Is there any reason for academic journals to exist? I understand peer review, but I don't think I ever used a physical journal. When I researched peer reviewed articles, I would mostly keyword search and the journal didn't really matter.
Why can't articles just get posted online with a stamp that says "peer reviewed by former reviewers of econometrica" and just bypass the whole thing?
At present the entire structure of university promotion and tenure is based on the journals in which one gets published. I don't see a move to dismantle this although some academics will post their papers online for all (and some will be informed by publishers they can't do this). There are open access projects like the one at Harvard: https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page
You see quite clearly that if everyone left the game this would stop, but they won't and it hasn't.
Maybe not. I'm in a small discipline (library science) that has been absorbed by a School of Information. Hardly any of the journals I have written for are very prestigious, but I do teach people to do the work of libraries. I've been fortunate to have done things that avoided publish or perish and was granted tenure, but that was back when actual experience was important. Not so much now.
In Bullshit Jobs, Graeber provides an anecdote about a guy who worked at a major bank. He put forth a proposal that would eliminate a lot of the white collar workforce, expecting leadership to love it. Instead, they were horrified, wondering what they would do with fewer employees. The story felt exaggerated, but I think there's a real point there.
Imagine a company/university has a team of ten people that dig holes and fill them back up, there's going to be a lot of pushback to cutting them. What will happen to their managers? What about the people who support them: the benefits administrators, IT people etc who now have fewer employees to support? What about the digging-holes-and-filling-them-up internship program? That was a key leader's major initiative!
Point is, nonsense can perpetuate itself, because people want to protect their job. If we tried to cut journals, I imagine their would be an outcry from their respective bureaucracies. Since it's 2022, I also imagine this including a lot of bad faith DEI ideas as well.
Yes, every one counts. You can fix punctuation, add citations, update data. 500 seems like a lot, but I guess they set a threshold to be sure people are serious for free library access.
O my goodness..you would be the best. You know so many things.
I like to add libraries to cities that don't include them. I added that James Neal is ALA Honorary member, I added a link to the African American museum in Leesburg, FL. These are the kind of Wikipedia edits I do. The actual editing part is laid out in their tutorials.
This is fantastic. I’ve run up against these constraints time and again over the last several years trying to access academic papers regarding Covid, mainly. It’s baffling: why wouldn’t a researcher want the broadest possible audience for his or her work?
I rarely share blog posts on my social network sites but this one is different. Anyone interested enough to read an academic paper really ought to be able to do so.
It is the publishers. They won't let the authors make their work available. Wikipedia Library has a bit of work to get access (500 edits) but once you're in, lot of doors unlock.
Thank you very much for the info.
elm
c'est ridicule
O yes, the dreaded IRB.
I'm an independent researcher and run in to the problem of gaining access to information I would like to see often. It is very frustrating.
Larry you can use the Wikipedia Library which has access to databases.
You can bypass paywalled journals by using sci-hub too.
https://sci-hub.se/
Yes, I hope they stay around.
Is there any reason for academic journals to exist? I understand peer review, but I don't think I ever used a physical journal. When I researched peer reviewed articles, I would mostly keyword search and the journal didn't really matter.
Why can't articles just get posted online with a stamp that says "peer reviewed by former reviewers of econometrica" and just bypass the whole thing?
At present the entire structure of university promotion and tenure is based on the journals in which one gets published. I don't see a move to dismantle this although some academics will post their papers online for all (and some will be informed by publishers they can't do this). There are open access projects like the one at Harvard: https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page
You see quite clearly that if everyone left the game this would stop, but they won't and it hasn't.
Right, I understand the promotion and tenure stuff. I just meant if we re-started academia today, would we need journals?
Maybe not. I'm in a small discipline (library science) that has been absorbed by a School of Information. Hardly any of the journals I have written for are very prestigious, but I do teach people to do the work of libraries. I've been fortunate to have done things that avoided publish or perish and was granted tenure, but that was back when actual experience was important. Not so much now.
In Bullshit Jobs, Graeber provides an anecdote about a guy who worked at a major bank. He put forth a proposal that would eliminate a lot of the white collar workforce, expecting leadership to love it. Instead, they were horrified, wondering what they would do with fewer employees. The story felt exaggerated, but I think there's a real point there.
Imagine a company/university has a team of ten people that dig holes and fill them back up, there's going to be a lot of pushback to cutting them. What will happen to their managers? What about the people who support them: the benefits administrators, IT people etc who now have fewer employees to support? What about the digging-holes-and-filling-them-up internship program? That was a key leader's major initiative!
Point is, nonsense can perpetuate itself, because people want to protect their job. If we tried to cut journals, I imagine their would be an outcry from their respective bureaucracies. Since it's 2022, I also imagine this including a lot of bad faith DEI ideas as well.
You can bypass paywalled journals by using sci-hub too.
https://sci-hub.se/
That's a lot of edits! Do stupid little minor edits count?
Yes, every one counts. You can fix punctuation, add citations, update data. 500 seems like a lot, but I guess they set a threshold to be sure people are serious for free library access.
This looks like an exciting project to undertake! Thank you for the info!
Thanks! This is most helpful, but I still find the idea of being a Wikipedia editor intimidating.
O my goodness..you would be the best. You know so many things.
I like to add libraries to cities that don't include them. I added that James Neal is ALA Honorary member, I added a link to the African American museum in Leesburg, FL. These are the kind of Wikipedia edits I do. The actual editing part is laid out in their tutorials.
This is fantastic. I’ve run up against these constraints time and again over the last several years trying to access academic papers regarding Covid, mainly. It’s baffling: why wouldn’t a researcher want the broadest possible audience for his or her work?
I rarely share blog posts on my social network sites but this one is different. Anyone interested enough to read an academic paper really ought to be able to do so.
It is the publishers. They won't let the authors make their work available. Wikipedia Library has a bit of work to get access (500 edits) but once you're in, lot of doors unlock.
seems to be one person who wasn't very astute.