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Veronica Phillips Post 1

• 22 October 2019, 4:02 PM

Academic publishing and the academic rewards system

From my perspective, the biggest barrier to Open Access is the symbiotic relationship between academic journal publishers, and the current academic rewards system, in which (number of) publications in high-profile or high-impact journals to a large extent determines whether researchers will get or keep jobs, and progress their careers.

Other posters here have mentioned the detrimental effects of APCs, open access costs, and so on — and these are definitely barriers to open publication of scientific research. But open access itself is not the problem. A researcher could write an article, have it go through the same process of peer review by other scientists, and publish it on an institutional or subject repository without any need for a commercial publisher to get involved, and this would be an Open Access article. It would have undergone the same peer review process currently performed by other researchers on behalf of journals for free, but would negate the need for Open Access and other fees to be paid to the journal.

However, this is unlikely to happen while the academic rewards system remains as it is, using publication in a recognised journal as a proxy for evaluating the quality of a researcher's work. Until all universities commit to judging researchers' work on its merits, rather than on its place of publication, we will be stuck with the same unsatisfactory situation regarding Open Access.

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Gunnar De Winter Post 2 in reply to 1

• 23 October 2019, 7:21 AM

Bam! Truth right there ;).

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Ciara Lynch Post 3 in reply to 1

• 23 October 2019, 10:16 AM

Yes, I definitely agree. An entire system overhaul would need to be done, though change does tend to come incrementally. I suppose the next generation is a lot more Open Access friendly based on them being so used to most everything online being freely available.

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Veronica Phillips Post 4 in reply to 3

• 23 October 2019, 10:56 AM

Yes, it would be nice if younger academics were able to change the system, although given that they are the ones in precarious, temporary jobs attempting to find permanent posts, the pressure to go along with the current system may be too great, given the consequences for their future careers if they don't.

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Beatrice Gini Post 5 in reply to 4

• 23 October 2019, 1:22 PM

Totally agree with everything you've written, Veronica! Just yesterday I was in a focus group with PhD students, who said they were very keen on OA, but ultimately if their supervisors suggested a traditional journal they would not challenge that choice. 

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Deirdre Winrow Post 6 in reply to 5

• 23 October 2019, 10:32 PM

This is so true! The current climate is so incredibly precarious for young researchers that people are loath to do anything that isn't well within the current path. They very often lack the security and support to take a risk and try new ways of doing things.

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Joanne Bakker Post 11 in reply to 6

• 1 November 2019, 9:23 AM

Agreed..

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Lisa Keenan Post 12 in reply to 4

• 8 November 2019, 6:34 PM

This is actually the most common concern I hear from young academics – not the costs of open access or the lack of exposure to the benefits of open access, but concern over how it will impact their future careers. I think if this issue alone were to be addressed, there would be much more engagement with open access.

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Olivia Tort Post 7 in reply to 1

• 25 October 2019, 1:52 PM

Indeed, it is quite contradictory: from one side there is a need and a demand to boost Open Science (and open access), but from the other side, the reward go into another direction, sometimes from the same funding agencies... I am courious to see how this will evolve. 

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James Mwamodenyi Post 8 in reply to 1

• 26 October 2019, 2:00 PM

You are spot on. It's time other channels of peer-review and publications are considered such as proceedings of a scientific conference. I think its also incumbent upon us to change the system for those among us who will be in positions of decision-making or influencing change.

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Laura Lahti Post 9 in reply to 1

• 26 October 2019, 2:16 PM

Very true.

Not only universities but, more importantly, funding bodies base their decisions on impact factors, not the research questions (or results) themselves. Our group is dependent on external money, even my boss (a professor and well-established in his field) will get fired if he fails to secure the funding for his own salary. 

I would be happy to publish everything just on Biorxiv, but that would mean an end to our research quite soon. 

The current academic publishing and reward system is rotten to the core. Unfortunately I don't see any significant improvement to this system in the near future. 

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Corrado Minetti Post 10 in reply to 9

• 27 October 2019, 4:13 PM

Totally agree with all being said. The incentives system is the problem. 

Although here is Plan S, an initiative trying to "force" the system (which has also sparked some controversy and discussion amongst scientists, admittedly): https://www.coalition-s.org/

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Benjamin Thomas Post 13 in reply to 1

• 15 November 2019, 1:13 PM

Entirely agree

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Jane Howard Post 14 in reply to 1

• 20 November 2019, 9:34 AM
I agree, the next generation of scientists seem to be much more open about sharing data