Re: [tlug] Open Access Journals

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Raymond Wan writes:
>  > 2)  The current open access publishing model is good, but I'm bothered
>  > by publishers now accepting anything to raise their revenue.  The only
>  > thing stopping them is their concern about the journal's impact
>  > factor.
>
> I don't see a problem here.  The current situation is disequilibrium.
> Eventually the circle-jerk citation bubble will subside as good
> researchers realize that they're paying for publications nobody they
> care about will read, and they drift back to global leaders.  Tenure


I see your point.  Perhaps we are seeing just the start of open access
publishing and things will improve.


>  > I think I would decide to say yes/no to submit or review for a
>  > journal based partly on the publisher as the "first hurdle".
>
> Are you still defining IEEE as a publisher?  I don't think that's
> helpful, because I *would* indeed give points to an IEEE journal or an
> ACM journal just because it's IEEE or ACM.  But Springer, Elsevier,
> Dover, or Penguin?  Uh-uh, I see no difference among the four, except
> price.


No, I don't see IEEE as a publisher.  It is more than that but I think
it supports some conferences as a publisher.  (i.e., it doesn't really
know the quality of what the conference is producing, but still
publishes it)


>  > Indeed, if someone has put some time into a piece of work, it should
>  > see the light of day.  But, if technical soundness is the main
>  > criteria, then the above statement paves the way for including a lot
>  > of articles; each of which authors have to pay an up-front publication
>  > charge...
>
> So what?  If the authors think it is worthwhile to pay, who are you to
> judge?  For example, I would give a master's student a degree based on
> work that gets into PLOS One, but a doctoral student would have to do
> better than that on at least one paper.  (It might well be that the
> PLOS One article attracted a lot of favorable attention as a "real
> contribution", of course.)


You have a point.  Well, not just with PhD students, but even
researchers don't always produce great work.  Sometimes you work on a
project that looked promising at first but after a while, it looked
less and less promising.  *sigh* I've been in this situation...having
it thrown out the window seems wasteful and who knows?  Maybe
publishing it will warn someone *not* to do it since the best you can
do is a PLOS One-like journal.

By the way, I forgot to mention that the other PLOS journals seem to
recognize PLOS One for what it is, at least.  i.e.,

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/static/guidelines

"Research articles should model aspects of biological systems,
demonstrate both methodological and scientific novelty, and provide
profound new biological insights. Research articles with limited
novelty may be more appropriate for PLOS ONE."

So, PLOS isn't misrepresenting PLOS One, at least...  I should give
credit to PLOS for this, at least.


>  > I think the jury's still out on this one.
>
> It depends on how well it's indexed.  ISTM that this is a better idea
> than Knoefler's STAP blog for "finished" research.  If well-indexed,
> then people can do "meta-research" aka "review" papers based on this.
>
> What I would like to see here is a deal between PLOS One and the
> "conventional" journals based on "original contribution" that
> publishing the details of an experiment or computation in PLOS One
> doesn't prevent you from publishing the "integrative" version of the
> same research in one of those conventional journals.


PLOS One journals are indexed by Pubmed, just like all the other PLOS journals.

Your last point is an interesting one.  Sounds more like a CS-style
conference (where you can publish something at a conference and
re-publish an extended version as a journal).  No, PLOS One isn't like
that, as far as I know.  You can't republish it in another journal.

And sorry for the late reply to this thread; bit of a busy week...  I
see what you mean, especially after skimming what you're saying to
Attila.  Indeed, I know as well as anyone that not all research is
first tier <evil smirk>.  And having it made public is still better
than sweeping it under the rug for someone else to later find out the
same thing -- that such a path in research won't pan out.  This has
always been true, even before open access publishing.

While OAP surely has its merits, I guess one reason for it is that
there is a lot of average work out there and lot of that doesn't get
read.  Relying on readers paying is fine for the top tier
Science/Nature journals; but for even a bit lower, you need another
model.  Getting the author to pay is one way to tackle that problem...

Thanks for being relentless in trying to convince me!  :-P

Ray