3 ms·

Maybe, since publishing an open access paper is (currently) more expensive for the authors, researchers will end up publishing less often (and possibly more sig

by tunnuz 10y ago

Maybe, since publishing an open access paper is (currently) more expensive for the authors, researchers will end up publishing less often (and possibly more significant results), which is not necessarily a bad thing given the bloating state of research literature nowadays. On a related note, a colleague of mine had this idea of an annual publication cap (3 papers) for researchers. Less burnout, less "superstar" researchers that "contribute" to 20+ papers a year (except for the fact that they have an army of Ph.D. students slaving off for them).

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a_bonobo 10y ago
As long as universities and funding bodies - i.e. your potential employers and the people who give you money - judge you by the quantity of your publications and the impact factor of journals you publish in I'm afraid this won't happen. We'd need a different way to judge someone's scientific output which is definitely hard - do we start to check Twitter or blogs for scientific outreach? Do we judge scientific "novelty" (of which maybe only the author herself/himself is the expert in, so only s/he can properly evaluate)? Do we start to evaluate preprints (biology doesn't do this much)? Many open questions, and not much is happening in terms of change. (Edit: This is, by the way, one of the reasons why there is so much more Arabidopsis than Wheat research - Arabidopsis is easier to manipulate and grows faster, so you can get more publications out for the same amount of work)
- wongarsu 10y ago
  >As long as universities and funding bodies - i.e. your potential employers and the people who give you money - judge you by the quantity of your publications and the impact factor of journals you publish in I'm afraid this won't happen. Having seen this evaluation process from the inside, it would still work if everyone was limited to ~3 papers per year. In my experience sheer quantity doesn't land you a job, because quantity usually is a detriment to quality. More important factors are the prestige of the journals you published in, whether those journals are relevant to the position, how consistent your publishing record is (is there a five year break?, have you even stopped publishing?). In CS "best paper" awards from conferences also have significant weight. Add to that that fewer papers make it easier to asses their quality, and being limited to three high-quality papers a year isn't a detriment to hiring.
Fomite 10y ago
Some of the work I've done that I like the best have been side musings that wouldn't make the "3 paper" priority cap, but have never the less been useful to me and others. Also, you'd probably get a surge of shit submissions in November from everyone who didn't get their three in.

by tunnuz 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

a_bonobo 10y ago

As long as universities and funding bodies - i.e. your potential employers and the people who give you money - judge you by the quantity of your publications and the impact factor of journals you publish in I'm afraid this won't happen. We'd need a different way to judge someone's scientific output which is definitely hard - do we start to check Twitter or blogs for scientific outreach? Do we judge scientific "novelty" (of which maybe only the author herself/himself is the expert in, so only s/he can properly evaluate)? Do we start to evaluate preprints (biology doesn't do this much)? Many open questions, and not much is happening in terms of change. (Edit: This is, by the way, one of the reasons why there is so much more Arabidopsis than Wheat research - Arabidopsis is easier to manipulate and grows faster, so you can get more publications out for the same amount of work)

wongarsu 10y ago
>As long as universities and funding bodies - i.e. your potential employers and the people who give you money - judge you by the quantity of your publications and the impact factor of journals you publish in I'm afraid this won't happen. Having seen this evaluation process from the inside, it would still work if everyone was limited to ~3 papers per year. In my experience sheer quantity doesn't land you a job, because quantity usually is a detriment to quality. More important factors are the prestige of the journals you published in, whether those journals are relevant to the position, how consistent your publishing record is (is there a five year break?, have you even stopped publishing?). In CS "best paper" awards from conferences also have significant weight. Add to that that fewer papers make it easier to asses their quality, and being limited to three high-quality papers a year isn't a detriment to hiring.

Fomite 10y ago

Some of the work I've done that I like the best have been side musings that wouldn't make the "3 paper" priority cap, but have never the less been useful to me and others. Also, you'd probably get a surge of shit submissions in November from everyone who didn't get their three in.