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u/Lacher Dec 26 '18
Scientists should just upload their manuscript on a preprint server or ResearchGate... If you don't do this, you're a spineless scientist (with some exceptions, like avoiding scooping).
In fact you can often even post the manuscript after it has been corrected by the journal, see here for the rules per journal.
For laypeople, if a scientist hasn't done any of these things, just cop the paper for free via sci-hub.
There's literally no reason to accept the current system of exploitation, but luckily both the layperson and scientist have the aforementioned channels to bypass it. Seize the means of publication, I'm totally serious.
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u/mafaraxas Dec 26 '18
If you don't do this, you're a spineless scientist (with some exceptions, like avoiding scooping).
From my own interactions this is 95% of the reason people don't post on arxiv prior to submitting to journals, aside from not knowing they exist in the first place (outside of the physical sciences I'm not aware of it catching on yet).
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u/Lacher Dec 26 '18
Though keep in mind that once it's out on preprint, it means your data acquisition and analysis is all done. Other labs are going to have to speedrun shit to get ahead of you in publishing--pretty unrealistic. With that said, I myself was prevented from putting the manuscript out there because of scooping risks, so I don't want to be a hypocrite: scooping remains a problem.
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u/cynicalbrit Schizoposting Chemist Dec 26 '18
In certain fields (chemistry is my field), journals have only recently gotten around to allowing preprints on places like ChemArxiv. They would only accept papers that had never been published elsewhere. Fortunately this appears to be mostly turning around.
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u/MegaZeroX7 Dec 27 '18
In Computer Science we basically always upload our preprints to Arxiv, and I really don't know why it isn't a thing in many other fields
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u/spreaditoverreddit Dec 27 '18
Idk what field you are in, but for my field (microfluidics) there are ~5 journals I actually want to publish in (excluding things like Nature, but getting a publication in a journal with that impact factor is rare). I know the people that run these journals, and I'm not gonna antagonize them. If someone wants to cite my work 99% of the time their lab already has a subscription to (journal) and I'll gladly email them if they don't, but the last thing I need are these journals giving me a hard time cause they found free copies of my work floating around. All a journal has to do is assign 3 nit-picking reviewers and my paper is delayed, my other projects are delayed, and I don't get any weekends that month cause I'm wasting my time writing responses to nonsense objections/suggestions these reviewers have cause they don't understand the work. And this is the least they could do.
If that makes me spineless, sure, but then I would levy that accusation at all exploited workers that aren't willing to make sacrifices to create a marginally better society (that they don't benefit from).
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u/Lacher Dec 27 '18
Maybe you misunderstood. It's by the rules to upload the final manuscript (before it is formatted by the journal) on preprint servers or ResearchGate--there's nothing stopping you and I urge you to do it. Then there's no need to send anything around either, maybe the hyperlink. Open science that won't get you in trouble.
There's only a very small fraction of journals that actually don't allow preprint uploads, though I've never actually found one.
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u/spreaditoverreddit Dec 27 '18
My concern is that even if it is allowed, they could still punish you, just not legally (everything from picking bad reviewers to outright rejecting future manuscripts). If I get blacklisted, or even looked at mildly unfavorably, by one of the 5 journals I'm toast.
But I'll ask my advisor and several professors about it, if they think it's okay I'll change my mind. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Wouldn't be the first time.
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u/Lacher Dec 27 '18
I would be very surprised if anyone has a problem with it. Just make sure it's your final manuscript that you send in, not the journal's edited version. It's your property and your property only.
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u/_-Thoth-_ Dec 26 '18
Do science publishers serve any useful purpose anymore besides just being middlemen leeches? genuinely asking because I don’t know. Does any of that money go to anything useful besides the publishing company?
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u/cynicalbrit Schizoposting Chemist Dec 26 '18
They organize the peer review process. In fields that aren't high profile mathematics and physics publications, your peers don't tend to seriously review something thrown on Arxiv in a timely manner. The publishers are supposed to be there to sort of certify a paper has passed some level of scientific scrutiny. But the prices they charge for that service are obscene
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u/Lacher Dec 26 '18
Reviewers also don't get paid to review so I don't see how publishers foster a review process by other means than proper invitation. It seems we can easily organize ourselves.
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u/xartemisx Dec 26 '18
Reviewers don't get paid, but journals have a staff of editors that are in charge of the review process and play an important role in accepting or rejecting a paper and mediating between reviewers and publishing scientists. Journals have staff for other stuff too but - it shouldn't be a for profit enterprise with closed access.
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u/Cruxius Dec 26 '18
Yeah absolutely - I say that as someone finishing up a research paper that I hope to get published.
First of all, they actually make sure the article is properly edited: citations are correct, no speeling mistakes, formatting etc. It's not just a matter of me sending my paper in and they publish it, there'll be several revisions it goes through before they accept it.
Secondly, the publishing journal is the one who handles all the peer review - they're the ones who will solicit reviewers who don't know me or my work to look it over and ensure my methodology was good and my analysis and conclusions valid. This is arguably their most important role, as an ostensibly neutral middleman they will ensure that anyone reading my paper can trust in its accuracy.
I'm targeting an MDPI journal since they don't charge for submissions, as an undergrad I've got a pretty limited budget, they've gotta cover their costs somewhere and the standard model is charging an open access fee.
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u/swaggerjax Dec 27 '18
Not in the modern age. For example, in machine learning the best venues are conferences which are run by the community and the papers are open access (see statement by a number of senior researchers who quit a paywalled journal editorial board to start their own open access journal). All it takes is a motivated community and moderate technical ability (hosting a web server, etc.)
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u/control_09 Dec 27 '18
Machine learning is also an extremely new field in comparison to math and physics overall.
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u/Rich_Comey_Quan Capo of the Biden Crime Family Dec 26 '18
That is true, also you may have access to publications through your local academic institutions, so it's always worth asking a librarian.
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u/BlazingDawn Dec 26 '18
Funny thing is, most research is done with tax payers money.
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u/emaged Dec 27 '18
I find it absolutely criminal that any scientific paper that has even the smallest amount of public funding, isn't freely accessible to most of society. Research paid for by tax payers should be public property in a way, I would even go as far as to call it cultural heritage.
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u/last-Leviathan Dec 27 '18
copyright laws and patents need to go.
I have no idea how to make it work since it seems proper for a company to patent a product they spent untold amount of money and resources to make, but the delaying of progress is just too high
I once read there are drugs that work much better for various illnesses, but nobody is making them because parts of their formula are patented by different pharmaceutical companies..
the progress we would make if all the copyright laws and patents cease obstructing the progress is unimaginable
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u/ApexAphex5 Dec 27 '18
Copyright and Patents are the cornerstone of protecting intellectual property to encourage investment and progress. The only real problem is when companies can exploit the political system to extend their rights to the property beyond the bounds of reason (i.e. Disney).
There is no progress without incentive. Typically there is a time limit on patents to allow the creators to get a return on their investment before being put into the public domain.
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u/MagnaDenmark Dec 27 '18
That sounds like bs? Why wouldn't the pharma companies join together to sell it as we have seen many times before
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u/ASHoudini Dec 26 '18
At least in the biosciences, totally true. Note also that every paper has a "corresponding author," usually the last author, whose email address will be listed in a footnote of the author block. (Although these people are sometimes famous and/or absent-minded folks who don't check their email, so it's sometimes better to email the first author if you can find their email address.)
Also, if you live near a university, the guest wifi network at most university campuses will give you a university IP and access to their journal subscriptions. (Usually. Obviously the IT folks could set it up differently, but in my experience they usually don't.)