Re: [tlug] Journals, Authors and 'Free Peer Review'

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 05:38 PM, Benjamin Kowarsch 
wrote:
> On 25 September 2018 at 18:06, Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com 
> <mailto:cjs@example.com>> wrote:
>     Except that it seems that the pretty formatting is
>     almost invariably
>     done by the author, not the journal. At least in the
>     world of
>     LaTeX-using journals, they expect a source file using
>     their templates
>     and whatnot that will produce camera-ready copy.
> Absolutely. Many journals will reject submissions if they 
> are not formatted and polished in the way they want them.


As I just mentioned to Curt, I (like many of you?) may be 
from a computing background, but I was speaking on behalf of 
my new adopted field (??? though the field might try to 
return me for a refund at any time ;-) ) which doesn't 
operate like what you're thinking.

"Many", I guess, refers to the engineering fields.  Other 
fields still do not.  I wished they did...then I don't need 
to have Microsoft Word installed in a Win10 virtualbox...


> Indeed, neither authors nor peer reviewers get paid 
> anything. Both are putting that work in free of charge.
>
> If the authors and peer reviewers are not employed by a 
> university or research organisation to do this work, then 
> the publishers are effectively abusing them as free labour. 
> And if the authors and reviewers are employed and paid by 
> universities or research organisations to do the work, then 
> the publishers leech off that by making the public pay for 
> this work TWICE.


It is a bit of a give and take...

Yes, peer reviewers are not employed by journals, but we 
hope that every once in a while, the tables are turned those 
that peer review end up being authors and they will need 
people to peer review their work.  If some institute staff 
is always peer reviewing and never gets a chance to get 
their own work done, then the system is a bit lopsided and 
they need to start saying "no" to peer reviewing.  Of 
course, if staff stop publishing, journals will also stop 
asking them...  Well, good journals, of course.

Predatory journals are like predatory _____ (insert whatever 
word you want here!).  There's no point is using the worst 
as an example all the time.


> If any of you are publishing articles, just put your work on 
> ArXiv.org before you submit it to any journal.
>
> More and more articles are now published in this way and the 
> journals don't treat this as an impediment, they treat the 
> rendering as it appears in the journal as their property 
> while the "pre-print" version published on ArXiv.org remains 
> the property of the author, licensed to ArXiv.org under 
> non-exclusivity.


Well, not all journals look positively on ArXiv.org .  I 
think some are still "on the fence" and aren't sure what to 
do about it.

It does open a can of worms that few people want to address. 
 For example, if I submit a manuscript to a journal, am I 
obligated to cite earlier work that was submitted to ArXiv, 
knowing that it hasn't yet been through the process of peer 
review?  I am?  If so, then should I cite someone who said 
they did a preliminary study but reported it on their 
homepage or their blog?  Where does one draw the line?

If I'm reviewing for aforementioned journal and I came 
across this earlier work in ArXiv, do I point out or 
criticize the author for not citing this work in ArXiv?

Some people put work into ArXiv because it is a preliminary, 
pre-print version.  But, it also doesn't stop the 
opposite...people who put it into ArXiv because it couldn't 
get into anywhere else.  I was doing a literature search for 
something I'm working on and found something in ArXiv that 
was posted about 2 years ago but never got published 
finally...do I cite it?

I see what you're saying but I think there's a wider 
discussion that many people do not know what to do with. 
Perhaps one day, when I get my Nobel Prize (har har har), 
I'll be up there trying to change the culture...until then, 
I'm a small potato and my workplace gives credit to 
publication in journals and not ArXiv...so that's what I'll 
do.  ;-(

Ray