Are open access journals legit for my CV?

[EternalStudent]

Do "Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity" and "Journal of Foundations of Physics" exist?
Or did you mean "Classical and Quantum Gravity" and "Foundations of Physics"?

Well, their abbreviations are cqg and foop, so neither of them has j up on front. Yet I heard the word journal when their name is pronounced fully.

 

[atyy]

Well, their abbreviations are cqg and foop, so neither of them has j up on front. Yet I heard the word journal when their name is pronounced fully.

Just to be clear, you meant
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0264-9381
https://www.springer.com/journal/10701
?

 

[EternalStudent]

Just to be clear, you meant
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0264-9381
https://www.springer.com/journal/10701
?

Yes

 

[atyy]

Yes

OK, those are "standard" journals. I did initially assume you meant those, but doubted after your later posts, as I'd assumed that anyone who's published in PRD, JMP, CCG would know standard etiquette. But I've just seen your post #83 - do you not have anyone supervising your PhD thesis?

 

[EternalStudent]

OK, those are "standard" journals. I did initially assume you meant those, but doubted after your later posts, as I'd assumed that anyone who's published in PRD, JMP, CCG would know standard etiquette.

What does the word "etiquette" refer to in this particular context?

But I've just seen your post #83 - do you not have anyone supervising your PhD thesis?

Its my 2-nd ph.d. I did the first Ph.D. in physics a long time ago and now I am doing 2-nd Ph.D. in math. My intention of doing this was precisely what you just said: to get guidence from the thesis advisor. In fact, I proposed to him to connect the area of physics that I was working in with the area of math that he is working in. He wasn't convinced that there was as much connection as I thought there was -- mainly because I was thinking of his area of math in loose terms while he was thinking of it in a lot more precise terms. But he was still willing to hear me out and in fact we had weekly meetings. During our meetings he had problems with a fact that I phrase things sloppily so what he ended up saying is that he can't trust my physics because in the area that he understands -- which is math -- I make lots of sloppy mistakes, so how can he trust me in the area that he doesn't understand -- which is physics. So what he ended up suggesting is to take the "math" aspect of my proposal and solve some math problem that he came up with within my math framework. So, in one sense, it still borrows one of my ideas (since it uses the geometry that I came up with) yet, on the other hand, it doesn't do any physics within this framework. The specific math problem that he came up with within my framework I happen not to find interesting (I don't see how it would be relevant to physics at all). But I am still willing to work on it in order to make him happy. I mean if, one day, he finally likes what I do, then who knows maybe we will have a publication together or something, but this is very far fetched.

But in any case, this whole thing is about *one* paper. There was *one* specific arXiv paper -- that has never been published yet -- which I feel is similar to the math he is doing. So, at least in my head, this whole project is about coming up with new version of that specific arXiv paper, that perhaps we can co-author, that incorporates his math. So that would be 5 publications instead of 4, which is still too little. One path to success that I see is that the other professor (NOT my thesis advisor -- but rather the one with whom I co-authored my JMP paper) told me that in order to get math postdoc 3 publications would be enough. But they have to be math papers, not physics papers. So my papers at CQG, PRD and FOOP won't count. The paper in JMP is sort of a gray area I guess (that guy told me that JPM "could" be viewed as a math journal, but I am rather skeptical). In addition to that, *IF* I end up working together with my thesis advisor better than I do right now -- which is a big *if* -- I can hope to have joint paper with him, which would be the math paper (and therefore sort of first math paper sort of second math paper). And then there was also one paper on "experimental math" that I was working with one other professor and one of his students. When it comes to that paper, it was really far from my field and my contribution was rather minimal, but he still feels that my name should be there (I actually asked him whether he is sure he wants to keep it there and he said yes). That would be sort of second paper sort of third one. So I guess that way I can sort of get 2 1/2 math papers which might get me a math postdoc, I don't know we will see.

But in any case, those are *not* the papers I was talking about in this thread. The papers I was talking about here (which I was considering sending to those questionable journals) have nothing to do with what I was working on with any of these three people. I *would* have asked my math advisor, but I know his answer based on some other things that I was asking him: what he would tell me is that he doesn't want to hear about anything else I am doing since he wants me to focus on my thesis. So that's why I asked the three professors other than him and got the answers I summarized in reply 86.

 

[EternalStudent]

Dear OP: you said

"When it comes to the professor at the top school, I talked to him two years ago about my work and he didn't like it. No he didn't discourage me from staying in the field -- but he strongly adviced me to do something more conventional."

I suggest strongly to you that this is valuable advice, which could help you far more than publishing in an arguably scam journal that targets and profits from desperate people like yourself. Have you considered taking it?

Yes I am thinking in this direction. Two things that make it difficult is that

1) What about all those years I spent doing that "unconventional" work. In order for those years not to be wasted, I better get it published.

2) I am currently in math department (see reply 95) and my advisor doesn't know physics. So in order for me to get guidence on starting up more conventional physics project I should look for people other than him.

But I do hope to do the conventional physics despite these two points.

As far as point 1 is conderned, I think the best course of action is to spend part of the time doing something conventional and the other part of the time trying to get past (unconventional) work published. On the one hand, when it comes to conventional work I will basically be starting from scratch while the unconventional work has already been done. But on the other hand, in case of conventional work I will have easier time convincing referees once I get it done. So I think I should just work on both fronts at the same time.

As far as Point 2, I do have someone in the physics department at my current school in mind. As a matter of fact, when I was applying to math departments, the reason I chose that particular school is because of that guy in the physics department. When I first came, I asked him for a physics project and he gave me a choice between three projects. I chose the one that I found the most interesting (renormalization). But then it turned out that his own ideas were inconventional as well, not just mine. And I ended up disagreeing with his ideas (in particular, he claimed that he could modify renormalization procedure to handle non-renormalizable theories and I disagreed with it). We were sort of going in circles about it: sometimes he would agree with me that there is a problem and say he "hopes" I can figure out how to solve it, but other times he would say he doesn't see the problem. I finally reminded him of the fact that he gave me a choice between three projects and asked him if I could do one of his other two projects instead. But he simply said he was busy working on a certain textbook (I don't know if it was just an excuse -- although he "did" write a textbook).

Perhaps I could get in touch with him again and see if he is willing to reconsider giving me one of his other two projects, or perhaps I could find some other physicists to guide me.

 

[atyy]

What does the word "etiquette" refer to in this particular context?

Like where to submit one's work to be considered for publication, publication fees, how to detect if a journal is predatory or not etc

 

[Dunky]

There is no point, publish on arxiv for free.

 

[Ahmed Mehedi]

There is no point, publish on arxiv for free.

ArXiv is not a journal. Nor a publishing house. It is simply a preprint repository which is essentially not peer reviewed.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

There is no point, publish on arxiv for free.

ArXiv is not a journal. Nor a publishing house. It is simply a preprint repository which is essentially not peer reviewed.

Right. But many of the lowest tier journals don't have a rigorous peer review either - nor does publishing in them enhance one's CV significantly - and there is often a hefty fee involved.

There are cases where publishing a paper at arXiv can be the right move. Some contributing factors:
1. The authors want the paper in print quickly as a service to other scientists or to cite in another paper.
2. The paper contains a result that is correct and interesting enough to be in print somewhere, but not interesting enough to get through rigorous peer-review.
3. The authors don't need additional peer-reviewed papers to enhance their CVs.
4. The authors have lots of papers in process simultaneously and prefer not to take the time shepherding all of them through peer review processes.
5. The authors have a limited publication budget.
6. The paper has been rejected by a couple of journals due to lack of interest and issues of scope (rather than correctness), yet the authors want it available to the public.
7. The paper is a comment having found an error in a prior publication. If the original journal of record refuses to publish the comment, other options may be limited. However, publishing at arXiv provides general notice of the error to the broader scientific community.

I see arXiv more as an e-print repository than a pre-print repository, since a significant fraction of papers there are never published by a traditional publishing house.

 

[EternalStudent]

The main reason I post on arXiv is so that my ideas can't be stolen if I communicate them through some other means. Even though arXiv doesn't count as publication, it gives an evidence of time when I did it, hence if someone else does it later without citing me, I can dispute it.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

The main reason I post on arXiv is so that my ideas can't be stolen if I communicate them through some other means. Even though arXiv doesn't count as publication, it gives an evidence of time when I did it, hence if someone else does it later without citing me, I can dispute it.

It's a great point that posting at arXiv establishes priority of scientific ideas.

However, in the sense that posting at arXiv makes a work public, it does "count" as publishing. It is simply that it is closer to "self-publishing" than peer-review. It's may not be as valuable on the CV, but it is just as valuable to the readers. Consider this paper where posting it at arXiv both established priority for the invention and brought it to the attention of a broad audience. It has been cited several times and is also in use in several other labs.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1502/1502.06112.pdf

 

[EternalStudent]

It's a great point that posting at arXiv establishes priority of scientific ideas.

However, in the sense that posting at arXiv makes a work public, it does "count" as publishing. It is simply that it is closer to "self-publishing" than peer-review. It's may not be as valuable on the CV, but it is just as valuable to the readers. Consider this paper where posting it at arXiv both established priority for the invention and brought it to the attention of a broad audience. It has been cited several times and is also in use in several other labs.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1502/1502.06112.pdf

If it counts as publishing, then what about the papers that were first posted in the arXiv and then, later, published in the journal by the same author? Does it mean they were published twice? I thought publishing twice isn't allowed -- at least its not allowed to publish the same thing in two different journals?

 

[mathwonk]

At least in mathematics, most papers are normally posted first on arxiv and then later published in a refereed journal. Since arxiv postings are not refereed, they are apparently considered in a different category from refereed publications. Hence in my opinion they do establish priority, but do not confer peer approval or verification.

 

[EternalStudent]

At least in mathematics, most papers are normally posted first on arxiv and then later published in a refereed journal. Since arxiv postings are not refereed, they are apparently considered in a different category from refereed publications. Hence in my opinion they do establish priority, but do not confer peer approval or verification.

In physics it is the same way. Maybe it is a terminology question? I use the word "publication" in reference to only one of these two categories while Dr. Courtney apparently used it for both.