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Comment by chrispeel | Hacker News Reader

I'm a member of the IEEE, which I believe also has a problem. They charge authors to publish, then charge IEEE members to access the journals. All this while the reviewers and editors are working for free. At a bare minimum, they should make the journals open to all members. One way to cut costs is to stop printing paper journals.

I'd love to hear what the UC system has to say about the IEEE.

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+1 here.

For at least the past 5 years, I've been questioning the value of IEEE regular membership very hard. Marketing internally spams the Gmail inboxes paid for by dues; Spectrum is nothing more than a front for advertisements while members don't even have ad-free web access to its content; Xplore is a minimum $20/mo limited to an insulting 3 papers; standards are outrageously overpriced even with supposed "member discount". The only thing that has kept me around this long is an apparent misguided belief that the IEEE is the flagship organization catering to the interests of professional EEs, and I'm an EE, therefore I should retain membership. This will be my 10th year of membership...mostly on the campaign promises of Jose Moura[1] of CMU--who I voted for back in 2017 and is now President. I'm really hoping things do indeed change.

I also hold lifetime membership with the ACM. Cost ~$4,000 out of pocket, but that buys indefinite access to digital library content. Sure, I could have Sci-Hub'd their papers, but I also recognize that the organization needs to be funded somehow, and their asking price for perceived value was within my budget. IEEE doesn't even have such an option, nor does its Computer Society.

This criticism of SDOs[2] is definitely relevant to the meta of those professional organizations who merely claim to support the interests of its members.

[1] https://www.josemoura.com

[2] https://youtu.be/Sdm698P2AkA?t=88

You can choose to publish open access conference papers through IEEE but you have to pay around $2000 (I forget if it was USD or AUD). I'm not sure about the exact costs for an open access Journal paper though. That said, IEEE don't prevent you from listing your own paper on your own website (in it's accepted form, not published form) provided you link the correct DOI and include the reference.

The ACM is similar, and I think (hope) they will eventually have to just open up all published papers by default. The main difference between the IEEE and the ACM to Elsevier is that the IEEE and ACM are professional organizations. They have a non-profit mission, whereas Elsevier is a for-profit company. I have no problem reviewing papers and serving on program committees when the organizing entity is a non-profit service organization. I think the the ACM and IEEE have a future in a fully open-access world, but Elsevier does not.

I am not sure about IEEE's institutional prices, but their member prices for journals are quite reasonable. Most academic journals published by Elsevier are beyond the reach of individuals.

I just looked at a paper on Elsevier's site, and saw that it was $36, while a paper on IEEExplore was $33 (non-member price). I open to the idea that the IEEE is less expensive than Elsevier, yet not convinced that there is a big difference.

To be clear, the IEEE does have good journals, and is the best place to publish for many. There are countless volunteer reviewers and editors and officers who do great work. My impression is that the paid IEEE bureaucracy (in New Jersey?) are designed for a pre-Internet age. While cutting-edge cryptographic techniques is published in the journals, the IEEE email alias has terrible security. I guess this is a common story, and I'm expecting too much...

> $36 vs $33

Maybe it's only me but both those prices are extremely steep. $1 would be more viable, IMO.

Most of the world's population can not afford access to this information.

All while they charge authors, charge readers, soliciting volunteers to do the work for free, and publish academic research paid for by taxpayers.

It's shameful.

Even more so because you won't read only one paper on a topic. Doing even superficial research gets expensive quickly at those prices.

I was a grad student, so I might have a skewed view of these things since I have access to these subscriptions via the university library, but does anyone actually pay (especially that much money) for access to a single article like that? It seems really crazy to me since to do a decent amount of research into something, you would have to go through dozens of articles that are behind paywalls.

I don't think many pay the single paper price at IEEE, which I agree is outrageous. I pay a annual membership of around $300 for unlimited access to all the important papers within my field of interest. They recently introduced a reduced rate membership for developing countries as well.

IEEE and ACM have the same problem, they paywall the papers that they publish. As they are theoretically nonprofits run by the community, it is even harder to get people to care, but it is still very problematic.

Absolutely, IEEE is also on the same boat, charging 20-40USD for a PDF to general public. Insane.

It was great to access journals while at university, but there is so much knowledge out there behind paywalls that is literally holding humanity back!

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