Re: [tlug] Open Access Journals

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Attila Kinali writes:

 > In some fields, i have the impression that 90% of the papers were
 > just published because a poor student was given a bad project and
 > told to publish a paper out of it or he will fail.

That's because the professors themselves typically can't evaluate each
others' research and just count publications (and nowadays, grants
more than publications).  (The advisor has strong incentive to promote
his students so he doesn't really count.)

 > Nothing in there to be used in a future project, no critical
 > analysis of what has been done (and why it was a bad idea). Just a
 > paper that says we have done X and it's ZOMG GREAT! to make a
 > certain professor happy.  Some also fail because the researchers
 > fail at understanding the tools they are using, because they are
 > from outside their field and they dont care as long as it
 > apperantly works (social sciences and statistics is a prominent
 > example here). And yet these papers get published. I am not sure
 > why, but they are there.

Sure.  The reason they get published is that second- and third-tier
researchers have discovered that publishing many papers is more
important in achieving status and promotion (for them) than publishing
good ones is.  With creating a new journal becoming cheaper all the
time, there's an incentive to ensure that (a) everything you write
gets published and (b) multiple times ;-), a goal that can be achieved
if you and a bunch of buddies review and approve and cite each others'
papers in these journals.

 > And i don't think that any change in publishing system will make
 > this much better or much worse.

I think the change in cost structure over the last 50 years has made a
big difference in many fields, I'm not sure if that's included in what
you mean by "publishing system," though.  I think it needs to be
addressed by changing the culture of scientific research.  Mitchell
Waldrop's "Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Chaos" is
an interesting read here.

Steve