The Exploitative Economics of Academic Publishing

DEAD7

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"Taxpayers in the United States spend $139 billion a year on scientific research, yet much of this research is inaccessible not only to the public, but also to other scientists. This is the consequence of an exploitative scientific journal system thatrewards academic publishers while punishing taxpayers, scientists, and universities. Fortunately, cheap open-access alternatives are not only possible, but already beginning to take root, as this article explores in-depth: 'Why is it so expensive to publish in these open-access journals? According to the journals, these fees defray their publication and operating costs. However, this argument is undermined by the existence of open-access journals that charge authors nothing and have negligible operating costs. One prominent example is the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), one of the top publications in the field of machine learning. JMLR has a similar editorial process to many other journals, with a volunteer editorial board and an automated system for managing the peer-review process. Unlike many closed-access publishers, it does not take any advertising. MIT provides the web server for hosting JMLR, which would otherwise cost around $15 per year. The biggest expense is paying for a tax accountant to deal with paperwork so JMLR can maintain its tax-exempt status. Altogether, the total cost of running JMLR since it was founded in 2000 is estimated to be less than $7,000, or $6.50 per article published. This proves that cheap open-access publishing is possible.'"
 

L&HH

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I thought this was going to be about the textbook scams in college. With the revised editions that they only changed a couple words but used new problem sets and shyt so you have to buy the new edition.
 

L&HH

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N1ggas still pay for textbooks :what:
:mjlol: I know for damn sure I don't. Haven't bought a textbook since my freshman year (biggest waste of money, I only used two of them) but yeah people still do.
 

Serious

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:mjlol: I know for damn sure I don't. Haven't bought a textbook since my freshman year (biggest waste of money, I only used two of them) but yeah people still do.
I'm saying there's ebooks of the contemporary edition chilling on "kickass" or "tha bay"
 

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I thought this was going to be about the textbook scams in college. With the revised editions that they only changed a couple words but used new problem sets and shyt so you have to buy the new edition.
Some subjects have legit reasons to update books though...especially biology or physics or chemistry...but intro level books DO NOT really need revisions like that. Most of the upper level stuff in bio tends to include the latest findings on some :mindblown: shyt though

Math books though :stopitslime: :camby:
 

L&HH

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I'm saying there's ebooks of the contemporary edition chilling on "kickass" or "tha bay"

Yeah, Im lazy with looking for stuff up so I just buy a friend of mine lunch and he gets all my books for me.
Some subjects have legit reasons to update books though...especially biology or physics or chemistry...but intro level books DO NOT really need revisions like that. Most of the upper level stuff in bio tends to include the latest findings on some :mindblown: shyt though

Math books though :stopitslime: :camby:
Im MechE. Most of our books do not need revisions. 2-3 year old versions of books and have had no issues other than the hw problem sets
 

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Most math books the sympathetic professors required of us were 20+ years old and were found cheap on Amazon.

Disgusting though the College Algebra/Trig and remedial math books are done every year with a few new problems. Then the online key code for the students to do homework with cost another 50+.:pacspit:
 

kash10003

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There is an one year embargo on newly published articles for these journals, afterwards everything is open access to the public in its full length. You also have to account for journals not being based in the US, ie Nature. Publishing in plos one is not cheap and is not deemed reputable. However, with the growth of similar open access journals like elife2, I think the future will be much more accessible to the high level scientist as well as the general public.

With that said, the public absolutely does not care enough to see intricate data. They would rather get an embellished NPR or I-fukking-love-science article that overlooks major flaws in data (almost every article has its shortcomings in conclusions as well as reader analysis). For example, we had the "successful" malaria vaccine thread here a while ago (original article in Science). The summary of the article was that intravenous sporozite immunization was more effective than intramuscular, highlighting and verifying the mechanism by which the host immune responds to distinct routes of infection. No one really gives a shyt about that. They just think we have a cure for malaria. A sizable portion of the public believes we have a cure for cancer, and that all tumors are created more or less equal. So I don't think halting open access for a year is a huge deal considering that the publisher needs it to break even. When paper journals are obsolete and there is better public interest in science, I think and I hope this issue will be resolved and that all reports are publicized immediately.

I think an opinion article highlighting a cheap university journal to define possibility of open access is a slap in the face to science itself. A good journal should (1) hold rigorous and ethical requirements for author conclusions, which means getting the best and the most appropriate peer reviewers (usually 2-4), (2) market the research and draw public interest by summarizing the data in layman's terms (done in news and views) and finally maintain a connection between databases (ie pubmed, geoaccession) and communicate with the NIH or the governing scientific body.
 

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There is an one year embargo on newly published articles for these journals, afterwards everything is open access to the public in its full length. You also have to account for journals not being based in the US, ie Nature. Publishing in plos one is not cheap and is not deemed reputable. However, with the growth of similar open access journals like elife2, I think the future will be much more accessible to the high level scientist as well as the general public.

With that said, the public absolutely does not care enough to see intricate data. They would rather get an embellished NPR or I-fukking-love-science article that overlooks major flaws in data (almost every article has its shortcomings in conclusions as well as reader analysis). For example, we had the "successful" malaria vaccine thread here a while ago (original article in Science). The summary of the article was that intravenous sporozite immunization was more effective than intramuscular, highlighting and verifying the mechanism by which the host immune responds to distinct routes of infection. No one really gives a shyt about that. They just think we have a cure for malaria. A sizable portion of the public believes we have a cure for cancer, and that all tumors are created more or less equal. So I don't think halting open access for a year is a huge deal considering that the publisher needs it to break even. When paper journals are obsolete and there is better public interest in science, I think and I hope this issue will be resolved and that all reports are publicized immediately.

I think an opinion article highlighting a cheap university journal to define possibility of open access is a slap in the face to science itself. A good journal should (1) hold rigorous and ethical requirements for author conclusions, which means getting the best and the most appropriate peer reviewers (usually 2-4), (2) market the research and draw public interest by summarizing the data in layman's terms (done in news and views) and finally maintain a connection between databases (ie pubmed, geoaccession) and communicate with the NIH or the governing scientific body.
NEW FINDING SAYS NOT GIVING ORAL SEX IS CORRELATED WITH RISK OF TOOTH CANCER :krs: :troll:
 
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