at BookExpo America, the publishing industry’s annual trade show, about the use of data in the publishing world--and other topics.

Speaker Scott Galloway(NYU professor, and founder of L2) talked about the price of text books, and tuition at his university. I could tell he felt completely hopeless, and demoralized over just how much money they are charging. He said, 'twenty years ago my students were taking the same marketing class they are taking today; Same information, but instead of paying 6 grand to listen to him lecture; they are now paying 65 grand!'

He didn't have an answer to the problems, but he said certain industries are ripe for Change. (I don't think he was being melodramatic, nor acting--he literally seemed shocked at the current pricing. It is beyond money--it's on a moral plane now, and they are getting away with it.

So this Dutch University decided to buck the system. They just said no to this overpriced journal. They are taking a risk, but at least they are taking a stand.

Anyways, I'll give the link to the lecture, and pay attention to Scott Galloway's statements(particularly at around 01:04:37). The hopeless that emanated from this professor was chilling. The other speakers were very polite, and professional, but Scott was the most believable.

(http://www.c-span.org/video/?326179-1/bookexpo-discussion-in...)