
Gates Foundation research can’t be published in top journals - ZeljkoS
http://www.nature.com/news/gates-foundation-research-can-t-be-published-in-top-journals-1.21299
======
samfisher83
I think is a key part of the article:

The foundation, which is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, stipulates that
the researchers whom it funds must make open their resulting papers and
underlying data sets immediately upon publication. And papers must be
published under a licence that allows unrestricted reuse — including for
commercial purposes.

But some journals do not offer this kind of open-access (OA) publishing. Many
of them allow papers to be made free to read after an embargo period, usually
of around six months, and let authors upload accepted manuscripts online. But
neither policy meets the Gates Foundation’s requirements. And so, for papers
submitted from the start of 2017, a few top journals are currently off limits
to Gates-funded academics.

“We are having ongoing and fruitful discussions with these publishers,” says
Dick Wilder, associate general counsel with the Gates Foundation’s Global
Health Program. Wilder adds that the Gates Foundation does not plan to allow
exceptions to its policy.

I greatly applaud the gates foundation.

~~~
untilHellbanned
Yes this specifically excludes Nature, Science, and Cell, which is critical
because those are the career-making journals all of us academics must
currently bow down to. Please Gates Foundation force their hand!

~~~
epistasis
I think we need to force the hand of tenure committees.

Nature and Science are high profile, but due to ridiculous space constraints,
I groan whenever a seminal paper is published there. If there is meat to the
article, it's in the supplement, which forces a really awkward way of reading
articles.

Cell is somewhat better.

But ideally the community would abandon Nature and Science as being the gold
standard of publication. Field-specific journals that allow science to be
published sensibly would be much better. When was the last time that a
molecular biologist benefited from having a physicist brush past their highly
technical article on epigenetics because it happened to be in Science? The
benefit of these cross-field journals are somewhat limited, IMHO.

~~~
Animats
Is Nature still taken seriously? When they cover computer science or energy
(especially batteries) the articles are heavy on hype. Don't know about life
sciences.

~~~
kirrent
There's a large difference between the Nature news website which is on the
better side of average, but still average, science journalism and the journal
which is a far larger and more complex behemoth.

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jswrenn
This title is a little editorialized. Gates Foundation research cannot be
published in non-open-access journals—"top" or otherwise.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Nature wants to push the notion that open-access is not where "top" papers are
published in order to protect its aging business model, so from their
perespective, it makes perfect sense.

~~~
ksk
Link? I haven't seen Nature claim or try to push any FUD that open-access
publications do not have top papers.

~~~
HarryHirsch
They don't make the claim that "open access"==Wire Transfer Letters". Trouble
is, Wire Transfer Letters not only exist, they are on the rise, and if the
promotion committee at your unranked regional university accepts papers
published there for Promotion & Tenure the problem has been shifted around.

~~~
geobmx540
Sorry, what's a Wire Transfer Letter in this context?

~~~
HarryHirsch
"Letters" in this context mean short communications, publications shorter than
a full-length paper. Back in the day, _Tetrahedron_ (then published by
Pergamon Press, founded by the scintillating fraud and far-seeing visionary
[1] Robert Maxwell, and now owned by Elsevier, and that isn't a step up) was
the gutter journal that would print anything. But if something was too damn
awful and thin even for _Tetrahedron_ , then _Tetrahedron Letters_ would
surely print it.

 _Wire Transfer Letters_ because you must wire-transfer them the page charges
for your paper that was generated by a Markov chain before they print it, and
because the sketchy publisher sits far away in a country known for sketchy
dealings. OMICS Publishers, we are looking at you!

Can someone enlighten the audience about what happened to Beall's List?!
Another suit?

[1] Pergamon was founded in 1951

~~~
davidgerard
> Can someone enlighten the audience about what happened to Beall's List?!
> Another suit?

Trying to track this down. People are taking cache copies right now, ready to
put up at a second's notice (or just do so anyway).

------
TillE
I'm not generally a fan of arbitrarily "disrupting" things, but the whole
academia publishing system is a creaky historical relic that's going to come
crashing down sooner or later. There are better ways to do science in a world
with computers and the internet.

~~~
davidmr
I spent 15 years in academia and now work with dozens of former academics. In
all my time, I don't think I've ever met a single person who didn't loathe the
journal system from top to bottom, and that includes at least a couple journal
editors.

I seethe in anger every time something I'm looking into ends in a IEEE or
other journal who militantly police arXiv preprints.

The day we bury the last for-profit closed access journal will be a momentous
day in the history of science.

~~~
trendia
Many people outside academia assume that researchers receive some sort of
financial benefit when their paper is distributed, read, or bought for $35 on
Elsevier.

But in fact, the publishing companies receive money from both the researcher
_and_ the reader. They charge the researcher up to $1,500 to publish the
article, and then they extract money from the readers by charging a
subscription fee to their institution (which constitute a large portion of the
library budget).

Not even the editors or reviewers receive any financial compensation -- they
often volunteer their time for the peer-review process.

The entire procedure and profit extraction is a disgrace.

~~~
anon4this1
Elsevier look like a ripe target for a worldwide campaign to cancel access to
their journals unless fees arnt dropped.

Germany are (have?) Pulled access, some other south american countries have
also with local academics saying that everyone uses sci-hub for everything
anyway.

Could be a good target for an activist hedge fund investor to short the stock
and attack the company.

------
neonkiwi
No, the Gates Foundation just has open access requirements. Sorry Nature and
Science.

I hope this sets the stage for all grant funding sources to institute similar
requirements, and we'll get even more absurd clickbait headlines as a result.

~~~
ddebernardy
Europe is getting there, if it's not already - not sure which, but it's been
in the air for a while.

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YeGoblynQueenne
That sounds like the prologue to a near-future sci-fi story:

"The year is 2017. You can run Linux on Windows, .Net, Visual Studio and
powershell in Linux and Bill Gates is the champion of open access in
scientific journals. Oh and- .Net and the C# compiler are open-source.".

What the hell is happening with the world? :)

~~~
Roritharr
The best theory I've heard is that ever since the invention of the atomic
bomb, all timelines that make sense and act according to logic have since
stopped being habitable to humans so we are left with the weird one that
doesn't make sense.

------
et2o
Thank god that someone with real power is finally starting to demand change.

If the NIH could avoid the politics, they would require that all NIH-funded
research be published in open-access journals (now there is a requirement one
year after publication) that it be made available.

Elsevier's revenues last year were about 20 billion, almost the same as the
entire NIH budget.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _If the NIH could avoid the politic_

Alternatively, if academics and their supporters organised and made their case
a priority...

~~~
et2o
There is a relatively organized "opposition." See PLoS, etc.

But it's difficult–generally, advancing your career enough to actually stay in
academia requires that you publish in non open-access journals. Doubly so in
medicine.

This is something which really has to come from the funding agencies and
foundations in order to be effective.

~~~
freyir
> _This is something which really has to come from the funding agencies and
> foundations in order to be effective._

Yes. A great deal of science and engineering funding comes from the U.S.
government, which ultimately is derived from the taxpayers. If taxpayers
demanded access to the research they've already funded, rather than having to
pay an arbitrary third-party middleman an exorbitant fee, things might change
very rapidly.

Unfortunately, this is pretty low on the average citizen's list of issues.
There won't be a march on Washington for open access journals any time soon.

------
carreau
It's good to see this. As a single researcher it's hard to have an impact and
force yourself not to publish to these journals when you have the chance to.
But it's horrifying to see that often you even have to pay an extra fee for
your online figures to be in color ! That's ridiculous. I hope that other
funding sources not only follow the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation move,
but go even further.

~~~
ksk
You can always publish the paper on your own website.

Publishing in a top journal like science or nature is primarily for getting
the social capital of having gone through a difficult selection process.
People need to get paid to see if the science done in the paper was good,
whether it was plagiarized, peer-review, etc etc. Simply.. more selective =
more effort = more cost.

~~~
carreau
Of course I _can_ publish to my own website, and I do, with my code in git,
data available... etc. Though, even if _I_ am the author, I give away the
rights of the final form, meaning that I am not allowed to publish the exact
figures and form of the paper I publish, and have to redo them with enough
change to be different.

Also _I_ review for these journal _for free_ with ridiculous timeline (review
that for tomorrow), and _I_ also have to find a place to host the dataset and
code, potentially pay for it. And when I pay $3k for a paper to be Open Access
and it still cost $35 to read I'm wondering where is this money going to ?

If the journal were to offer the kind of services and actual guaranties that
you mention, then I would be fine to pay more.

But that's far from being the case, and even in top journals you end up having
to send corrections for changes made by clueless editors. During my PhD we had
to complain as the final version of our paper "A 1mW IR laser..." was changed
to "A laser (model 1mW-IR)..." without or consent, or even writing to us.

And you know what, even if it was the journal fault we ended up paying for the
correction.

~~~
ksk
I think we're arguing with extremes. Open doesn't mean anyone can publish
anything and be taken equally seriously and paid doesn't mean greedy for-
profit capitalists who are just in it for the money.

I'm sure you'd agree that there is value to curation. Who pays for that, and
how, is the question.

~~~
carreau
Sure of course there is value to curation. There is another problem these days
with curation in that only "positive" and "new" result get publish. Which is
sad, but is beyond the current scope. Though the current curation to price
ratio these days is dramatic.

It would be great that movement like this one send a signal to publishers that
in the 21st century we are waiting from them more than what they are currently
doing. I'm all for publisher like Nature to change and show what _can_ be
done. First acknowledging this (like this article) is a great step. And some
people in these journals are doing an extraordinary job internally[1]. Just
hoping this could shake things and wake up some people in management.

[1] is one example [http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-
the...](http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the-
code-1.16261)

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JumpCrisscross
> _the discussions could result in influential journals making special
> arrangements with the Gates Foundation to permit OA publishing_

On one hand, such a deal would send a powerful signal. On the other hand, it
does feel like it compromises the spirit of supporting open access.

------
craigyk
Good. Can't wait to see further editorials in Nature talking about all the
problems in science (as a community, career, and funding) whilst the whole
time meandering around the elephant in the room: they are a _big_ part of the
problem.

------
MikeTaylor
A better headline would be "Some journals refuse to meet conditions for
publishing Gates-funded research, which is their own stupid fault",

------
brianwawok
Ethical question: if using closed source and harmful closed standards and
extend, embrace, extinguish eventually leads to more open health care research
and millions of lives saved, was it a net win or loss for the world?

~~~
davidgerard
Speaking as an unreconstructed Stallmanite, I do sometimes wonder if Microsoft
will actually turn out to have been worth it.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Ditto. One of the greatest cognitive dissonances of our field.

------
delinka
"At the moment we believe the subscription model is still the best way to
provide [...] access to journals"

Well ... of course. But how about access to the research? Because that's what
this is all about: the science. We don't need access to "journals," we need
access to scientific research.

------
doikor
And if you are taking money from the foundation you should have known this.
The change was announced in 2014 to come into effect in 2017.

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LarryMade2
More like "Open access research publishing a challenge to top journals."

------
biehl
Peter Suber has a good analysis here
[https://plus.google.com/u/1/+PeterSuber/posts/dU6tWcorZEV](https://plus.google.com/u/1/+PeterSuber/posts/dU6tWcorZEV)

------
woodandsteel
I wonder if there is any truth to the rumor that Elsevier is planning on
bringing a lawsuit against the Gates Foundation on its OA policy.

~~~
neuromantik8086
Now you're just making me equate Elsevier with SCO in my mental model of
proprietary vs open legal conflicts.

------
sampo
Some journals agree to publish your article as open access, if you pay them an
extra fee (which is in line with full open access journals usually also
charging a publication fee). Nothing would stop Nature also offering this
option if they really wanted to publish Gates-founded research.

------
misterhtmlcss
Firstly this is a complex issue because from what I understand these papers
validate and ensure quality in the publishing of the article. This is a value
add because it filters the garbage found on the web and I for one don't want
to see what has happened to the news e.g. fake and or poor quality being
published, happen to science research.

However I may have a solution that suits the organization's need for funds
which they need to continue to do their valuable work and also satisfies
funders and that is to publish a totally unrefined version in a bulk WikiLeaks
manner and then publish their properly edited and refined article within their
magazine.

Not a very knowledgeable guy on the topic, but this could be a great way to
retain the primary value and also satisfy other stakeholders.

To those who think their role as gatekeepers is no longer valid, I have to
wonder what planet you are on that you don't think independent journals that
compete are not a valid vehicle for ensuring claims are at least minimally
justifiable AND that paying those professionals to do that kind of work is
somehow wrong. Such a silly way of thinking.

~~~
davidgerard
> Firstly this is a complex issue because from what I understand these papers
> validate and ensure quality in the publishing of the article.

I think you'd seriously have to show your working there, in detail. Nobody who
does that work is paid, AIUI. The publisher probably does a bang-up job of the
typesetting ...

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WhitneyLand
Why can't a standard reputation/quality system be designed to replace the
value of impact factor and other journal specific metrics?

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forkandwait
I wonder if the Gates Foundation could fund journals or otherwise try to help
fix the (fundamentally rotten) academic publishing ecosystem.

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untilHellbanned
So if the journals must be made available instantly isn't the business model
gone? Why would anyone have to subscribe anymore?

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cowsandmilk
the title shows what Nature News thinks of eLife? I currently push for papers
to be published there on the principle of OA.

~~~
Fomite
As fond as I am of eLife, it _aspires_ to be a top tier journal. I have never
heard it mentioned in the same sentence as what _are_ currently top tier
journals.

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antman
One day this article is flagged and dead, the other day its first on HN. I
think something is wrong with the system lately.

~~~
Isamu
It's stochastic, not a deterministic process. Should never look at it
personally.

Same with up/down votes. It can be a Brownian random walk.

~~~
antman
My guess is that the number of people on HN has increased without an increase
in the number of flags required to kill a post.

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kerrynusticeNkJ
Great bill research —yes melinda grass.

------
Bost
[https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+gates+headstand](https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+gates+headstand)
And then click on "Images". However YMMV ...

