4 ms·

How to bring science publishing into the 21st century

50 points by dban 10y ago

untilHellbanned 10y ago
Science publishing needs to be coordinated by the major funding agencies. Those who give the money are the rightful ones to say how the output gets disseminated. If they want to make their own journals and stipulate that I publish there to keep my funding I'm totally cool with it. The funding agency and general population gets its research, I get my tenure, and the university gets its money and prestige. It's a win-win all around.
- merraksh 10y ago
  Science publishing needs to be coordinated by the major funding agencies. Those who give the money are the rightful ones to say how the output gets disseminated. I could not disagree more. Even if funding agencies were unbiased, they should be independent of where and how the results of research are disseminated. Funding agencies don't own that money, they only re-distribute tax-payer money. So it's tax-payers who have the final say (through elected officials). If they want to make their own journals and stipulate that I publish there to keep my funding I'm totally cool with it. This might create dangerous isolation and conflict of interests. The editors must be independent of the funding agencies to ensure quality of the research The funding agency and general population gets its research, I get my tenure, and the university gets its money and prestige. It's a win-win all around. The general population would get the research that was steered by a small group of people from funding agencies (DARPA, NSF), so possibly biased by the people on the agencies' committees and the government. I get my tenure if the tenure committee is aligned with the funding agency's guidelines; the university lowers prestige as the results appear lower-quality in an international settings. It's a lose-lose-lose, humankind's knowledge losing the most. I don't even want to think about private funding agencies commissioning an article on their own journals to further their own economical interests, especially if said journals become the state of the art because other, better journals who would deserve to get the research published on them end up without submissions. Sorry, but I don't see any scenario worse than this.
  - untilHellbanned 10y ago
    > So it's tax-payers who have the final say (through elected officials). And currently, that taxpayer money is going to for-profit companies. What I propose is better. > The editors must be independent of the funding agencies to ensure quality of the research While often well-meaning, editors have almost no role in quality control. That is in hands of academics who review the work. So the review process is already independent of the funding agencies. > The general population would get the research that was steered by a small group of people from funding agencies Again, publishing is already steered by a small group of people who are independent of the funding agencies, the reviewers. > I don't even want to think about private funding agencies commissioning an article to further their own economical interests What? The vast majority of funding agencies are non-profits who genuinely want to help the world. They are motivated to produce research towards AIDS, alternative energy, etc. They are economically motivated? Relative to the for-profits who currently control the academic publishing world?
    - merraksh 10y ago
      And currently, that taxpayer money is going to for-profit companies. What I propose is better. No, research money is going to researchers, publishers get (other) money for different reasons. The cost of maintaining journals would have to be paid as well, so journal subscription money would only go to different for-profit organizations. What you propose does not solve the problem of paywalls, it just moves them. While often well-meaning, editors have almost no role in quality control. Editors choose the reviewers, and actually do a pre-filtering of the submitted papers. The final decision (reject/revise/accept) on a paper is theirs, and sometimes can be different from the sum of the referee reports. So they do have a strong role in quality control, both in theory and in practice. That is in hands of academics who review the work. So the review process is already independent of the funding agencies. As it should be. Again, publishing is already steered by a small group of people who are independent of the funding agencies, the reviewers. Most academicians are reviewers, so they are no small group. And they do not steer publication, they just decide whether a paper should be rejected/revised/accepted. There's quite a difference. What? The vast majority of funding agencies are non-profits who genuinely want to help the world. You assume funding agencies are genuinely trying to help the world, but everybody else (editors/academicians/reviewers) are not. I think there's good and bad in both sides They are motivated to produce research towards AIDS, alternative energy, etc. I agree, but they depend on their employer, i.e., whoever is in power. They are economically motivated? Relative to the for-profits who currently control the academic publishing world? Not as greedy, that's out of question, but giving them all controls on who publishes would be dangerous. I do not defend publishers, I do strongly believe the current system is bad. I just think your solution is wrong, and that there are ways to make research really public without giving it in the hands of any of the players in the arena, especially those that might influence what is published and where. Paywalls are bad, but what you're proposing would lead to self-censorship.
rxm 10y ago
The mechanics of creating a manuscript are not the big problem. Meaningful and honest peer review, assignment of credit among authors and from future developments, better matching between manuscripts and readers are some of the things that I would rank higher.
- apathy 10y ago
  Sure, but a lot of those are tied up in the current single-blind extraordinarily-slow editorial-thumb-on-the-scales system that primarily benefits for-profit publishers. Platforms like Authorea and Overleaf combined with preprint servers can help society journals compete with glamour journals without going broke. Essentially the society journal is destined to become an "overlay" journal where the editor suggests what preprints to look at while they're under review. This should, in principle, encourage actual review. Open review offers another type of incentive. Of course the actual society journal editors can be dinosaurs (and I say this after speaking directly with some of them), but eventually most of them get with the program. I don't know what to do about the glamour journal fetish. Many of my papers in non-glamour journals have dozens of citations, which I think is great, because the glam journal papers (which, granted, have thousands of cites) are mostly cited by people who barely read them. So perhaps you say, well obviously that means the glamour journals have higher impact. Maybe. But I look at similar papers to ours in similarly glamorous journals and they have, say, 2 citations. Or 34 citations. Or whatever, after fighting through review for months. Meanwhile I have preprints and software manuals with more citations than that. But those aren't "for credit" because... shit, I don't even know why not. It's just an administrative quirk. Or something. STAP and #arseniclife and the recent "MS gene" paper in Neuron provide endless examples of the fallacy that "peer reviewed" is necessarily better ("peer review is boosting with three weak learners"). But maybe that isn't the point. As has been said previously, Deans may not know how to read but at least most of them can count. :-/
  - JohnHammersley 10y ago
    Thanks for mentioning Overleaf[1] - we started it to help solve a problem we were having collaborating on LaTeX documents with co-authors based in different timezones - it helped avoid the 'multiple copies of the same doc in multiple email threads' issue, amongst other things. Since we've grown (now at half a million users worldwide), we're now also working to help solve and streamline the submission & publishing process, for many of the same reasons discussed in this article. Feels like change is finally happening, which as a scientist myself is great to see! [1] https://www.overleaf.com https://www.overleaf.com
hyperion2010 10y ago
Met one of the founders at a conference last spring. Great guy and dedicated to improving how papers are written. While Authorea can help with interchange formats and publication formats, by itself it cannot begin to rite the ship of science publishing.
- apathy 10y ago
  Well, you can't apply a technical solution to a social problem and expect it to stick, but the former can make the latter easier to fix by removing (some) inertia. The GitHub approach (free for open, pay for private) seems sensible. I worry sometimes whether that is sustainable for GitHub, but given the competition out there (e.g. Overleaf, which I use quite regularly), I'm hopeful it will work out.
sevenless 10y ago
1. Get rid of the publishers. Considering the WWW was created for the purpose of sharing physics papers, the rest will take care of itself. The problem isn't technology, it's oligopoly.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > The problem isn't technology, it's oligopoly. The problem isn't technology, it's copyright laws.
  - astazangasta 10y ago
    The problem isn't technology, it's intellectual property. Really any sort of property is just a way to concentrate power. We are just making the calculation that the result of this accrual will produce benefits for all. Often this calculation is off by a few orders of magnitude.
denzil_correa 10y ago
Please do not get acquired by one of the publishers.
sethish 10y ago
Does this feel like creating a new gate keeper to anyone else? What happens when the start up closes?

50 points by dban 10y ago

Science publishing needs to be coordinated by the major funding agencies. Those who give the money are the rightful ones to say how the output gets disseminated. If they want to make their own journals and stipulate that I publish there to keep my funding I'm totally cool with it. The funding agency and general population gets its research, I get my tenure, and the university gets its money and prestige. It's a win-win all around.

merraksh 10y ago
Science publishing needs to be coordinated by the major funding agencies. Those who give the money are the rightful ones to say how the output gets disseminated. I could not disagree more. Even if funding agencies were unbiased, they should be independent of where and how the results of research are disseminated. Funding agencies don't own that money, they only re-distribute tax-payer money. So it's tax-payers who have the final say (through elected officials). If they want to make their own journals and stipulate that I publish there to keep my funding I'm totally cool with it. This might create dangerous isolation and conflict of interests. The editors must be independent of the funding agencies to ensure quality of the research The funding agency and general population gets its research, I get my tenure, and the university gets its money and prestige. It's a win-win all around. The general population would get the research that was steered by a small group of people from funding agencies (DARPA, NSF), so possibly biased by the people on the agencies' committees and the government. I get my tenure if the tenure committee is aligned with the funding agency's guidelines; the university lowers prestige as the results appear lower-quality in an international settings. It's a lose-lose-lose, humankind's knowledge losing the most. I don't even want to think about private funding agencies commissioning an article on their own journals to further their own economical interests, especially if said journals become the state of the art because other, better journals who would deserve to get the research published on them end up without submissions. Sorry, but I don't see any scenario worse than this.
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  > So it's tax-payers who have the final say (through elected officials). And currently, that taxpayer money is going to for-profit companies. What I propose is better. > The editors must be independent of the funding agencies to ensure quality of the research While often well-meaning, editors have almost no role in quality control. That is in hands of academics who review the work. So the review process is already independent of the funding agencies. > The general population would get the research that was steered by a small group of people from funding agencies Again, publishing is already steered by a small group of people who are independent of the funding agencies, the reviewers. > I don't even want to think about private funding agencies commissioning an article to further their own economical interests What? The vast majority of funding agencies are non-profits who genuinely want to help the world. They are motivated to produce research towards AIDS, alternative energy, etc. They are economically motivated? Relative to the for-profits who currently control the academic publishing world?
  - merraksh 10y ago
    And currently, that taxpayer money is going to for-profit companies. What I propose is better. No, research money is going to researchers, publishers get (other) money for different reasons. The cost of maintaining journals would have to be paid as well, so journal subscription money would only go to different for-profit organizations. What you propose does not solve the problem of paywalls, it just moves them. While often well-meaning, editors have almost no role in quality control. Editors choose the reviewers, and actually do a pre-filtering of the submitted papers. The final decision (reject/revise/accept) on a paper is theirs, and sometimes can be different from the sum of the referee reports. So they do have a strong role in quality control, both in theory and in practice. That is in hands of academics who review the work. So the review process is already independent of the funding agencies. As it should be. Again, publishing is already steered by a small group of people who are independent of the funding agencies, the reviewers. Most academicians are reviewers, so they are no small group. And they do not steer publication, they just decide whether a paper should be rejected/revised/accepted. There's quite a difference. What? The vast majority of funding agencies are non-profits who genuinely want to help the world. You assume funding agencies are genuinely trying to help the world, but everybody else (editors/academicians/reviewers) are not. I think there's good and bad in both sides They are motivated to produce research towards AIDS, alternative energy, etc. I agree, but they depend on their employer, i.e., whoever is in power. They are economically motivated? Relative to the for-profits who currently control the academic publishing world? Not as greedy, that's out of question, but giving them all controls on who publishes would be dangerous. I do not defend publishers, I do strongly believe the current system is bad. I just think your solution is wrong, and that there are ways to make research really public without giving it in the hands of any of the players in the arena, especially those that might influence what is published and where. Paywalls are bad, but what you're proposing would lead to self-censorship.

rxm 10y ago

The mechanics of creating a manuscript are not the big problem. Meaningful and honest peer review, assignment of credit among authors and from future developments, better matching between manuscripts and readers are some of the things that I would rank higher.

apathy 10y ago
Sure, but a lot of those are tied up in the current single-blind extraordinarily-slow editorial-thumb-on-the-scales system that primarily benefits for-profit publishers. Platforms like Authorea and Overleaf combined with preprint servers can help society journals compete with glamour journals without going broke. Essentially the society journal is destined to become an "overlay" journal where the editor suggests what preprints to look at while they're under review. This should, in principle, encourage actual review. Open review offers another type of incentive. Of course the actual society journal editors can be dinosaurs (and I say this after speaking directly with some of them), but eventually most of them get with the program. I don't know what to do about the glamour journal fetish. Many of my papers in non-glamour journals have dozens of citations, which I think is great, because the glam journal papers (which, granted, have thousands of cites) are mostly cited by people who barely read them. So perhaps you say, well obviously that means the glamour journals have higher impact. Maybe. But I look at similar papers to ours in similarly glamorous journals and they have, say, 2 citations. Or 34 citations. Or whatever, after fighting through review for months. Meanwhile I have preprints and software manuals with more citations than that. But those aren't "for credit" because... shit, I don't even know why not. It's just an administrative quirk. Or something. STAP and #arseniclife and the recent "MS gene" paper in Neuron provide endless examples of the fallacy that "peer reviewed" is necessarily better ("peer review is boosting with three weak learners"). But maybe that isn't the point. As has been said previously, Deans may not know how to read but at least most of them can count. :-/
- JohnHammersley 10y ago
  Thanks for mentioning Overleaf[1] - we started it to help solve a problem we were having collaborating on LaTeX documents with co-authors based in different timezones - it helped avoid the 'multiple copies of the same doc in multiple email threads' issue, amongst other things. Since we've grown (now at half a million users worldwide), we're now also working to help solve and streamline the submission & publishing process, for many of the same reasons discussed in this article. Feels like change is finally happening, which as a scientist myself is great to see! [1] https://www.overleaf.com https://www.overleaf.com

hyperion2010 10y ago

Met one of the founders at a conference last spring. Great guy and dedicated to improving how papers are written. While Authorea can help with interchange formats and publication formats, by itself it cannot begin to rite the ship of science publishing.

apathy 10y ago
Well, you can't apply a technical solution to a social problem and expect it to stick, but the former can make the latter easier to fix by removing (some) inertia. The GitHub approach (free for open, pay for private) seems sensible. I worry sometimes whether that is sustainable for GitHub, but given the competition out there (e.g. Overleaf, which I use quite regularly), I'm hopeful it will work out.

sevenless 10y ago

1. Get rid of the publishers. Considering the WWW was created for the purpose of sharing physics papers, the rest will take care of itself. The problem isn't technology, it's oligopoly.

wolfgke 10y ago
> The problem isn't technology, it's oligopoly. The problem isn't technology, it's copyright laws.
- astazangasta 10y ago
  The problem isn't technology, it's intellectual property. Really any sort of property is just a way to concentrate power. We are just making the calculation that the result of this accrual will produce benefits for all. Often this calculation is off by a few orders of magnitude.

denzil_correa 10y ago

Please do not get acquired by one of the publishers.

sethish 10y ago

Does this feel like creating a new gate keeper to anyone else? What happens when the start up closes?