
German universities take on Dutch publishing giant Elsevier - sohkamyung
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/german-universities-take-on-elsevier-/3007807.article
======
karllager
Best of luck. Elsevier and other giants are putting significant resources in
mimicking free and open structures in their portfolio to hide the infamy of
their business model (selling a few bytes of publicly funded research over and
over again).

To the average decision maker these "new models" will sound perfectly fine.
The EU want to make all research public by 2020? Elsevier and other have very
deep pockets, so my guess would be 2025 at the earliest.

~~~
denzil_correa
> Elsevier and other giants are putting significant resources in mimicking
> free and open structures in their portfolio to hide the infamy of their
> business model (selling a few bytes of publicly funded research over and
> over again)

This is the key aspect here which everyone needs to address. Just moving from
a subscription model to "open access" where you still pay 2000$ per article
won't solve or alleviate the problem.

~~~
chestervonwinch
Doesn't "open access" usual mean free-of-charge access the articles (but
perhaps at the expense of an open access, publishing fee to the author)? If
not, in what sense are they using the term "open access"? Could you link to an
example of what you or the parent commenter are referring to?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I recently tried to access an Open Access paper.

Apparently it's only open to users with university library access. Otherwise
you have to pay for it.

I emailed the author directly and he sent me a PDF.

~~~
Vinnl
I don't think that's Open Access under any definition of Open Access.

~~~
upvotinglurker
Correct. The publisher in this case may have been misrepresenting a paid-
access journal as open access, or the journal may have offered open access
only to certain articles and presented this policy in a confusing way. I have
certainly seen the latter before.

------
IshKebab
This is great, but I don't know why the governments and universities don't
just fund their own totally free open access journals. Journals can't be
expensive to run. You basically just need a few admin people to poke
reviewers, and a trivial website to host papers.

~~~
lorenzhs
Many hiring decisions in academia still rely strongly on the reputation of
journals where applicants published. This may be less accentuated in computer
science, where most research is presented at conferences and preprints are
often available on the arXiv, but it's a very important factor in many other
disciplines. It's also the primary reason why researchers don't boycott these
journals: most of them are simply not in a position where they can afford to
without seriously damaging their career prospects.

See also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_anarchy)
\- a system can get stuck in a terrible state where everyone's best move is to
keep going. A much better equilibrium could be constructed (Price of
Stability), but how do we get there?

~~~
Aaargh20318
> Many hiring decisions in academia still rely strongly on the reputation of
> journals where applicants published.

This is very weird to me. It seems to me like a variant of the 'argument from
authority' fallacy. Publications should be judged on their content, not on who
owns the printing press.

~~~
ptero
If I'm reading a paper in Nature I can assume that the editors and reviewers
did first checks on content (BS can still get through, but it is rare). Self-
published, unknown journal gives me none of that. Thus when making hiring
decisions it does help to overweight established journals. And most tenure
tracks in academia make mistakes costly.

I do not like the current system, but established, well curated journals do
provide some benefits in academia hiring. They do damage, too, but to a
_different_ group. My 2c.

~~~
amelius
Perhaps we should use the equivalent of "page-rank" for scientific papers and
their citations as a quality measure (?)

~~~
stult
Well, that exists in the form of citations. The more a paper is cited the more
valued are its authors. Just as the more often a site is linked to, the higher
its page rank. And since you're not dealing with massive numbers of sites with
lots of SEO experts, straight citation count is good enough without any of the
corrections included in the page rank algorithm.

Hiring committees look at both quantity of publications and citations to those
publications. The problem is that quantity doesn't always indicate quality.
Which is why journal prestige acts as a proxy measure.

~~~
rocqua
I always though this was the impact factor of a journal. However, according to
[1] that is not the case. [2] Mentions the 'eigenfactor' which seems to be
closer to emulating page-rank. I haven't read much about it though.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor)
[2]
[http://researchguides.uic.edu/if/impact](http://researchguides.uic.edu/if/impact)

------
bcraven
This is an excellent article from The Guardian that chronicles the history and
current business practises of academic journal publishing if anyone fancies a
read:

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-
business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science)

(It's also on the Guardian Long Read podcast if you subscribe to that)

------
dschuetz
Elsevier in its core is a bunch of managers/investors trying to get rich from
exploiting scientific achievements for profit. They do not have in mind what's
best for science, they've made that perfectly clear.

~~~
notyourday
That's because absolutely no one cares about it except for whining about
Elsevier.

We have a _perfect_ way of distributing papers - it is called "Publish it on
your blog". If your blog is the most awesome blog or even just more awesome
than the lousy blogs, the concerned scientists would go there.

Why isn't it happening? Because the content of the papers published on the
blogs suck and no one cares.

~~~
dschuetz
So it's not _that_ perfect after all? I've read some history about this
publishing dependency problem with Elsevier. The scientists are part of the
problem too. They are not completely innocent nerds who got bullied into this
system. Most of them embraced it for convenience and fame, because, see, they
haven't got time and money to do that on their own, because they are so busy
'sciencing' (honestly, most of it isn't 'research' anymore). I admire the
German scientists who finally realized that mistake and now are trying to
reverse it, if it is even possible.

~~~
notyourday
Because the issue is not hosting/prodiding publishing venue.

The issue is that submitted _original papers_ that are produced are _garbage_
and neither EICs nor their reviewers give two cents about quality. Had not
been the case this would not have happened:

[http://news.mit.edu/2015/how-three-mit-students-fooled-
scien...](http://news.mit.edu/2015/how-three-mit-students-fooled-scientific-
journals-0414)

Most of these companies have XML First type programs. What those who are so
passionate about this topic should do is do is pay XML First fees for a sample
of random 100 papers in 10 random publications and write a scraper to pull the
papers in different production stages - from manuscripts to the end result.
The beginning state would horrify you.

------
im3w1l
I used to think that Elsevier et al were just rentiers, and that bringing them
down would be a pure win. But I'm not so sure anymore. When money left
journalism we saw a big big quality drop. We now have lots of problems with
fake news. It makes me think: what if the same thing will happen in science?

I guess the affiliation of the researchers will still be there, but it still
leaves me a bit uneasy.

~~~
llukas
Elsevier doesn't pay for review nor to the authors.

~~~
im3w1l
But they pick trustworthy reviewers though?

~~~
lorenzhs
No, the editor and their associate editors do that, and they don't get paid by
Elsevier either. [https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43574/how-
much-...](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43574/how-much-is-an-
editor-paid)

------
lorenzhs
Previous discussion of these negotiations and Project DEAL 8 months ago at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187315)

Also, the article's link to Project DEAL is wrong (it goes to the German
Research Foundation), it should be [https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-
deal/](https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/)

------
eecc
My minuscule contribution to the debate is lying on github [1].

The idea is to distribute papers over a P2P network. Uploads and metadata are
digitally signed with PGP and you get to filter out all rubbish that is not
originated from your WOT. You get "peer reviewed" when enough people of type
"recognized reviewer" in your WOT publish a signed metadata "reviewed" stamp.

It still needs a whole lot of work, I only ever managed to make it work over
to machines on a LAN, it is OOM prone, GUI is fugly, and I could (should)
probably re-start from scratch.

But if you like the idea and feel like helping, do ping me... we can save the
world! ;)

[1]:
[https://github.com/ecausarano/heron](https://github.com/ecausarano/heron)

------
OliverJones
Aaron Swartz's influence on open publishing is still unfolding more than four
years after his untimely death. The forces arrayed against open publishing are
formidable: governments and big business.

It's good to see a nation's universities working together on this.

~~~
plaidfuji
Governments are actually in a bit of a gray area. On the one hand, a
politician can score cheap points with the public by saying "we should all be
able to read what our tax dollars pay for!", and on the other hand, the
government would ultimately be footing the bill for open access in the short
term because their grant money would funnel to publishers by way of pay-to-
publish open access fees. So there's significant incentive for the government
to figure out an open access solution that involves as little publishing fees
as possible. They just don't want to be the ones who pay for it and
administrate it.

------
agussell
If scientists continue tolerating the monopolies of big editorials, this
situation is not going to change. It is time to embrace open access journals.
Meanwhile, I use SciHub.

------
merraksh
Seems like the trend is gaining momentum, though slowly. It's recent news that
editors of a Springer journal (Springer is another large publisher) left and
started their own journal [0].

[0] [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/31/math-
journal-...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/31/math-journal-
editors-resign-start-rival-open-access-journal)

------
somberi
A related read:

The shackles of scientific journals-
[https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21719480-and-how-
cast...](https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21719480-and-how-cast-them-
shackles-scientific-journals)

The problem with scientific publishing
[https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2017/03/e...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2017/03/economist-explains-23)

------
Dolores12
they will find out soon that they are fine on their own without Elsevier...

------
hetspookjee
How did Elsevier acquire the wierd position it is in? What added value does
Elsevier provide?

~~~
twanvl
Before the internet, publishers actually printed journals on actual paper.
This cost a lot of money, and it makes sense that universities payed for
subscriptions to physical journals.

Today, the cost of these subscriptions hasn't changed much. But the added
value is much less since everyone reads papers online.

------
smartbit
Discussed in January
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187315)

------
nomercy400
If the German consortium is so big and influential worldwide, why bother with
other journals like Elsevier? They might as well start their own open-access
journal. Or isn't the Consortium that big/influential?

~~~
kuschku
Because they only decided to band together in 2014, and didn't want to spend
their time and money on creating something new (which might even be illegal,
the government can't compete with private companies)

~~~
apexalpha
Sure it can. Many, many government companies compete in the open market in my
Country. I'm sure it's the same in Germany.

~~~
kuschku
It's not in Germany. And the government companies that did have been sued all
the time, and lost every time.

My city currently has the issue that we need new low-income and student
housing, the private companies refuse to built it (not profitable enough), but
say they'd immediately sue if the city would build on its own.

The resulting housing crisis has driven up rent for 2 decades now, but we
can't do anything. It looks like they're slowly coming to an agreement now,
with the city making a deal that they can build such housing, in small amounts
that are unlikely to influence the market prices, if it's built in places
where no private developer wants to build.

------
socrates1998
Why do they even need that company? How hard could it be to just make
everything open source and free?

For real, this is like the easiest problem to solve. Just stop giving that
corrupt company any money and do it themselves.

------
wolfi1
perhaps also of interest: [http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/...](http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/title/Elsevier-published-6-fake-
journals/)

------
AmIFirstToThink
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

Go Germany!

------
kutkloon7
Good for them. I never understood why people are paying Elsevier anyway. It
seems like everything they do can be done for free.

~~~
dragandj
It's not people directly, it's the institutions who are paying.

------
dilemma
This is like a university taking on the evil computer manufacturers or
something. Sure, you can do it yourself, but you have to put in the work and
the money to do so. Distributors and publishers exist for a reason.

------
Boothroid
Interesting, I'd love to know what level this has escalated to behind the
scenes - governmental? EU? If Merkel did a deal could the universities be
forced to back down?

~~~
lorenzhs
That is so far outside of their competence that I'm not sure how you
constructed this absurd scenario. Why would Merkel be able to sign a contract
on universities' behalf? The EU is pushing for more open access publishing,
but the way it can do that is via regulation or adding it as a requirement to
EU-funded research.

~~~
Boothroid
I was merely asking a question.

Elsevier no doubt contributes large amounts of money to the Dutch tax
authorities. Governments pick up the phone about this type of thing all the
time. There is ample evidence of deal making at the EU level - I'm thinking of
the watering down of emissions legislation to benefit German car makers. I
don't think it's far fetched at all to imagine a quid pro quo taking place
behind the scenes. My question was partly around what kind of leverage Merkel
might have down at the university level, as I have no knowledge about this.

~~~
Vinnl
The funny thing is that the EU has largely been pushing for more Open Access
due to the Netherlands' EU presidency last year - the Netherlands was already
taking the lead at that point.

Then again, the way the Open Access transition appears to be taking place
right now seems like it could end up creating really nice profit margins for
companies like Elsevier again, so maybe that was their plan all along.

