Current Events > Academic Pirate Bay (SciHub) successfully sued by journal company (Elsevier).

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.nature.com/news/us-court-grants-elsevier-millions-in-damages-from-sci-hub-1.22196

$15 million in damages?! Jesus.

On a side note, the graduate student who founded SciHub looks like she's 12.
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Despicable
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Bleh Elsevier.
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damn
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Sounds about right. Renting a single paper can cost upwards of $30. Why would a graduate student even start this? Universities usually have free access for students.

Hexagon posted...

Sounds about right. Renting a single paper can cost upwards of $30. Why would a graduate student even start this? Universities usually have free access for students.

Universities often don't have access to every journal across all time. It can be frustrating to order it out on loan, delays writing and projects.

None-the-less, the journal system is pretty fucked up, morally. Many journals have various publishing fees, meaning you provide them content at a cost to yourself, and on top of that academics peer review for free, so much of the labor involved is outsourced for free. Yet, they charge universities and individuals out the ass for subscriptions. There's a lot of profit being made for a system that should be altruistic.

That doesn't even get into the issues with restricting scientific information to only those of relative privilege. Scientific information should be free, for humanity.
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Yeah I don't care one bit for Elsevier.
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Up.
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Clad posted...

Despicable

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I don't understand the point of the modern academic journal system. Isn't it basically just to share PDFs at the end of the day? I guess academia is so slow moving and bureaucratic that they haven't figured out how to do that for free yet.
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COVxy posted...

Hexagon posted...

Sounds about right. Renting a single paper can cost upwards of $30. Why would a graduate student even start this? Universities usually have free access for students.

Universities often don't have access to every journal across all time. It can be frustrating to order it out on loan, delays writing and projects.

None-the-less, the journal system is pretty fucked up, morally. Many journals have various publishing fees, meaning you provide them content at a cost to yourself, and on top of that academics peer review for free, so much of the labor involved is outsourced for free. Yet, they charge universities and individuals out the ass for subscriptions. There's a lot of profit being made for a system that should be altruistic.

That doesn't even get into the issues with restricting scientific information to only those of relative privilege. Scientific information should be free, for humanity.

I doubt that most universities don't have access to these journals especially if your university has professors in the sciences that actually work at the university and do research like mine.

I don't see how its that immoral. Are there any laws that restrict researchers from publishing in free journals? Doubt it. Clearly they do it for the reputation that these journals have built and its not necessary the journal's fault. You pay for your business to be advertised publishing research is almost the same thing. The only point that I would agree with you is that subscriptions are too expensive, but I can't say much on that unless I know how how the journals do financially. There is work involved in maintaining a journal after all.

Playing the altruism card is also a little unfair. I'd say nearly all of the research published in the sciences is on such a specialized topic or full of so much jargon that a large portion of the public won't care or won't understand. That's why we have professionals in the news to inform us and summarize findings for us; it's not because of the paywall.

This is why I have little sympathy for what this student did.

Hexagon posted...

I doubt that most universities don't have access to these journals especially if your university has professors in the sciences that actually work at the university and do research like mine.

My guess is that almost no university has access to ALL journals across all time periods.

I go to a major research university, and I often have to find articles through other means, usually because the articles are older than our subscription goes. I can request it through the interlibrary loan system, like so:


But it usually takes ~24 hours to fulfill.

Hexagon posted...

I don't see how its that immoral. Are there any laws that restrict researchers from publishing in free journals?

Open access journals usually have steeper costs for the researcher. If you have thousands of dollars just lying around from an open grant, sure, it's a great option. But otherwise, they are just infeasible at this point, and a lot of the open access journals aren't high quality/high impact.

Hexagon posted...

Playing the altruism card is also a little unfair. I'd say nearly all of the research published in the sciences is on such a specialized topic or full of so much jargon that a large portion of the public won't care or won't understand. That's why we have professionals in the news to inform us and summarize findings for us; it's not because of the paywall.

A large proportion of science is readable for the lay person with a college degree, especially if it's in a science.
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(by the way, it's not an exaggeration, it's usually ~a couple grand to publish in an open access journal)
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Sativa_Rose posted...

I don't understand the point of the modern academic journal system. Isn't it basically just to share PDFs at the end of the day? I guess academia is so slow moving and bureaucratic that they haven't figured out how to do that for free yet.

It's also to aggregate lots of metadata and maintain huge databases and index them in a way that makes finding the right thing easy enough. It's not "just" sharing PDFs.
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scar the 1 posted...

Sativa_Rose posted...

I don't understand the point of the modern academic journal system. Isn't it basically just to share PDFs at the end of the day? I guess academia is so slow moving and bureaucratic that they haven't figured out how to do that for free yet.

It's also to aggregate lots of metadata and maintain huge databases and index them in a way that makes finding the right thing easy enough. It's not "just" sharing PDFs.

Makes sense, but still sounds like something that could be done for free with a tech company. I am sure it's something a lot of those types are looking at.
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Sativa_Rose posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Sativa_Rose posted...

I don't understand the point of the modern academic journal system. Isn't it basically just to share PDFs at the end of the day? I guess academia is so slow moving and bureaucratic that they haven't figured out how to do that for free yet.

It's also to aggregate lots of metadata and maintain huge databases and index them in a way that makes finding the right thing easy enough. It's not "just" sharing PDFs.

Makes sense, but still sounds like something that could be done for free with a tech company. I am sure it's something a lot of those types are looking at.

I mean, the main issue is that people are profiting by the current system, and the journal system, which is the one profiting, has academia by the balls. Because as a researcher, you can't simply boycott these journals. You need to publish in them, and frequently, otherwise your career is over. The entire system is unnecessary, and everyone in academia knows it. It's just that there's nothing that can really be done.
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COVxy posted...

Sativa_Rose posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Sativa_Rose posted...

I don't understand the point of the modern academic journal system. Isn't it basically just to share PDFs at the end of the day? I guess academia is so slow moving and bureaucratic that they haven't figured out how to do that for free yet.

It's also to aggregate lots of metadata and maintain huge databases and index them in a way that makes finding the right thing easy enough. It's not "just" sharing PDFs.

Makes sense, but still sounds like something that could be done for free with a tech company. I am sure it's something a lot of those types are looking at.

I mean, the main issue is that people are profiting by the current system, and the journal system, which is the one profiting, has academia by the balls. Because as a researcher, you can't simply boycott these journals. You need to publish in them, and frequently, otherwise your career is over. The entire system is unnecessary, and everyone in academia knows it. It's just that there's nothing that can really be done.

Wow. Peter Thiel really is right when he says that academia is today what the Catholic Church was in 1500.
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Nothing Peter Thiel says about science is worth listening to.
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COVxy posted...

Nothing Peter Thiel says about science is worth listening to.

Not science, he was talking about academia as a societal institution.
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Statement holds true. What I have said in this topic in no way supports his stances on academic science.
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COVxy posted...

Statement holds true. What I have said in this topic in no way supports his stances on academic science.

I didn't know he had a stance on that. I'll try to find the clip where he says the thing I paraphrased.
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I go to a major research university, and I often have to find articles through other means, usually because the articles are older than our subscription goes. I can request it through the interlibrary loan system, like so:


But it usually takes ~24 hours to fulfill.

That's very surprising. I just searched your two articles on my university's online database search and found them with online access and the articles with the online status load instantly for me in the past. I'm Canadian and I don't go to a prestigious university, but maybe I have taken my access for granted. During my undergrad I have never found a journal that I didn't have access to when I was searching through Pubmed. I can access Nature, Elsevier (ScienceDirect), JBC, Cell, etc.

Open access journals usually have steeper costs for the researcher. If you have thousands of dollars just lying around from an open grant, sure, it's a great option. But otherwise, they are just infeasible at this point, and a lot of the open access journals aren't high quality/high impact.

I'm only starting my Master's this fall so I'll see what it costs me to publish at my university. That's all I got, but it sounds to me like you're defending the paywall journals with this post.

A large proportion of science is readable for the lay person with a college degree, especially if it's in a science.

That sounds like an oxymoron to me. In fact from Google a layperson "is a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject". A college degree doesn't make someone a layperson. Also people with college degrees are likely going to be working in a setting where they get to access the journals. Regardless the abstracts and conclusions are usually available for free, but for the vast majority of people that don't have any degrees everything else is meaningless information that is not worth the money to give them free access to. I have a bachelor's in biochemistry and I can't even read through articles without coming across some terminology, or acronym, or method that I need to look up or research.

If you can't be bothered to visit a library, or keep up with the news at the very least I suppose reviews in the health sciences should be something made free to everybody, but no layperson is going to care about the latest function of some receptor on natural killer cells or how mutagens react with DNA.

Hexagon posted...

That's very surprising. I just searched your two articles on my university's online database search and found them with online access and the articles with the online status load instantly for me in the past. I'm Canadian and I don't go to a prestigious university, but maybe I have taken my access for granted. During my undergrad I have never found a journal that I didn't have access to when I was searching through Pubmed. I can access Nature, Elsevier (ScienceDirect), JBC, Cell, etc.

Like I have access to 99% of the articles I'm looking for. As a PhD student, I probably have simply search a much larger number of articles than you have.

And like I said, it's not just journal, but also time period. Like, I think my university has access to Brain, but only from 1990-present, or something like that.

Hexagon posted...

I'm only starting my Master's this fall so I'll see what it costs me to publish at my university. That's all I got, but it sounds to me like you're defending the paywall journals with this post.

(You don't publish through the university, you publish through a journal)
The point was that open access journals aren't a 1:1 replacement for paywall journals, because they shunt an even larger cost onto the researcher. So saying: "you can just publish in open access journals if you have an ethical issue" isn't really accurate.

Go look up the publishing fee at any number of open access journal. Here's one of the newer open access journals in my field being run by a very reputable institution:
http://www.eneuro.org/content/general-information#fees

The fee is $2000-3000, depending on whether you're a society member or not.

Hexagon posted...

That sounds like an oxymoron to me. In fact from Google a layperson "is a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject". A college degree doesn't make someone a layperson. Also people with college degrees are likely going to be working in a setting where they get to access the journals. Regardless the abstracts and conclusions are usually available for free, but for the vast majority of people that don't have any degrees everything else is meaningless information that is not worth the money to give them free access to. I have a bachelor's in biochemistry and I can't even read through articles without coming across some terminology, or acronym, or method that I need to look up or research.

An undergrad degree in a science doesn't make you a professional scientist. Anyone not a scientist is a layperson, in this context.
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Like I have access to 99% of the articles I'm looking for. As a PhD student, I probably have simply search a much larger number of articles than you have.

And like I said, it's not just journal, but also time period. Like, I think my university has access to Brain, but only from 1990-present, or something like that.

Sure OK, you searched more than me, but I have never had to wait to read an article and I have never not had access to an article I have searched in the most popular journals too. Also I have had access to articles from the 1980s and earlier.

(You don't publish through the university, you publish through a journal)

I am very familiar with that. I was simply tell you that I will see the cost firsthand when I am ready to publish at the place where I will be doing my research (i.e not a private institution) and what kind of money is available to help me publish and where the money comes from instead of researching about it.

An undergrad degree in a science doesn't make you a professional scientist. Anyone not a scientist is a layperson, in this context.

I never said an undergrad is a professional scientist. But let's be real here, other than working on a thesis and taking a few more classes, there isn't much difference in the base knowledge of bachelors/masters/PhD in terms of who is and isn't a layperson in terms of academics vs. the public which was the original topic of interest. And you can be hired as a professional with only a bachelors for example professional engineers don't necessary have a master's or a PhD.

Hexagon posted...

Sure OK, you searched more than me, but I have never had to wait to read an article and I have never not had access to an article I have searched in the most popular journals too. Also I have had access to articles from the 1980s and earlier.

Good for you...?
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Hexagon posted...

Sure OK, you searched more than me, but I have never had to wait to read an article and I have never not had access to an article I have searched in the most popular journals too. Also I have had access to articles from the 1980s and earlier.

I don't think you understand, the waiting is for articles from journals and their corresponding time period which my university doesn't have a subscription for. These are ones that require an interlibrary loan request. If you had access instantly, that's because your university has a subscription for the journal that you were accessing.

I have plenty of access to articles prior to 1980 too! It's just that particular journal the university bought a subscription for only a certain timeperiod-present.

Hexagon posted...

But let's be real here, other than working on a thesis and taking a few more classes, there isn't much difference in the base knowledge of bachelors/masters/PhD in terms of who is and isn't a layperson in terms of academics

This is extremely inaccurate in personal experience. Like almost universally untrue. Like, in the four years I've been in my lab, we've had 1 superstar RA who I would actually honestly classify as PhD level proficient once he graduated from his undergrad degree.
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COVxy posted...

On a side note, the graduate student who founded SciHub looks like she's 12.

Woah, she has one of those faces that can be either depending on the angle. Put on a bit of weight and she looks like she could be in her 50s.
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@COVxy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzdiWDw4teo

Peter Thiel starts to describe it at 4:46
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I don't think you understand, the waiting is for articles from journals and their corresponding time period which my university doesn't have a subscription for. These are ones that require an interlibrary loan request. If you had access instantly, that's because your university has a subscription for the journal that you were accessing.

I have plenty of access to articles prior to 1980 too! It's just that particular journal the university bought a subscription for only a certain timeperiod-present.

I'm pretty sure I do. Were you not complaining about how the journal subscription system is bad and such a pain because it makes people have to wait long times (apparently more than 24 hours) to access certain articles? You gave me two examples that you needed to have a request filled out. I believe you used the word frustrating did you not? Well, I can access them instantly from my university. So maybe its just you and your provider? Or if you want we can try some other articles.

This is extremely inaccurate in personal experience. Like almost universally untrue. Like, in the four years I've been in my lab, we've had 1 superstar RA who I would actually honestly classify as PhD level proficient once he graduated from his undergrad degree.

Maybe we have a different idea of what base knowledge means. But forget that, I'm more interested in why you think there is a world of difference between a bachelor's and a PhD, but when I talk about the public, you assume its the same as someone with a bachelor's degree. That doesn't seem fair to me.

Hexagon posted...

I'm pretty sure I do. Were you not complaining about how the journal subscription system is bad and such a pain because it makes people have to wait long times (apparently more than 24 hours) to access certain articles? You gave me two examples that you needed to have a request filled out. I believe you used the word frustrating did you not? Well, I can access them instantly from my university. So maybe its just you and your provider? Or if you want we can try some other articles.

Again, you're not understanding. I was pretty clear in my previous post, please go back and re-read what I wrote.

Hexagon posted...

Maybe we have a different idea of what base knowledge means. But forget that, I'm more interested in why you think there is a world of difference between a bachelor's and a PhD, but when I talk about the public, you assume its the same as someone with a bachelor's degree. That doesn't seem fair to me.

PhD training and bachelor's education are two very very different things. PhD training and master's education are very very different things. I finished my classes two years ago for my PhD, but I learned almost nothing of use in them, and most of my knowledge as a PhD student has accumulated due to mentorship with my PI and self guided education. Classes are secondary, even tertiary, to PhD training.

I didn't assume, I simply said they counted as the lay public. There's also literature that even those without a college degree can read and understand, but I was making a point that since such a large proportion of people get a bachelor's degree, the idea that none of them could gain anything from the scientific literature is not well thought through, at best, at worst it's narcissistic.
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Sativa_Rose posted...

@COVxy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzdiWDw4teo

Peter Thiel starts to describe it at 4:46

I don't know how this relates to anything discussed within this topic. Further, from the way he speaks I think he doesn't quite understand what the everyday life of a professor is like. As is most of the time when he discusses anything to do with academia, it comes from a highly politicized outside perspective, often throwing the baby out with the bathwater for the sake of politics.
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Up.
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please go back and re-read what I wrote.

I did. You should too. You're telling me you attend(ed) a major research university and you're complaining about not being able to access those articles because of interlibrary loans meanwhile my Canadian university, which ranks way above 100 worldwide universities has immediate access? How does a major research university not have immediate access to these journals? Please.

but I learned almost nothing of use in them, and most of my knowledge as a PhD student has accumulated due to mentorship with my PI and self guided education. Classes are secondary, even tertiary, to PhD training.

I see. So nothing relevant to the ability to read and understand articles, which is what your thread is about. Or did your PI mentor you on how to read articles? Also why are only PhD students capable of self guided education?

but I was making a point that since such a large proportion of people get a bachelor's degree

You made no such point. You simply replied to my post with a different subject than mine, which I let go until you started to get so meticulous about the difference between a layperson, professional and the level of education obtained.

Different universities prioritize different journals depending on the faculty, I'm guessing. Not really too difficult to understand.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices

Journals are expensive, would probably be untenable to have all access to every academic journal. See above where Harvard was having troubles paying.
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I doubt it'll get taken down.
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Good. Eat shit pirates.
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I haven't hit any paywalled articles yet maybe I've been lucky so far.
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