'Academic Publishing is Broken'

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Here's another scandal: http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/the-fraud-who-fooled-almost-everyone/27917

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Re: Nigel/Faust's confusion. I think it's important to realize that different Sciences publish in different journals, and they all have different rules and guidelines for publishing. Nigel being more familiar with the medical and socio-demographical publications (I'm guessing from the sort of things she often quotes research on), and Faust with the electronics/computers/comp.sci articles. It's also different per university.

That makes sense. I am really only familiar with journals that pertain directly or indirectly to health sciences, which is why I was asking Faust if the magazines he was talking about are comparable.

[Cain]

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k77982&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup143448

We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library. ... The Faculty Advisory Council to the Library, representing university faculty in all schools and in consultation with the Harvard Library leadership, reached this conclusion: major periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers, cannot be sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing is financially untenable. ... It is untenable for contracts with at least two major providers to continue on the basis identical with past agreements. Costs are now prohibitive. ... since faculty and graduate students are chief users, please consider the following options open to faculty and students (F) and the Library (L), state other options you think viable, and communicate your views:

Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies (F). Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access (F). If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning (F).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k77982&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup143448

We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library. ... The Faculty Advisory Council to the Library, representing university faculty in all schools and in consultation with the Harvard Library leadership, reached this conclusion: major periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers, cannot be sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing is financially untenable. ... It is untenable for contracts with at least two major providers to continue on the basis identical with past agreements. Costs are now prohibitive. ... since faculty and graduate students are chief users, please consider the following options open to faculty and students (F) and the Library (L), state other options you think viable, and communicate your views:

Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies (F). Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access (F). If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning (F).

Whoa. MUTINY!

[Template]

Impressively broken.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/04/26/elsevier_picks_up_the_pace.php#921895

Paper sent in to a mid-low ranked journal, rejected in 2 days at the editorial level (no reviews) for being "not of significant enough impact to warrant publication". Wrote an appeal to the EiC (blah blah, of course it's significant you moron!) 2 days later get a computer generated email congratulating me on having the paper accepted by the journal, and giving details on how to upload all the reqired files for publication (hi-res images etc.) Sent in the files, got the paper in press and with page #s. About 3 months later got an email from the EiC saying they had looked at our appeal and would be sending it out for peer review after all. I politely pointed out it was already in print, and got no response. Weird!

[Kai]

Impressively broken.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/04/26/elsevier_picks_up_the_pace.php#921895

Paper sent in to a mid-low ranked journal, rejected in 2 days at the editorial level (no reviews) for being "not of significant enough impact to warrant publication". Wrote an appeal to the EiC (blah blah, of course it's significant you moron!) 2 days later get a computer generated email congratulating me on having the paper accepted by the journal, and giving details on how to upload all the reqired files for publication (hi-res images etc.) Sent in the files, got the paper in press and with page #s. About 3 months later got an email from the EiC saying they had looked at our appeal and would be sending it out for peer review after all. I politely pointed out it was already in print, and got no response. Weird!

Honestly, pre-pub review /shouldn't/ take that long. Especially with the ubiquitous requirement that authors send names and email addresses of potential reviewers with their manuscript. The best thing reviewers could do, IMO, is to bring these manuscripts to their weekly lab meetings and do a journal club style session. Incidentally, this is also the best way to do post-pub review.

The reason this doesn't happen is that there is such an air of fearful confidentiality, the fear of being scooped, or having ideas stolen.