Comments for it is NOT junk http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog a blog about genomes, DNA, evolution, open science, baseball and other important things Thu, 10 May 2012 19:07:46 +0000 hourly 1 Comment on Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research by How the Publishing Houses Are Self-Destructing » Tidings from Shraka http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807&cpage=4#comment-77421 How the Publishing Houses Are Self-Destructing » Tidings from Shraka Thu, 10 May 2012 19:07:46 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807#comment-77421 [...] [1] Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded R... [...] [...] [1] Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded R… [...]

]]> Comment on Announcing The Batavia Open Genomic Data Licence by Will the Democratization of Sequencing Undermine Openness in Genomics? « I wish you'd made me angry earlier http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=440&cpage=1#comment-77405 Will the Democratization of Sequencing Undermine Openness in Genomics? « I wish you'd made me angry earlier Thu, 10 May 2012 14:10:22 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=440#comment-77405 [...] of the data producers and consumers, it is not without failings. As Mike Eisen points out on his blog: In practice [the Ft. Lauderdale privoso] has also given data producers the power to create [...] [...] of the data producers and consumers, it is not without failings. As Mike Eisen points out on his blog: In practice [the Ft. Lauderdale privoso] has also given data producers the power to create [...]

]]> Comment on The weak prescriptions in Harvard’s open-access letter and how I’d fix them by LInks – Oracle’s war on Google falters. | Techrights http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1052&cpage=1#comment-77088 LInks – Oracle’s war on Google falters. | Techrights Tue, 08 May 2012 07:31:48 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1052#comment-77088 [...] The weak prescriptions in Harvard’s open-access letter and how I’d fix them [...] [...] The weak prescriptions in Harvard’s open-access letter and how I’d fix them [...]

]]> Comment on Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research by Selected Reading on Research Works Act – Why You Should Care? | InTechWeb Blog http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807&cpage=4#comment-77000 Selected Reading on Research Works Act – Why You Should Care? | InTechWeb Blog Mon, 07 May 2012 21:46:52 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807#comment-77000 [...] Michael Eisen: http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807 [...] [...] Michael Eisen: http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807 [...]

]]> Comment on 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing by Intersect Alert May 7, 2012 | SLA San Francisco Bay Region Chapter http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058&cpage=1#comment-76972 Intersect Alert May 7, 2012 | SLA San Francisco Bay Region Chapter Mon, 07 May 2012 15:56:55 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058#comment-76972 [...] 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing When Harvard University says it can not afford something, people notice. So it was last month when a faculty committee examining the future of the university’s libraries declared that the continued growth of journal subscription fees was unsustainable. The accompanying calls for faculty action are being hailed as a major challenge to the traditional publishers of scholarly journals. Would that it were so. Rather than being a watershed event in the movement to reform scholarly publishing, the tepidness of the committee’s recommendations, and the silence of the university’s administration, are just the latest manifestation of the toothless response of American universities to the "serials crisis" that has plagued libraries for decades. http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058 [...] [...] 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing When Harvard University says it can not afford something, people notice. So it was last month when a faculty committee examining the future of the university’s libraries declared that the continued growth of journal subscription fees was unsustainable. The accompanying calls for faculty action are being hailed as a major challenge to the traditional publishers of scholarly journals. Would that it were so. Rather than being a watershed event in the movement to reform scholarly publishing, the tepidness of the committee’s recommendations, and the silence of the university’s administration, are just the latest manifestation of the toothless response of American universities to the "serials crisis" that has plagued libraries for decades. http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058 [...]

]]> Comment on 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing by GM http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058&cpage=1#comment-76570 GM Fri, 04 May 2012 20:58:42 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058#comment-76570 <blockquote>Peter Griffiths Posted May 3, 2012 at 10:55 am | Permalink What most people appear to forget is that it costs at least $1500 per paper to publish on an open access basis ($5K in Nature). Add in the indirect costs (50% or more) and that drives the cost to well over $2000. Thus even if a research group only publishes 4 papers a year, it adds about $10K to their publications budget at a time when grants are getting harder and harder to get. Journals published by professional societies are usually quite prestigious (even if not up to the reputation of Science or Nature) and subscriptions are generally significantly cheaper. Furthermore the societies use the income from the journal for the benefit of their members arher than their stock holders. I strongly believe that we should publish in the journals of professional societies rather than journals published by the for-profit publishing houses.</blockquote> Those are not insignificant costs, that's true, however if tally up the total cost of the average biology paper, 2000 dollars will amount to 2% of it at most, probably even less. That's not true in the humanities, or in math, but it is also true that we already have things like per-page charges, charges for color figures, etc. in non-open access journals, and that in those fields there either aren't that many figures or the authors do the typesetting themselves so the cost should be lower anyway. Also, I have yet to see a breakdown of what actually goes into the cost of an article (if someone can point to some source with that information, please do so), so I naturally have a serious suspicion that it can be cut by a lot.

Peter Griffiths
Posted May 3, 2012 at 10:55 am | Permalink
What most people appear to forget is that it costs at least $1500 per paper to publish on an open access basis ($5K in Nature). Add in the indirect costs (50% or more) and that drives the cost to well over $2000. Thus even if a research group only publishes 4 papers a year, it adds about $10K to their publications budget at a time when grants are getting harder and harder to get. Journals published by professional societies are usually quite prestigious (even if not up to the reputation of Science or Nature) and subscriptions are generally significantly cheaper. Furthermore the societies use the income from the journal for the benefit of their members arher than their stock holders. I strongly believe that we should publish in the journals of professional societies rather than journals published by the for-profit publishing houses.

Those are not insignificant costs, that’s true, however if tally up the total cost of the average biology paper, 2000 dollars will amount to 2% of it at most, probably even less. That’s not true in the humanities, or in math, but it is also true that we already have things like per-page charges, charges for color figures, etc. in non-open access journals, and that in those fields there either aren’t that many figures or the authors do the typesetting themselves so the cost should be lower anyway. Also, I have yet to see a breakdown of what actually goes into the cost of an article (if someone can point to some source with that information, please do so), so I naturally have a serious suspicion that it can be cut by a lot.

]]> Comment on What the UC “open access” policy should say by Mike Taylor http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1070&cpage=1#comment-76534 Mike Taylor Fri, 04 May 2012 13:11:35 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1070#comment-76534 Is there anything that we non-Berkeleyites can do to encourage the adoption of your suggested stronger wording rather than the original? Is there anything that we non-Berkeleyites can do to encourage the adoption of your suggested stronger wording rather than the original?

]]> Comment on 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing by What the UC “open access” policy should say http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058&cpage=1#comment-76493 What the UC “open access” policy should say Fri, 04 May 2012 05:44:47 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058#comment-76493 [...] it is NOT junk a blog about genomes, DNA, evolution, open science, baseball and other important things « 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in schol... [...] [...] it is NOT junk a blog about genomes, DNA, evolution, open science, baseball and other important things « 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in schol… [...]

]]> Comment on The widely held notion that high-impact publications determine who gets academic jobs, grants and tenure is wrong. Stop using it as an excuse. by BugDoc http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=911&cpage=1#comment-76438 BugDoc Thu, 03 May 2012 18:27:08 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=911#comment-76438 @AgathaC: the part about Stanford requiring a C/N/S paper for graduate admissions is not true. In our recent recruiting season, we lost one candidate to Stanford. Admittedly, this person was very good, but certainly no C/N/S paper, just a middle author paper in a solid but not high end journal. @AgathaC: the part about Stanford requiring a C/N/S paper for graduate admissions is not true. In our recent recruiting season, we lost one candidate to Stanford. Admittedly, this person was very good, but certainly no C/N/S paper, just a middle author paper in a solid but not high end journal.

]]> Comment on 20 years of cowardice: the pathetic response of American universities to the crisis in scholarly publishing by Peter Griffiths http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058&cpage=1#comment-76424 Peter Griffiths Thu, 03 May 2012 17:55:42 +0000 http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1058#comment-76424 What most people appear to forget is that it costs at least $1500 per paper to publish on an open access basis ($5K in Nature). Add in the indirect costs (50% or more) and that drives the cost to well over $2000. Thus even if a research group only publishes 4 papers a year, it adds about $10K to their publications budget at a time when grants are getting harder and harder to get. Journals published by professional societies are usually quite prestigious (even if not up to the reputation of Science or Nature) and subscriptions are generally significantly cheaper. Furthermore the societies use the income from the journal for the benefit of their members arher than their stock holders. I strongly believe that we should publish in the journals of professional societies rather than journals published by the for-profit publishing houses. Peter Griffiths, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho. What most people appear to forget is that it costs at least $1500 per paper to publish on an open access basis ($5K in Nature). Add in the indirect costs (50% or more) and that drives the cost to well over $2000. Thus even if a research group only publishes 4 papers a year, it adds about $10K to their publications budget at a time when grants are getting harder and harder to get. Journals published by professional societies are usually quite prestigious (even if not up to the reputation of Science or Nature) and subscriptions are generally significantly cheaper. Furthermore the societies use the income from the journal for the benefit of their members arher than their stock holders. I strongly believe that we should publish in the journals of professional societies rather than journals published by the for-profit publishing houses.
Peter Griffiths, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho.

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