Publication economy

Today, publishing has become all the more important for researchers both in terms of career advancement and also when applying for funding. It has led to an emphasis on the quantity of publications produced and scientific output is growing every year.

Incentives to publish are high. Researchers can advance in their career, receive funding, and establish themselves in the field, but the increased need to publish has only added to the pressure researchers have to maintain their productivity. As well, it has led to the phenomenon called “salami-slicing” where the smallest publishable unit of research is used to increase the number of publications possible from a data set. Increased pressure has also meant poorer quality work is being submitted to journals which has given rise to the application of the term "Sturgeon’s law” to research. This states, rather candidly, that “ninety percent of everything is crap”. All of which emphasizes quantity over quality.

This “publish or perish” economy also sees publications as measures of production and impact. Bibliometrics or citation measures such as the Impact Factor and H-index are used to judge a journal’s quality and this has resulted in researchers prioritizing high-impact or highly cited journals and supports a misplaced trust and emphasis on citation measures.

Another major issue in today’s publication climate is that large commercial publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley dominate the market. Publishing is a lucrative business and commercial publishers charge high costs for access to materials.

For example, Luleå University Library pays over 12 million Swedish kronor every year for access to information resources. In 2016, five major publishers took over half our media budget:

(Figure: Luleå University of Technology Library subscription expenditure, 2016)

Stakeholders

Publishers and researchers are not the only stakeholders in this market. There are many others with an invested interest in producing and accessing research.

Stakeholders include:

Researchers
Publishers
Editors
Financiers
Governmental bodies
Universities
Research institutions
Companies
Students
General public
Libraries

One argument for correcting this imbalance is that publishers are not producing the research, researchers are. They are producing the results and even providing services for publishers, such as peer-review, for free.

Traditionally, it is the library that purchases back the research and bridges this paywall to enabled access for the various stakeholders and beneficiaries. Many libraries are now looking for new ways to provide access and have been key promoters of new publishing models which seek to correct this imbalance between publishers and beneficiaries, but they are not the only stakeholder taking a stand against publishers.

New practices and models

There have been many reactions to traditional publishing; many of which aim to address the imbalance and create a more sustainable model.

Open Access, which will be discussed more in the module on publishing strategies, is one response to the current situation. Investors, governmental agencies and public financiers who fund research, are interested in seeing the impact of results on the research field and society. Many are requiring that these results are made Open Access, that is freely available to everyone, to have the greatest impact.

The demand for free access to research has also given rise to pirate sites such as SciHub in order to make research available to researchers who cannot afford subscription prices. Although SciHub is an illegal site, it is evidence of the discontent with the current situation.

Other reactions have been more productive and have involved boycotts of journals and publishers such as Timothy Gowers' Cost of Knowledge campaign, the European Commission's recommendations for reconsidering incentives for researchers to publish and alternative evaluation criteria, and negotiating new subscription models.

In Sweden, there have been several national projects to address these issues. One of which is the collaboration of the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and the National Library (Kungliga Bibliotek) to coordinate Open Access publishing in Sweden. Another is the National Library consortium’s actions to negotiate new models with publishers with the Open APC Sweden project.

Researcher support at Luleå University of Technology

The Library is working to address these issues at Luleå University of Technology. We participate in The National Library's OpenAPC Sweden project as well as give advice and provide practical support for our researchers.

The Library offers support for researchers . We can help you with many different issues including:

Finding and evaluating journals
The monetary compensation scheme
Open Access
Strategic publishing
Publisher policies
Financier policies

Another way the university library is supporting researchers is by negotiating new subscription models with publishers. Together with the National Library, Luleå University Library has signed several agreements with various publishers allowing researchers to publish Open Access free of charge or at a discounted rate.

Dig Deeper

Birukou, A. (2020, January 30) Guest Post — Everything* You Ever Wanted to Know about Conference Proceedings But Were Afraid to Ask. The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/01/30/guest-post-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-conference-proceedings-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

Fiala, C., & Diamandis, E. P. (2017). The emerging landscape of scientific publishing. Clinical Biochemistry, 50(12), 651-655. doi: 10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2017.04.009

Larsson, S. (2009). An emerging economy of publications and citations. Nordisk Pedagogik, (29), 34-52. Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Press http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-17465