[Wikimedia-l] (semi-OT) Open access "catastrophic" for Elsevier

[David Goodman]

Their low circulation journals are not primarily journals in small
fields, but low-quality journals in fields where there are better,
some published by them, most by others.  They are the sort of journals
libraries would be very tempted to discontinue,  and the  journal
packages were in part intended -- among other things -- to make it
impossible or ineffective to do so.

The argument is made by them that it is necessary to maintain outlets
in which second-rate scientists can publish, because even second-rate
universities require publications. From the point of view of the
progress of science, this is irrelevant, for the contributions there
are essentially ignored and in most case rightfully so by those
actually doing significant research.  To the extent this is a real
need, the availability of some very low cost Open access journals has
solved the problem. After all, the second-rate colleges that have this
requirement do not usually  care about the quality of the journal,
just that it be technically peer-reviewed.  From the point of view of
the higher education system as a whole, the difficulty is raised by
the unrealistic expectations of the colleges, which they are able to
enforce because of the super-abundance of faculty produced by some of
the PhD programs, which care mainly about maintaining their own
enrollment without regard to the employability of their graduates.

Most of my carer was in places with elite scientists, but some was in
second or third rate institutions, so I think I'm unbiased. .

On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 10:49 PM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Remember that they bundle the
> less popular journals with the popular ones, to defray those costs across
> several publications.  Thus, the scientist in the little-known field whose
> professional journals are read by hundreds doesn't pay significantly more
> for "processing"  than the scientist whose professional journal is read by
> tens of thousands.



-- 
David Goodman

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