Slashdot Mirror
Math Journal Editors Resign To Start Rival Journal That Will Be Free To Read (insidehighered.com)
An anonymous reader writes: To protest the high prices charged by their publisher, Springer, the editors of the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics will start a rival journal that will be free for all to read. The four editors in chief of the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics have informed their publisher, Springer, of their intention to launch a rival open-access journal to protest the publisher's high prices and limited accessibility. This is the latest in a string of what one observer called "editorial mutinies" over journal publishing policies. In a news release, the editors said their decision was not made because of any "particular crisis" but was the result of it becoming "more and more clear" that Springer intended to keep charging readers and authors large fees while "adding little value."
But you still don't understand the mathematics.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Ok.
I know nothing about this... But how the heck are they going to get paid, or pay for rent, hosting, etc. if there is no charge to the readers?
When their economics are those of a monopolist, it suggests the business folks believe they have a monopoly.
The irony is that they are restraining the rate of growth of technical capability of human science. They are the toll road trolls for the future of the world.
This is a textbook externality. Government of capitalist economies has as its charter: minimization of externalities and prevention of monopolies.
The Public Library of Science started its first journal in 2003.
What took these editors so long?
To help the fledgling journal get started, Stanford Prof. David Mazieres offers his submission.
Unless you mean the publishers, they don't even today. You work for free for the journal and give them exclusive access, in return for a shot at publicity/"impact".
Note quite, a shot at tenure. "Publish or Perish". Everyone in academia knew this going in.
I'll make a new journal, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget about the journal.
The Journal of Casino Science.
On second thought, Casino's are filled with math and science from many disciplines. Math and stats are obvious, but biology (how much O2 to promote gambling, simulating what level of sunlight to promote shopping, etc), psychology (visual and auditory rewards to reinforce winning, silence to diminish losing), sociology (competition, pvp while skimming a percentage), etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are already open-access publishing companies out there. I would hope when they mean "creating a new journal" they mean they're going to develop their journal alongside one of these open-access scientific publishers (such as MDPI).
Yes exactly, the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics is a hotbed of pro-evolution propaganda.
If there are k editors and n journals, how many ways can you allocate those k editors between the n journals?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The first en masse resignation of the entire Editorial Staff from an extortative publisher, who went off to create an effective clone journal having identical goals and editorial staff, but with an open-access policy – AND the same prestige from the get-gobecause this was led by the Editors, and all stayed on-board to start it – was another mathematics journal.
Some other journals have followed in these footsteps. A top-tier journal in Linguistics. A respected journal in physics and chemistry. Others...
May there be many more!
The reputation of a scientific journal is due to the kind of articles it accepts and the policies of its editorial board. In the case of "journal of algebraic combinatorics" the overall consensus and opinion of the reference community was fairly high and the editors are well respected scientists.
I am fairly sure this mass resignation has been a carefully deliberated move and the stated purposes are definitely condivisible. I expect that the new "fair open access" journal will follow the same policies and that it will publish only interesting and worthy research. That is the good of this story.
There is a catch, though. Most academicians are evaluated according to "metrics" related to some commercial databases and these databases are even enshrined by law in some countries as the main way to evaluate individual and departmental performance (this both for founding and career progression).
Unfortunately in order for an independent journal to be taken into consideration by these databases it is necessary (among other things) that it gets a "good" track record for a few years (this does not appear to be the case for journals by the major publishers)... in the meantime all scientific papers being published there are basically useless (unless you are retired or have so many recent papers as not to need to have them "being (ac)counted"). So, the conundrum here is that very few researchers will send to the new journal their best works (since they are not taken into consideration for their career), but the journal cannot get proper reputation and evaluation unless this happens. Still, I personally have no idea about how to solve this problem.
how many ways can you allocate those k editors between the n journals?
And many of those journals can have i>1 "editors in chief"? All chiefs and no indians makes a very poor organization.
Pop ups, ad banners and selling your informaation.
If not, how are they raising the money? (I read TFS, TFA and press release, but they just parroted the same scant information.)
It's great that they don't charge for publication because that would be a terrible financial incentive for accepting low quality articles.
It's great that money isn't being wasted for no added value.
But what expenses they have has to come from somewhere.
I'm sure all your purple-haired friends on tumblr would've loved that. You should post it there instead.
Watch big publishing interests lean on their people in congress to make it illegal to start an open-access publishing company. It's anti-competitive. It's "socialism."
Hey, I guess big government works for somebody, doesn't it?
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Comment removed based on user account deletion