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The current system for publishing needs to be overhauled. This is difficult because those early in their careers have to establish themselves, and publications
by chestervonwinch 9y ago
The current system for publishing needs to be overhauled. This is difficult because those early in their careers have to establish themselves, and publications are the de facto metric for doing so. However, number-of-publications is not necessarily an accurate surrogate for the quality of a person's work since all journals do not have equally rigorous review processes (or any review process as shown by this article and many others).
Long term solutions for this problem often focus on (1) new systems for reviewing/publishing scientific work as a means to make number-of-publications a more accurate quantifier of the quality a researcher's body of work, or (2) incorporating metrics other than publications.
What about short term solutions? What about an IMDB-like review and rating system for publications? This way, researchers still publish wherever they like, but could be potentially reviewed by a independent system. Would such a system be too readily game-able?
- pzs 9y agoThe main challenge that I can see is that it takes real effort to review papers. Without that effort "popular" publications may end up spreading materially wrong results. The shortcoming of current peer review systems is that anonymous peer reviewers are expected to put in this work without receiving commensurate (not necessarily monetary) compensation.
- searine 9y ago> incorporating metrics other than publications. This is qualitative and easily gamed though. Science can get mean and highly political. Adding a qualitative metric to scientific achievement would just give ruthless people a tool to hurt good scientists. Science is a small world. Among your peers in the field, it's not your number of publications that matter but the quality of that work. Your results build your reputation, and that is what gets you jobs.