Yes, the ex-publishers have essentially reversed the net flow of information: it used to flow from them to us, through the journals.
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@NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @koen_hufkens @hcommons.social
Last year, I talked with @tdverstynen about the labor that goes into humanities publishing. I don't see any obstacles for the humanities, only opportrunities. E.g., wouldn't the people doing all this labor, be happy to work with a functional infrastructure that makes their work easier? You know, so they don't have to struggle on remembering which button to klick or where to submit what, but actually focus on their job?
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@brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @koen_hufkens @hcommons.social
My university, and from what I can tell a few others, have the infrastructure for building up their own online journals, magazines and books. Building a federated system would be relatively easy.
I think one of the critical issues is that we would have to fully rethink peer review. I know there have been a lot of attempts at this in the past, including by some people on this thread, but in my personal view, I think we need to deemphasize peer review and amplify an emphasis on replicability and openness. Basically, we need to scrap the entire way we think about journals and articles.
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@brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen A lot of resistance (from all academics) in these large moves is that this would require abolishing prestige (attached to current venues). This seems to be a sticking point for many.
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@tdverstynen @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @koen_hufkens @hcommons.social
At a recent philosophy of science conference that I attended, it was pointed out that we need very different peer review structures for different audiences:
1. For the expert community, we need a system where observations/discoveries/theories are permanently recorded and dated, but not pre-judged. (An expert can do their own "peer review".) [The current preprint system actually does this pretty well.]
2. For long-term learning (non-experts), we need a system where we can assess the correctness/reliability of results through some sort of public scientific discussion. [Post-publication peer review would work, like the old Frontiers model or the current eLife model.] Honestly, I think taking the long view and calling the "scientific literature" the discussion works fine too. But then journalists can't hype "the latest discoveries".
3. For actual engineering use, we need a system that specifically tests and ensures quality and correctness before use. This is important for building things that actually work (like medicine or infrastructure). Clinical trials, for example, work this way.
The problem is that we are trying to do this with a single system, which is not doing any of these things well. (Because it is trying to do all three.)
BTW, #1 is a strong-link system, while #3 is a weak-link system.
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@koen_hufkens @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle just jumping in here, if I may. One of things that I feel often get overlooked in these discussions of “prestige” is that it is treated (solely) as a property *individuals* seek out, instead of acknowledging that in systems (like the UK) that tie institutional funding to nationally assessed “research success” it is actually (partly) a systemic feature that determines continued survival
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@koen_hufkens @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle that not only makes it something that is not (merely) in individuals’ gift to make choices on, it means also that whatever better system we envision instead will run up against a fundamental funding allocation model for higher education that wants to tie institution level allocations to some kind of measurable performance indicator derived from individuals
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@UlrikeHahn @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle True, but I would argue one can unionize on many levels to address these issues. Collective bargaining is often forgotten it seems in favour of a race to the bottom.
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@koen_hufkens @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle Koen, I don’t think this has much to do with unions. The key point I’m trying to make is that “survival”, here, is not (just) in operation at the level of individuals, but pertains to entire academic departments. In the UK, seeking out individual ‘prestige’ is effectively something one owes one’s colleagues, because it’s part of keeping the entire department afloat.
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@UlrikeHahn @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle
This is one of the reasons we emphasize the thumb screws, ahem "incentives" for recalcitrant institutions. Yes, not nearly focused on enough!
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@UlrikeHahn @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle Exactly, it is a collective action issue.
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@UlrikeHahn @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle Everybody is scared of losing their job (funding). And in that position nobody dares to push for change, so nothing does.
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@brembs @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle I think we are still slightly talking at cross purposes, Bjoern. It is not the role of individual institutions I am trying to highlight, but the nature of the higher education funding system as a whole. It’s not academic institutions that decide the nature of the underlying game in the UK (though they may have some input into setting out the process).
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@koen_hufkens @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle yes, it’s a collective action problem, but my whole point is that my choices about where to publish are already not just about my *own* job but my colleagues’ jobs as well, because that’s how HE funding works in the UK.
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@koen_hufkens @brembs @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle and not only are the moral and practical implications of me jeopardizing my own future for a higher purpose quite different to me jeopardizing the future of others, what I’m trying to get across is that replacement systems that have a greater chance of success somewhere like the UK will be ones that still give the underlying machinery metrics to work with-
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@UlrikeHahn @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle
Most areas in my research fields need extramural funding just to keep the lights in the lab on, so while the UK is indeed somewhat special with their national assessment exercises, in manby places PIs can justify their GlamHumping by pointing to the people in their labs.
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@UlrikeHahn @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle
WRT the UK REF specifically, I vividly remember the first year REF explicitly banning journal rank from being used for evaluations in 2015:
By @mike
At the time, this demonstrated to me why the journals really must be phased out. Today, I look at Germany and see the exact same thing:
https://bjoern.brembs.net/2024/11/research-assessment-new-panels-new-luck/
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@brembs @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle @mike yes, it will also undoubtedly be re-asserted for the next ref. But my point was actually that change will be easier for the UK if the system alternatives still allow the funding system to extract metrics - doing away with journals altogether, e.g., seems a less likely route to success than moving away from APCs, for example.
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@brembs @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle @mike and while I appreciate that you might need funding to “keep the lights on” in your lab, I don ‘t think it’s helpful to ignore the systemic differences: e.g., nobody has tenure in the UK, entire academic departments (including successful ones) are being shut down in the UK and people made redundant. If one wants systemic change, then paying attention to the actual systemic 1/2
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@brembs @koen_hufkens @NBarreyre @RoedigerRG @hcommons.social @tdverstynen @elduvelle @mike 2/2 constraints seems important, and the narrative that I feel is frequently implicit in some of these discussions (“individuals seeking prestige”, “people successful in the system resisting change”) seem a bit too simplistic to me from my UK perspective
