

Show HN: Scholastica, Academic Journal Publishing Platform & Scholarly Community - robertwalsh0

We’re a startup called Scholastica(http://bit.ly/rSYdfa), an academic journal publishing platform and scholarly community. We applied to Y-Combinator Spring 2011, PG actually wrote us to ask us some further questions, but unfortunately didn’t get in. With that said, we didn’t give up and have an application with some traction. We’re completely bootstrapped and would love for you guys to check us out and hear your thoughts.<p>Problem:Academics spend their time doing research, then have other scholars peer-review this research at an academic journal, then journals hand over the articles they choose to publish to a publishing house. The publishing house then sells this content back to university libraries at ridiculous prices. It’s been this way for decades and scholars are finally complaining about it in the press. For more, see the ‘further reading’ section at the end of this post.<p>Solution: Scholastica is designed to give publishing power back to scholars. With Scholastica, scholars can create peer reviewed journals, find reviewers, incentivize them to give quality and on time reviews, and ultimately publish the work online without the need for large publishing companies that are holding university libraries hostage (65% of a university library’s budget goes toward buying journals). Also, in the real world, academics build status by discussing knowledge. As a result of this, Scholastica has a section of the application called The Conversation (http://bit.ly/rADIay), where in a way similar to a StackExchange or Quora, academics can dissect and share knowledge amongst themselves. Journals can then identify promising peer-reviewers in a fashion that was impossible to do before. Now, instead of becoming a reviewer by knowing the right people, it’s easier to be asked based on the status earned from the ideas shared among one’s peers.<p>Spread the Word: We think we have something really important and special here. Of course, any startup would say that. We feel like we’re solving a legitimate real world problem. Maybe PG would say that we're avoiding Schlep Blindness. Academia is notorious for being slow to adopt disruptive technologies. CourseKit is dealing with something similar. We’d love for the HN community to spread the word if you guys and gals think that we’re doing something valuable.<p>Further Reading:
• Bjorn Brembs – What’s wrong with scholarly publishing today? II http://slidesha.re/w4u3b5<p>• George Monbiot – Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist<p>• The Economist: Of goats and headaches – One of the best media businesses is also one of the most resented http://www.economist.com/node/18744177<p>• Open access and academic journals: the publishers respond http://theconversation.edu.au/open-access-and-academic-journals-the-publishers-respond-2804<p>• George Monbiot- The Lairds of Learning http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/29/the-lairds-of-learning/<p>• Locked in the Ivory Tower: Why JSTOR Imprisons Academic Research http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/locked-in-the-ivory-tower-why-jstor-imprisons-academic-research/251649/
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Morendil
This is well intentioned but possibly aimed at the wrong target - the
publishing part is not where things are locked down in scientific publishing,
it's the indexing part.

Roughly, as I understand it, a researcher's annual performance review is based
on the number of papers accepted by the "right" journals, and in turn what
determines the "right" journals is their standing with the big science
citation indexes such as ISI and Scopus.

~~~
coryschires
It sounds like you saying the indexing services are the problem? I don't think
that's the case. The citation indices can give you a rough idea of a journal's
clout within their field based on how frequently their articles are cited.
That's (at least arguably) a reasonable way of measuring prestige. Obviously,
authors want to be published in the top journals in their field, which also
makes sense. We're not specifically trying to disrupt any of these practices.

~~~
mrlase
If you aren't specifically trying to disrupt that, then what ARE you trying to
disrupt? Authors are still going to target prestigious journals first and work
their way down if they can't get into the top.

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slater
Clickable, non-obfuscated link: <http://www.scholasticahq.com/>

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lazyjeff
The website looks really nice. If I was the editor for a journal, I would
consider trying this out.

There have been a few "change academia" type websites on Hacker News before,
each with a slightly different twist (like <http://science.io>). It would be
great if they combined forces to make something comprehensive for journal
publishing, paper reviewing, paper commenting, etc.

PS: I encountered one bug where one of the lightbox came up with the same
content as the original window. So I was looking at a window inside a
window...

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zerostar07
Any chance that you might open source the software and provide a hosting
solution instead? Are there other such OSS platforms?

~~~
coryschires
We're not currently planning to open source the platform. But we are
encouraging (though not forcing) journals to provide open access to their
content. At the moment, our goal is to provide journal editors with a quality
tool. We'll be thinking more about open access as we continue to add
publishing functionality.

As for open source solutions, there is OJS (<http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs>). It's
heart is in the right place, but it's an unfortunately clumsy product that
lacks many of important features we're looking to add.

~~~
rd108
What do you think of the current SOPA-like "Research Works Act" bill being
shuttled through Congress?

<http://publishing.umich.edu/2012/01/05/more-legislative/>
[http://www.opencongress.org/contact_congress_letters/24541-H...](http://www.opencongress.org/contact_congress_letters/24541-H-R-3699-Research-
Works-Act)

~~~
coryschires
We've been discussing HR3699 on Scholastica:
[http://scholasticahq.com/conversation/questions/hr3699-and-t...](http://scholasticahq.com/conversation/questions/hr3699-and-
the-best-way-of-disseminating-scientific-knowledge-that-the-public-has-paid-
for)

At the risk of being reductive, I generally believe publicly funded research
ought to be publicly available (or at least available at a price that's
reasonable for the average person).

------
AAS
How are you going to distinguish your service from a free open source solution
like Annotum/WordPress?

~~~
robertwalsh0
Scholastica is focused on improving peer review and publishing for scholarly
journals. Annotum is also improving the process of scholarly publishing, but
more focused on collaboratively authoring material while we support the
publishing process of both traditional and open access journals. We also
differ in that we aim to:

• Improve the scholarly publishing process for all involved by improving
usability

• Eliminate the need to install software on your own server

• Automatic data backups to which also lessens the need for IT Staff

• Not focus solely on the sciences

• Give reviewers better incentives and public recognition for being good
reviewers

• Create a global pool of reviewers across a variety of disciplines

• Give scholars a place regardless of discipline where they can share ideas

I encourage you to take the tour on our website
(<http://www.scholasticahq.com/tour>) to see more of these differences for
yourself.

------
brador
What's a possible monetization strategy here? Am I missing something?

~~~
robertwalsh0
We have two related strategies:

1) Charge a small submission fee (still pinning down the number). Journals
will have the option of paying that fee directly or passing the fee along to
the authors who submit the articles. If the journals choose to charge the
author, they will keep a portion of that fee.

2) Give journal editors the option to charge for their content. Individual
journals may set the price or charge nothing. If they charge, Scholastica will
take a small, very reasonable cut.

Regardless of where we end up, we definitely want to monetize it in a way that
doesn't place unnecessary strain on library budgets and allows everyone to
access the content at a reasonable price.

~~~
mrlase
Just giving you some feedback from someone working in a (virology) research
lab so I'd say I have a fair idea of what academia is like.

My biggest question is, how do you plan on gaining traction to bring in
credible editors that can actually challenge journals that have been around
for decades in their respective fields? I would imagine that it is going to be
very hard to change the mind of the more resistant peoples in academia (i.e.
the older crowd that has been using the same journals their entire career) who
actually control the money. How do you plan on attracting credible reviewers
to review the submitted articles?

In regards to your proposed pricing, isn't the entire idea for disruption of
academic publishing to get rid of having to pay for articles?

