An economics paper’s failings in substance and pre-publication and post-publication processes holds many lessons, not the least of which is about the poisonous environment of discourse we have allowed to form.
The Internet promised a revolution, but we may have only deepened our rut as a number of factors have combined to constrain innovation and change our customer focus.
Social networking and crowdsourcing have attributes that may make them both incompatible with the goals and process of science. Can we accept that?
While the access debates have dominated, another debate has been emerging, one that perhaps has greater significance in the long run.
Articles are published before they’re reviewed; doubts about a paper are viewed as a positive status; papers only need to contain “science;” review and revision can continue forever; and PubMed Central is their certifying entity. Welcome to the world of F1000 Research.
Can peer review systems be run less expensively? Sure, if you eliminate major levels and elements of peer review.
Comparing the length of post-publication peer reviews in F1000 Research to those done pre-publication in four major medical journals shows authors are less likely to receive constructive or substantial criticism with F1000 Research reviews, despite a highly academic reviewer pool.
A survey of multiple scientific and academic domains about open access publishing provides an interesting snapshot, but fails to provide much actionable data as it conflates too many areas into one.
Do papers reporting null results or confirmational results need to go through the same process as papers reporting significant and novel results? Or do they require only passing a perfunctory editorial review?
Are editors, reviewers and authors ready for a commercial solution to peer review? Survey results are in!
Narrowing the definition of peer review to only validation standards, we may be exposing peer review in its least flattering light, while ignoring the more reliable and powerful ways in which peer review serves science.
Initiatives like Rubriq will succeed if they address the real needs of authors, reviewers, and editors. Take the survey and tell us what you think.
With the creation of Rubriq, co-founders Shashi Mudunuri and Keith Collier have broken new ground. Rubriq is an attempt to provide peer-review independent from journals.
Editors have learned how to exploit a simple loophole in the calculation of the Impact Factor. Is it time to close that loophole?
Free services and open access are distorting the publishing world. Will the big only get bigger?