[Air-L] Elsevier and peer review

Thu Dec 29 05:28:22 PST 2016

Hi Zach

Again, you are absolutely correct.  And I think that "growing pains" is the right metaphor for describing what is going on in OA publishing at the moment.  In Canada, for example, the principal government agencies that fund academic research now demand that any publications that emerge from publicly funded research MUST be published in OA journals.  This sounds great on the face of it, but many OA publishers are seeing this an opportunity to squeeze grant recipients  and their institutions for as much as they can get away with. At York University, the faculty spent what the university allocated for OA fees for the entire 2016-2017 fiscal year in just one month. Just yesterday, my wife received an invoice for $3000 to publish an article in an cutting edge anthropology journal, expecting either her university or her grants to pay for it.  Moreover, at no point in the review, revision or copy edit process was it ever mentioned that such an invoice was to be expected. That is not right.

Andrew

________________________________
From: Zachary McDowell <zachary.mcdowell at umass.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:16 AM
To: Andrew Herman
Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Elsevier and peer review

Agreed.
However, these publishers are often the same publishers who previously did not have an OA option and are now trying to find a way to maintain their profitability.

Much of this pay-to-publish "gold" OA is being driven by our publish-or-perish (but only in top tier journals) model, as newer, "platinum" (completely free) OA, journals often are not given the credibility they deserve. Additionally, due to recent OA mandates by Princeton, Yale, and MIT (who followed most of Europe in this regard), as well as US Federal Government funding sources (under development), there has emerged a market for that can demand OA fees to be paid by the institution (and many have a fund for this, due to the "Serial Crisis" in research libraries), so many journals have shifted to that model where the market will bear it.

This is a two-headed beast here - it is not just an issue of OA fees, but that fees are charged by journals who demand that fee, often owned by larger conglomerates. There are many of us running platinum (read: completely free for everyone) OA journals (link to mine in signature) for free (albeit with minimum institutional support for hosting). I see this as part of a growing pain for academia - how to reconfigure our notions of value on publishing platforms towards avenues that support our ability to retain copyright and distribute freely. Or, what is the cost that we are willing to pay for access and can "free" journals be just as credible if they aren't part of a major corporation?

As for repositories ("green" OA), there are many credible ones, but self-archiving systems will always potentially have this issue.  One of the things I wrote to SSRN is that their hosting of that article destroys their credibility, so they should not only take it down but also post a disclaimer about the previously hosted article (so that those who link to it can see).

best

Zach

--------------------
Zachary J. McDowell, PhD
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Postdoctoral Fellow, National Center for Digital Government
Research Fellow, Wiki Education Foundation
Editor, communication +1<http://communicationplusone.org>
www.zachmcdowell.com<http://www.zachmcdowell.com>

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 7:46 AM, Andrew Herman <aherman at wlu.ca<mailto:aherman at wlu.ca>> wrote:
But there are emerging problems with OA in terms of its political economy that we need to be attentive to, viz., OA publishers charging outrageous fees to authors to publish articles.

________________________________
From: Zachary McDowell <zachary.mcdowell at umass.edu<mailto:zachary.mcdowell at umass.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 7:43 AM
To: Andrew Herman
Cc: Sharon Greenfield; air-l at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Elsevier and peer review

Andrew and Sharon,

This indeed seems to be a frightening issue, but I would be remiss to mention that this level of "open access" is merely a (badly managed) repository, and anyone with remedial research skills would recognize this paper as one without credibility. I do hope we don't lump them in with "the problems of open access publishing" because there are multiple types of OA, and this "article" is essentially a blog post that got past Elsevier's censors (if they actually have any). Lumping these practices in with OA, or even "problems with OA" is like lumping in fake news sites with OA as well - its just not helpful for the discourse about OA.

As for the article itself, the red flags are all over the abstract, let alone the writing (this wouldn't be passable in an undergraduate seminar for the writing alone, let alone the terrible research methods).

The issue here seems to be that Elsevier's repository rules are incredibly lax. From their FAQ under "Is my paper eligible for inclusion and public display in SSRN's eLibrary":
"A paper must be part of the world-wide scholarly discourse covered by one or more of SSRN's subject area networks to be eligible for inclusion and public display in SSRN's eLibrary. Every submitted paper is reviewed by SSRN staff to ensure that the paper is a part of the scholarly discourse in its subject area. SSRN does not provide peer review for papers in the eLibrary."
They might not do "peer review" but they do say that the articles need to be "part of scholarly discourse" and there is ample evidence to suggest this pile of garbage does not fit the bill. I will be offering "feedback" (to the right of the article) asking for it to be taken down, as well as through their contact information. If anyone knows of more of these, similar feedback should be given (maybe shaming them into doing their job, if not there should be something publicly written about this).

This is indeed very dangerous as I've already found blogosphere references to the article. This should be relatively easy enough to combat. Lets just not throw this in with OA, as OA has quite a lot to offer all of us (particularly OA journals with proper peer review).

best

Zach

--------------------
Zachary J. McDowell, PhD
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Postdoctoral Fellow, National Center for Digital Government
Research Fellow, Wiki Education Foundation
Managing Editor, communication +1
www.zachmcdowell.com<http://www.zachmcdowell.com><http://www.zachmcdowell.com>

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 6:38 AM, Andrew Herman <aherman at wlu.ca<mailto:aherman at wlu.ca><mailto:aherman at wlu.ca<mailto:aherman at wlu.ca>>> wrote:
Sharon

Thanks for the bring this to the attention of the list.  This is an area of great concern and certainly is an aspect of the Gramscian war of position against the racist "alt-right" what she should be engaged in.  This also points to one of the problems of open access publishing that we are now beinning to encounter.

Is anybody doing research on this facet of the tactics of the right?

Andrew
________________________________________
From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org><mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org>>> on behalf of Sharon Greenfield <sharon.greenfield at rmit.edu.au<mailto:sharon.greenfield at rmit.edu.au><mailto:sharon.greenfield at rmit.edu.au<mailto:sharon.greenfield at rmit.edu.au>>>
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2016 11:09 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org><mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org>>
Subject: [Air-L] Elsevier and peer review

The other day I was told by someone not in academia that there are
regularly planted independently written 'articles' (quotes mine) to places
like the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) https://www.ssrn.com so as
to give a 'credible source' for right wing racist media pundits and those
who follow them.

Thoughts on this process? SSRN is an arm of Elsevier. As apparent by below
planted 'article' (quotes again mine) and the multitude of scientific
errors, there is no peer review. Does this 'open access' of research
journals from Elsevier dilute any credibility they have? Would love to chat
with someone at Elsevier about this. I do understand what a tough place the
publishing industry is in right now.

I was pointed to below link which is being used to back up quotes like "97%
of women with children by black male partners get ZERO financial help from
their partner." :

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2625893

Ninety Two Percent: Examining the Birth Trends, Family Structure, Economic
Standing, Paternal Relationships, and Emotional Stability of Biracial
Children with African American Fathers
Tiffany N. Calloway
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2418846>
Independent
June 2, 2015
*Abstract: *
This study examines the birth trends, family structure, economic standing,
paternal relationships, and emotional stability of biracial children with
African American fathers. For study implementation quantitative research
methods were used. Questions were asked through a questionnaire that was
administered to 1000 women spanning the united States that were equally
ranging from 3 different racial groups; Caucasian, Asian, and Hispanic.
Participants were recruited through the internet, radio, and news. This
study finds that 92% of biracial children with African American fathers are
born out of wedlock and 82% end up on government assistance. The results of
this study make it very clear that biracial children with African American
fathers are fatherless on a scale much larger than the public may realize.

*Number of Pages in PDF File:* 12

*Keywords:* Biracial, out of wedlock, fatherless, black fathers, interracial

--------------------------
*Sharon Greenfield*
PhD Researcher
School of Media and Communication
RMIT University, Australia

*I and RMIT acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the traditional
owners of **the
land *
*on which the University stands and respectfully recognise Elders past and
present.*
_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org><mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org>> mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org><mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org>> mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/

_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org> mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/