I just learned that not only do journals not pay authors for the right to publish their content...

I just learned that not only do journals not pay authors for the right to publish their content, but authors usually have to pay thousands of dollars to get published +tip if they want color. This of course on top of getting subscription fees from every university on the planet and charging $35 for a six page pdf.

How old were you when you first learned this? Why is this scam allowed?

Other urls found in this thread:

economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-judging-research-leading-academic-fraud-looks-good-paper
phys.org/news/2013-11-reveals-black-china-paper-authoring.html
telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10507434/Nobel-prize-winner-accuses-scientific-journals-of-tyranny.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

There is a reason why the universities are pushing for open access journals.

Welcome to the world of "free thought".

I was 20ish.

when i first enterer university
i dont understand how someone lets himself get cucked so much
but on the other hand the politicians of the world are trying to do exactly the same with TTIP

You have a lot to learn about the world.

>How old were you when you first learned this?
19 or 20 IIRC

>Why is this scam allowed?
Authors want fame and bragging rights, publishing houses want to steal everyone's money, so people who want to get famous pay money to scammers that give them false promises of academic careers.

The same thing happens with actors, writers etc.

>How old were you when you first learned this?
Around 20 I suppose, I can't remember exactly. I found it equally shocking that peer review is done for free, and is just seen as a professional courtesy.
>Why is this scam allowed?
It's going to change pretty soon, a lot of institutions already require their authors to publish open access.

If I had to play Devil's advocate here for a second though, one argument that you could make is that the open access model provides the wrong incentives. Those journals make their money by publishing papers alone rather than by being able to charge for subscriptions. As such, they charge way more for publishing a paper, and they're going to be more inclined to accept papers of poor quality. This is apparent in the impact factor, which is typically lower for open access journals. Also, an open access journal is quite easy to set up because they typically only publish online and so don't need resources for printing. This has resulted in a tremendous rise in the number of rogue open access journals that will publish just about anything they can get their hands on, sometimes even omitting the review process altogether. I receive about three to five spam emails from such journals every day, asking to submit a paper.

Wait until you find out about PR ghost writing, OP.

economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-judging-research-leading-academic-fraud-looks-good-paper
phys.org/news/2013-11-reveals-black-china-paper-authoring.html
telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10507434/Nobel-prize-winner-accuses-scientific-journals-of-tyranny.html

And remember: Always double check anything written by a chinaman.

From the first article:
"In 2010, however, Nature had also noted rising concerns about fraud in Chinese research, reporting that in one Chinese government survey, a third of more than 6,000 scientific researchers at six leading institutions admitted to plagiarism, falsification or fabrication."

huge research universities can afford it and professors are willing to pay it.

it should all be free imo. i dont understand why there's a fucking middleman to begin with when we have the internet

You forgot to mention that they don't even pay the reviewers, lol

It's totally fucked and seems to be changing quickly. Scihub usage statistics (basically everyone) and the emergence of open access journals is causing everyone to take notice.

I just now found out about it.

Am I a brainlet?

Probably the infrastructure for all this predates the internet but the publishing cartels want to keep their monies.

Been working in publishing for 4 years now.
I learned very early that publishing is Rothschild-tier jewry.

It's likely a holdover from when printing and distributing a journal was actually expensive, and there was a dearth of reviewers you could employ to review submissions (which was thus expensive)

>reviewers
>employ
Review was always done for free. Perhaps you mean editing.

>Review was always done for free. Perhaps you mean editing.
Well fuck never mind then. Journals are literally just jew middlemen unnecessary with today's technology.

I don't completely disagree with you, but it's good to have an (at least somewhat) independent party involved who picks reviewers and makes an ultimate decision about whether the reviews have been addressed appropriately. The problem in my opinion isn't that there are journals, it's the fact that they over charge to an almost criminal level.

Are you that ignorant?

The exact same thing happens in Britain and the US.

It's not just a case of feeling pressured to publish in the most respectable journals.

Academics are paid by PR companies to attach their names to ghost written papers, often as head author.

These ghost written papers produced by PR companies are typically drawn up at the behest of private corporations.

Now, as for academia being based on reputation as opposed to merit, the worth of a researcher is typically discerned relative to how many citations their papers have; therefore, many researchers are happy to put their names to papers describing studies they've never even seen let alone participated in.

That is to say, so long as they get published in a respectable journal.

Academia is a giant mess, with only the more abstract and highly accurate sciences such as physics managing to avoid the distortion.

>arxiv.org

>independent party

Not even close and I know you said '...somewhat)'.

Still not even close.

>I don't completely disagree with you, but it's good to have an (at least somewhat) independent party involved who picks reviewers and makes an ultimate decision about whether the reviews have been addressed appropriately. The problem in my opinion isn't that there are journals, it's the fact that they over charge to an almost criminal level.
These are some good points. I pretty much agree, I don't think journals really do enough work to justify the high price they're charging. Realistically they're not producing any content, and don't have to pay to review it. They're literally just hosting some pages some other people made. Really if you purchase access to a specific paper the authors should get the lion's share of that money lol.

Would you care to elaborate?

I'm very drunk.

Let me come back later.

I'll tag in.

Essentially, journals are financially propped up by unofficial corporate sponsors who pay for advertising space and commercially produced - ghost written - papers to be published.

None of that impacts their independence with regards to genuine articles. How would the factors that you mention influence peer review of a normal paper, for instance?

Didn't realise this until I started my PhD (6 months ago). Needless to say once I finish I'm getting as far away from academia as possible.

that's probably it. That and success in the research business is partially determined by how well known of a journal you can get your work into.

agreed. I've only just started a summer internship at the school before I start my PhD and 2 weeks in I can see how politics invades academia. It's crazy how once you've gotten to the professor level, and you dont need to prove you know your shit anymore, how much being known and knowing others is worth.

I'd much rather a cozy industry job. Maybe if I wish upon a fucking star...

Tell me about it. The worst thing I have these days is pretending to everyone else in the department that I really want to be an academic, because, at least at my school, anything else is looked down upon.

If a paper's findings are negative with respect to a drug produced and marketed by a pharmaceutical company, which happens to pay for a considerable amount of advertising space and ghost written papers, then an editor is unlikely to publish it.

Negative in this case could mean that the drug is no better than a placebo or that it is no better than a cheaper - older - drug.

As for peer review, good old fashion personal bias will apply there; if a paper isn't in line with a reviewer's personal view, then it's less likely to be published.

That's why we rely on the wider academic readership to determine whether a paper is legit or not.

Peer reviewed and published is just the first step and doesn't mean a lot on its own; a paper has to be torn to pieces and given the all clear from the wider readership before anyone really takes it seriously.

That is to say, anyone who actually practices science.