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This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to El Duvelle

Not your question but why is eLife now more a like preprint server? It still reviews and generates versions of record like any other journal, and does a much better job of explaining its evaluations.
in reply to matt nolan

@mattnolan Because the editor / reviewers do not decide if the paper should be published, like what preprint servers do, and unlike what journals do?
I'm not seeing it as a bad thing, I like their new system, mostly!
in reply to El Duvelle

Hmm, but unlike preprint servers eLife has editors and reviewers, provides evaluations and a version of record. To me this looks like eLife is still a journal publishing papers, whatever Clarivate say. Anyway, I hope eLife won't buckle the corporate pressure to conform...
in reply to matt nolan

@mattnolan yes, I agree and it all depends on what do we think matters when we define "Journal".

For my part I would like to support eLife without destroying my "career" so I'm wondering if we can do eLife + classical journal at least for now.. But haven't heard of anyone trying that.

in reply to El Duvelle

I think I understand, but I hope publishing in eLife would be seen as a positive. As a grant reviewer I couldn't care less where someone publishes, and publishing in eLife with clearly positive reviewer comments would be a great indicator that you were doing important work.

I'd be interested to hear other views. I think eLife is an opportunity to really improve our publishing culture, but if I'm in a minority then I guess publishing there isn't such a good career move...

in reply to matt nolan

@mattnolan I don't think publishing in eLife is a bad carrier move, as long as you can still send your paper to one of the other journals who are still "playing the game" and give you an advantage on your CV. But if you can't do both (which is what I'm asking here), then you would have to choose between the two.

Just this week I was talking to a more senior researcher, who is on recruiting and grant committees in the UK, about where to publish my next paper and they were still pushing the impact factor parameter as the most important one for this decision.

in reply to El Duvelle

I see. I think if it was a version of record at eLife then you couldn't do this, but if you just had reviews then it would be ok. I hadn't thought that people might do this unless the reviews were really bad...

I'm pretty disappointed about the senior researcher you spoke to. All of the UK funders are big on DORA and so this shouldn't be still happening.

in reply to matt nolan

@mattnolan
Well... everyone (or so) seems to have a different discourse when in public and in private on this topic.

Another colleague was telling me about how hard they worked for several years just to get 1 paper published in "CNS". And then they got a permanent position, which I don't think would have happened if that paper was, say, in eLife...

Realistically, many people and committees are still using the impact factor model, so I think we need to be aware of it, but still fight it.

in reply to El Duvelle

I'm happy to be public about my own policy. I'll make reasonable attempts to get my papers into high impact journals because I think it will make it more likely that I'll get grants and promotions, minimise the chance that I end up having to do a majority teaching job, and increase the chance that my trainees will get better jobs. However, I reject impact factor and indeed the journal system entirely, so I'll also do whatever I can to undermine that, including not editing or reviewing for them, not reading them (I try to only read preprints, with the extra benefit that I get to read stuff a year or two in advance), and trying to build alternative systems.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Dan Goodman

Well that's better than nothing.. I wish there was a more efficient way to fix the system. Like: All researchers sign a pact where they say, from now on, they will Stop publishing in any for-profit journals. All of us.

And then committees would know that they can't use impact factor at least from that date onwards to evaluate a CV, so they'll have to figure something else.

PS: we can do the same thing to fix Climate Change BTW ;)

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to El Duvelle

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan

Because everyone will not just, we suggest instead:
a) funders start making institutional journal replacement infrastructure part of their eligibility criteria
b) GAOs remind institutions that under current procurement rules, negotiations with publishers are actually illegal if they are about publishing services.
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi…
Not all of them have to do this for an effect to kick in and it eventually will have the same outcome.

El Duvelle reshared this.

in reply to Björn Brembs

@brembs @neuralreckoning @mattnolan
ha, you even have a gif/meme for it 😂
These propositions seem great, is there any evidence of actual steps taken to implement them?
Also what is GAO? Government accountability office?
in reply to El Duvelle

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan

Yes, Government Accountability Offices.

Wrt to funders, the PlanS funders have not only posted our suggestion to their blog

coalition-s.org/blog/creating-…

Wrt to GAOs, the reply so far has been "interesting, we should look into this" 🙄

But at least the EU science ministers agree the journals must be replaced with open infrastructures:

consilium.europa.eu/en/press/p…

So broad agreement in principle, but few actual actions taken so far.

in reply to Björn Brembs

@brembs @neuralreckoning @mattnolan
it's a little depressing but we'll keep fighting! And thank you all for leading that fight :)
in reply to El Duvelle

@mattnolan I tried to organise a letter to the WHOSTP to say we should build a system that allowed free access to science, both to read and publish. Sent it to all the Nobel prize winners. None agreed to sign.

I should add that's partly on me. We wrote the text of the letter by committee trying to get consensus and it ended up being a bit hard to follow as a result.

So yeah, as Bjorn says, everyone will not just. Sigh.

El Duvelle reshared this.

in reply to Dan Goodman

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan
I think we should try this again until it works! Did they give any reasons why they didn't want to sign?
Maybe we could start by convincing the Mosers...
in reply to El Duvelle

@mattnolan they were the only two who came close but they were a bit put off by the precise wording (which in retrospect I understand).
in reply to Dan Goodman

@mattnolan and I doubt the Whitehouse is going to be favourable to this sort of thing right now. 😂
in reply to Dan Goodman

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan Nah, whatever happens at the end of the 4 years I do not believe the American people will accept any more of it. At least that's my prediction...
in reply to El Duvelle

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan If an institution uses impact factor to evaluate candidates, run. Why would you want to work at such a place where management declares themselves incompetent to evaluate by themselves the research papers of the very people they want to hire?
#academia
in reply to El Duvelle

@mattnolan Over the last 2 years, two of my postdocs got a faculty position *without even publishing any paper*, merely on the basis of the work they were doing and having presented it in seminars at the institution that then hired them.

Myself, I got my first faculty position (INI Zurich) *with small papers only from PhD and none from my postdoc*, only on the basis of work done and presented to them. My second faculty position (Janelia) I got *without any CNS paper*, only on the basis of preliminary data acquired at the institute than then hired me to expand the project.

I hope you see the pattern?

You only "need" a CNS paper if you are blind-applying to many places and nobody knows or cares about your research work. Particularly if the places you'd like to work at don't know about you or your research.

#academia

in reply to Albert Cardona

@albertcardona @mattnolan wow, this is the first time that I hear about someone getting a faculty position (are we talking research position??) without a single paper! 👀 Congrats to both of them!

And I can believe that if people on the committee already know you, and like you, it will increase your chances to get the job. But most application situations are not like that... and when it happens, is it really fair to the candidates who are not already known by a committee member?

in reply to El Duvelle

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to El Duvelle

I can safely say I don't have CNS papers as postdoc, I published my major postdoc work in eLife (old mode) ... I did find a job and I passed my probation last year...and I hope I can have that job as @kofanchen@drosophila.social in five years time. But yes I don't think UK universities move fast enough in terms of metrics and transparency in recruitment and promotion (I doubt it will ever do)
@mattnolan
in reply to 陳克帆

@kofanchen@g0v.social @kofanchen@drosophila.social @mattnolan I got my job at Imperial without any CNS, but I will say I'm not sure I would have in a biology department, and I was a postdoc for 8 years which isn't for everyone.
in reply to Dan Goodman

@neuralreckoning @kofanchen@g0v.social @kofanchen@drosophila.social @mattnolan

This article from some time ago might be relevant..

Myths and facts about getting an academic faculty position in neuroscience

Their conclusion is that the CNS papers are not necessary to get a position, but I don't think they conclusively show that they're not helpful to get a position..

in reply to El Duvelle

@mattnolan I would be very interested to hear what UK funding bodies judge on IF. As far as I am aware the major ones are DORA signatories🤬
in reply to SteveRuss

@SteveRuss @mattnolan CNRS (the French National research institute) definitely used to, but maybe they've changed their rules now..
in reply to matt nolan

@mattnolan no no Matt, you've misunderstood. It's important to take highly informative multidimensional expert assessments and reduce them to a single binary value. That's what makes it reliable and useful, and that's why Clarivate (the indexing company owned by the billion dollar publishing empire whose business model is threatened by this new experiment ) is delisting them. No financial conflict of interest here.
in reply to Dan Goodman

@neuralreckoning @mattnolan

Not that it matters, but I don't think #Clarivate could even justify delisting them:
neuromatch.social/@elduvelle/1…
(Although, it is unclear whether eLife will end up doing what they want which is basically separating accepted from non-accepted papers)

But they will stop giving #eLife an impact factor though.


On the bright side*, they at least recognized that the peer-reviewed content is of good enough quality to keep being indexed by them:
We have found the cohort of content considered to have been ‘validated by peer review’ passes our 24 quality criteria. Therefore, we can continue to cover eLife in the Web of Science Core Collection.


(*) if you consider that being indexed by Clarivate is a good thing 🤷