Re: Elsevier

Re: Elsevier

[Vaughan Pratt]

One institution that hasn't been mentioned is conference proceedings.  I
don't know why but mathematics generally seems to take a more casual
approach to these than engineering.  Whereas mathematics conferences
tend to expect the talks to ripen into carefully refereed publications
afterwards, whether together in a proceedings or separately in various
journals, engineering conferences tend to insist on issuing a bound
proceedings with 4-10 pages per paper, leaving it up to the authors to
decide whether they want to submit a more polished version to a journal
later.  For both mathematics and engineering a conference may invite a
subset of the papers for a special issue of a suitable journal.

This difference is sensitive to the needs and circumstances of
publication.  Ostensibly the primary purpose of publication is
dissemination, with author kudos supposedly secondary.  Lately the
latter has been badly skewing the former, with conferences seemingly
worrying as much about appointments and promotions as about
dissemination.  This may well be a side effect of the web, whose search
engines support associative retrieval of polished articles and daily
blogs alike, solving the access problem without addressing the
evaluation problem.

This technological revolution is transforming the publication world
faster than universities, libraries, and publishers can follow in real
time.  Appointments and promotions have until recently been mired in the
tradition of relying on refereed journal publications in strong
preference to conference publications.  Libraries continue to follow the
taste of deans in preferring to archive journals over conference
proceedings, with the result that at least pre-web articles in
conference proceedings are inaccessible to the clients of many
libraries.  And publishers seem to have a certain inertia that makes
them slow to adapt their processes to the outgoing tide of publication
costs, an inertia that strands them on the rocks of their expensive old
methods.

This is all changing, slowly but inevitably.  Engineering deans are
becoming more willing to equate at least flagship conference
publications with journals.  Search engines are making libraries less
relevant for current material, while the ongoing digitization of older
material is starting to make basement stacks less relevant.  And
authors, editors, referees, and libraries are forcing the collective
hand of the publishers by avoiding the most expensive.

In this disruptive scenario the potential exists for conferences to
assume more of the role of journals.  The effect of journal refereeing
by itself is achieved for conferences with two mechanisms: refereeing
(supposedly quicker and less careful than for journals), and limited
capacity at the top---flagship conferences have acceptance rates of
20-40%, forcing the overflow into lesser conferences.  Whereas in the
past appointments and promotions were judged on the fact of journal
acceptance in combination with the assessment of their quality by peers
and seniors, these two criteria are now joined by a third: the quality
of the conferences that accepted the candidate's papers.  Historically
journal quality while a factor took a back seat to mere acceptance;
today it is made more important by the need to justify the supposedly
less careful refereeing and certainly hastier preparation of conference
papers.

If this trend towards attaching more importance to conference
publication is where we're all headed, it will happen in engineering
before it happens in mathematics for the simple reason that engineering
promotes conference publication more strenuously than does mathematics.

Vaughan

Elsevier

[Jean-Pierre Marquis]

FYI: Elsevier's answer (for what it is worth, and I am certainly not endorsing anything in there):

http://the-scientist.com/2012/02/07/occupy-elsevier/

Cheers,

Jean-Pierre

Jean-Pierre Marquis
Directeur
Département de philosophie
Université de Montréal
jean-pierre.marquis@umontreal.ca

Tel: 514-343-6111 ext. 1333
Télécopieur: 514-343-7899


[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]

Re: Elsevier

[Peter Selinger]

I have found that what mathematicians call a "conference" is similar to
what computer scientists usually call a "workshop" - almost everybody
who submits an on-topic abstract can talk, modulo basic sanity checks,
and sometimes on a first-come-first-served basis.

What computer scientists call a "conference" often involves fairly
careful refereeing (by multiple referees) and doesn't seem to exist in
mathematics. The refereeing is often to check for originality,
timeliness, and interest, rather than correctness.

What mathematicians call a "workshop" is often an affair where the
organizers invite their friends to give talks. Sometimes a few short
contributed talks may be accepted if there are empty slots, but
usually there is no (or only a token) public call for contributions.
This type of workshop also exists in computer science, although it is
less common. And some mathematics workshops follow the first pattern
above.

-- Peter

Michael Barr wrote:
>
> A propos what Vaughan says, conferences in math are not seriously
> refereed, often not refereed at all.  This makes conference proceedings
> useless for promotions and also for research grants.  Like it or not, this
> is one of the main reasons mathematicians tend to ignore conference
> proceedings.  But CS conferences are generally carefully refereed with the
> results Vaughan mentioned.
>
> There are a number of reasons for this, I suppose but the overwhelming one
> is how hard it is to get read a paper in math, with a concomitant
> difficulty in getting serious refereeing.  I note that CS journals usually
> want two and sometimes three referees to recommend a paper.  With rare
> exceptions (Wiles, the Hales's paper on the Kepler conjecture, Perlman,
> should he choose to publish) that is almost unheard of in math.  I was on
> the committee that chose the papers for last summers conference in Nova
> Scotia and only a couple papers were turned down and they were jokes.
>
> How about a journal called J. Topology.  The owners of Topology cannot
> object to that.
>
> Yes, Cahiers is a good choice.  And while many thanks must go to Andree
> for keeping it going all these many years, first we have to thank Charles
> Ehresmann for starting it.
>
> Michael
>
>

Re: Elsevier

[Michael Barr]

A propos what Vaughan says, conferences in math are not seriously
refereed, often not refereed at all.  This makes conference proceedings
useless for promotions and also for research grants.  Like it or not, this
is one of the main reasons mathematicians tend to ignore conference
proceedings.  But CS conferences are generally carefully refereed with the
results Vaughan mentioned.

There are a number of reasons for this, I suppose but the overwhelming one
is how hard it is to get read a paper in math, with a concomitant
difficulty in getting serious refereeing.  I note that CS journals usually
want two and sometimes three referees to recommend a paper.  With rare
exceptions (Wiles, the Hales's paper on the Kepler conjecture, Perlman,
should he choose to publish) that is almost unheard of in math.  I was on
the committee that chose the papers for last summers conference in Nova
Scotia and only a couple papers were turned down and they were jokes.

How about a journal called J. Topology.  The owners of Topology cannot
object to that.

Yes, Cahiers is a good choice.  And while many thanks must go to Andree
for keeping it going all these many years, first we have to thank Charles
Ehresmann for starting it.

Michael

Re: Elsevier

[Lengyel, Florian]

Alexander Kurz wrote:
>
>
> An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications
> arises from the following thoughts.
>
> What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age?
>
> Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller
> role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to
> do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be?
>
> I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic
> journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals,
> because they provide prestige for little money.
>
> As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the
> `clerical support'.
>
> Alexander
>
>
>
This would seem to involve  libraries in the business of system
administration.

The CUNY Graduate Center hosts a few online academic journals (e.g.,
http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/   http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/index.php/lljournal )
using the Open Journal Systems journal open source
management and publishing system ( URL:  http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs ).
The library here is not involved in either site administration, which
the IT department handles; or the management of the journals--the IT
department delegates this function to the journal editors.

FL



-- 
Florian Lengyel, Ph.D.
Assistant Director for Research Computing
Department of Information Technology
and Adjunct Professor
Ph.D. Program in Computer Science
Graduate School and University Center
The City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, Room 4420
New York, NY 10016
email: flengyel@gc.cuny.edu
VOX: (212) 817-7374
FAX: (212) 817-1615
WWW: http://research.gc.cuny.edu

Re: Elsevier

[Michael Barr]

I would certainly agree, but in my brief discussions, they are little
interested in taking on new responsibilities.

I have just discovered that Mathematica Japonica charges page charges.
That is a retrograde step that I cannot advise.

Michael

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Alexander Kurz wrote:

>
>
> Michael Barr wrote:
>> I read John's manifesto, which was interesting.  One thing I do not
>> understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved
>> in this.  While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the
>> trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a
>> more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some
>> clerical support.  A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a
>> long way.
>>
>> Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal
>> to be called McGill J. Math.  But there were so many naysayers in the
>> department that the idea never got off the ground.  As far as I can tell,
>> I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help).  Pity.
>>
>
> An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications
> arises from the following thoughts.
>
> What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age?
>
> Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller
> role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to
> do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be?
>
> I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic
> journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals,
> because they provide prestige for little money.
>
> As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the
> `clerical support'.
>
> Alexander
>
>

Re: Elsevier

[Alexander Kurz]

Michael Barr wrote:
> I read John's manifesto, which was interesting.  One thing I do not
> understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved
> in this.  While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the
> trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a
> more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some
> clerical support.  A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a
> long way.
>
> Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal
> to be called McGill J. Math.  But there were so many naysayers in the
> department that the idea never got off the ground.  As far as I can tell,
> I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help).  Pity.
>

An alternative way how libraries could support electronic publications
arises from the following thoughts.

What will or should be the role of libraries in the digital age?

Certainly, buying and storing hardcopies will play a smaller and smaller
role. So libraries should have an interest in finding something else to
do, just to survive as institutions themselves. What could that be?

I think university libraries could become publishers of electronic
journals. Universities should have an interest to host these journals,
because they provide prestige for little money.

As a conclusion, maybe the libraries could be convinced to DO the
`clerical support'.

Alexander

Re: Elsevier

[Marta Bunge]

Dear Michael,

>
>Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal
>to be called McGill J. Math.  But there were so many naysayers in the
>department that the idea never got off the ground.  As far as I can tell,
>I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help).  Pity.
>
I never heard of such an initiative or else I would have supported it and
volunteered to help. You may (or may not) recall that during many years I
sole-handedly edited the Reports of the Department of Mathematics and
Statistics, after Willie Moser stepped down from this job. It was a lot of
work for me, but I am afraid that it served little purpose. Had I known of
such an initiative (for a proper journal), I would have devoted my energy to
it rather than to the Reports. In the end it was the Department itself which
decided that there was no need for the Reports (and thus for me) any longer.

Just to set the record straight,
Marta

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Re: Elsevier

[Michael Barr]

I read John's manifesto, which was interesting.  One thing I do not
understand is the reluctance of libraries and universities to get involved
in this.  While TAC runs without any funding at all (except for the
trivial storage cost that Mt. Alison contributes), a journal publishing a
more typical 2000 pages a year would need at least a minimum of some
clerical support.  A donation of $50/year by 100 universities would go a
long way.

Several years ago one of my colleagues suggested starting a free journal
to be called McGill J. Math.  But there were so many naysayers in the
department that the idea never got off the ground.  As far as I can tell,
I was the only one to support the idea (and volunteer to help).  Pity.

Michael

Elsevier

[John Baez]

Jim Stasheff wrote:

>One of Elsevier's motives (and  other publishers) is close to
>trying to corner the market
>or at least squeeze out all the profit possible
>
>we now have several ways to resist
>1. choice of journal to which we submit papers
>B. choice of journal for which we will perform slave labor (editing)
>III. advice in re the above to our mentees

I quit serving as an editor for Advances in Mathematics when it
was bought by Elsevier.  When I learned how bad the situation was,
I also quit refereeing for all Elsevier-run journals.

People can read the rest of my rant here:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html

Best,
jb