Open Source Publishing, Tenure and Other Fantasies
The Public Library of Online Science (PLOS) Biology had the following editorial advocating public access to scientific findings funded by the Federal government:
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050048
On a general note, I couldn't agree more. Publishing companies charge ridiculous subscription rates for university libraries. This has gotten to a point where even large relatively well-funded universities have to pick and choose which journals they are going to provide to their students and faculty. For public universities, access to information represents one more hurdle that limits their ability to compete for the best faculty, grad students, etc.. Moreover, state legislatures seldom find library resources to be "sexy" enough to spend tax payer money on- better to spend it on some towering edifice of half-empty lab space filled with subpar faculty doomed to be booted when tenure just doesn't work out- but that's another story.
The authors ,who represent such highly diverse groups as 1.) Nobel Prize winners and 2.) tenured faculty at MIT, spend much of this editorial NOT talking up the benefits of open access to the public but instead point to the benefits of open access across different generations of scientists. In a nutshell- "For younger scientists, being recognized is critical to our professional successes. Making our work openly available is a means of being recognized and emulated. Senior researchers also should be encouraging their graduate students and postdoctoral colleagues to use open access for career advancement." Well, this is a dilemma- who is going to go first? Who wants to put their career on the line and forgo that paper in "Science" or "Nature"? How will these older and presumably "more kindly" faculty look upon a tenure file filled with open access papers. What graduate student or post-doc wants to commit career suicide by publishing in an open access journal. Let's try not to pretend that we aren't heading toward a two-tier system of publication of high-end, high presige, high expense journals and everything else.
I really wish the scientific world could be this way- free of judgment and open to the collegial interchange of ideas. Science is not for the weak or the kindly. Academic science is a self-selecting system that grinds down those who don't have the exceedingly high levels of talent and/or complete self-sacrifice to succeed. Perhaps tenured faculty and Nobel Prize winners are willing to put aside their egos long enough to publish "down" but there will be harsh rewards for younger faculty who do the same. This is obviously very pessimistic. The editorial needed to point towards some policy recommendations that would ensure scientific results would be judged on other merits beyond the prestige of the journal. Without it, I can hear the scoffing of thousands of young faculty trying to sweat out another paper before 5 years is up.
The world of open access is truly wonderful and will do much to increase the flow of information- especially to universities in poorer nations with low library budgets. However, the academic science establishment is going to have to reform itself before publications are truly open- same is true of research DATA but that is another story.
The Public Library of Online Science (PLOS) Biology had the following editorial advocating public access to scientific findings funded by the Federal government:
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050048
On a general note, I couldn't agree more. Publishing companies charge ridiculous subscription rates for university libraries. This has gotten to a point where even large relatively well-funded universities have to pick and choose which journals they are going to provide to their students and faculty. For public universities, access to information represents one more hurdle that limits their ability to compete for the best faculty, grad students, etc.. Moreover, state legislatures seldom find library resources to be "sexy" enough to spend tax payer money on- better to spend it on some towering edifice of half-empty lab space filled with subpar faculty doomed to be booted when tenure just doesn't work out- but that's another story.
The authors ,who represent such highly diverse groups as 1.) Nobel Prize winners and 2.) tenured faculty at MIT, spend much of this editorial NOT talking up the benefits of open access to the public but instead point to the benefits of open access across different generations of scientists. In a nutshell- "For younger scientists, being recognized is critical to our professional successes. Making our work openly available is a means of being recognized and emulated. Senior researchers also should be encouraging their graduate students and postdoctoral colleagues to use open access for career advancement." Well, this is a dilemma- who is going to go first? Who wants to put their career on the line and forgo that paper in "Science" or "Nature"? How will these older and presumably "more kindly" faculty look upon a tenure file filled with open access papers. What graduate student or post-doc wants to commit career suicide by publishing in an open access journal. Let's try not to pretend that we aren't heading toward a two-tier system of publication of high-end, high presige, high expense journals and everything else.
I really wish the scientific world could be this way- free of judgment and open to the collegial interchange of ideas. Science is not for the weak or the kindly. Academic science is a self-selecting system that grinds down those who don't have the exceedingly high levels of talent and/or complete self-sacrifice to succeed. Perhaps tenured faculty and Nobel Prize winners are willing to put aside their egos long enough to publish "down" but there will be harsh rewards for younger faculty who do the same. This is obviously very pessimistic. The editorial needed to point towards some policy recommendations that would ensure scientific results would be judged on other merits beyond the prestige of the journal. Without it, I can hear the scoffing of thousands of young faculty trying to sweat out another paper before 5 years is up.
The world of open access is truly wonderful and will do much to increase the flow of information- especially to universities in poorer nations with low library budgets. However, the academic science establishment is going to have to reform itself before publications are truly open- same is true of research DATA but that is another story.
posted by LMI1 at 6:26 PM
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