Comment by gavman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gavman | Hacker News Reader

My apartment mate (currently a PhD student in Chemistry) noted that the research is cool, but article this is based on in Nature Communications is pay to publish, so err on the side of skepticism.

A quick Google search found this:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41072/...

"At present, researchers can choose an open-access option when submitting a manuscript to the journal, selecting one of three publishing licenses: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY), the more restrictive Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND), or Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA). Authors pay a fee of $5,200 to publish a study under a CC BY license, and $4,800 for each of the other two... Update (September 23): After this article was published, Nature Publishing Group's Amy Bourke responded to The Scientist, noting the flat article processing charge (APC) to publish in Nature Communications: $5,200"

Edit: other users seem to note that the journal is very reputable. I do not know myself, was reporting my apartment mate's reaction since he is much more knowledgeable in the area. It is clear from conversation I mis-understood his response. Apologies.

Uhm, Nature Communications is a subjournal of Nature Publishing Group. There is literally no more reputable publishing group. None. Nature, their flagship journal, is the highest impact factor journal in the world.

I upvoted you, but I want to add text in agreement since such upvotes can't be seen as an endorsement. gavman's warning about the reputation of the venue is unwarranted.

I talked to my apartment mate about it. He said that when he showed the article to his advisor, she had the reaction of "they're pay to publish". I can't speak to the reputability of the journal, just providing his response.

EDIT: sounds like a misunderstanding more than anything.

Here's [0] a link to the rankings of nature journals. Nature Communications is 3rd in general science, and Nature is 1st.

Tim Gowers and the freedom of knowledge group are pushing hard on journal fees.

[0]http://www.nature.com/npg_/company_info/impact_factors.html

Old post :

I can speak to the reputability of your friend's program. The statement is jaw dropping. It is so wrong as to make it hard for me to believe he goes to an accredited university.

As I said in a comment below, he's at a top tier program (CMU), so it's likely I didn't understand his adverse reaction. You mention below his/his advisor's adverse reaction may be about "a movement to move to no cost journals", not about reputation. When I see him tonight I'll ask.

Many top researchers have a grudge against the shortcomings of Nature, especially given its reputation.

They published papers with fairly weak research for overhype many times already.

One example is the infamous Barabasi-Albert paper on the preferential attachment. It contains many false claims, bad math and extraordinary assertions that would be excusable in some vulgarization for TV, much less for a research paper. They could at least have upped the paper before publication.

There are many much worse examples, that you can find on retractionwatch.com among other places.

Nature is not that reputable, I'd put it above science, below JACS. The most reputable journals are cell, and organic syntheses.

If you want to know why org. Syn. is so reputable, check out their description: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Syntheses

That's ridiculous. It's the world's most cited scientific journal. Your opinion doesn't make it disreputable.

You are confusing reputability with a metric of popularity.

Most reputable journals charge processing fees when publishing.

And just about all of them have higher fees if you want it published under a creative commons (open) license. Note in GP's quote: the researcher can choose CC for a fee. This option has come available in nearly all peer review journals recently due to recent US grant requirements to open published results. They still have to go through a rigorous peer review. Frankly, GP's mate doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's clear at this point I must have mis-understood his response. He's at a top tier school (CMU) so my guess is he knows what he's talking about. Apologies.

Ah. There is a movement towards no cost journals, but that's not about reputation, it's a very different fight. I'll try to dig up a link.

Here's a good place to start: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge

Thanks!!

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