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I've thought about this as well and for me the reason to want to publish a paper would be some kind of sense of accomplishment despite not being an academic. Pr
by drakonka 8y ago
I've thought about this as well and for me the reason to want to publish a paper would be some kind of sense of accomplishment despite not being an academic. Producing a piece of work that is accepted as somehow useful to the world and meets the standards of academic peer review would be a great feeling. The barrier to entry is partly what makes it enticing - anyone can publish a blog, not anyone can publish a paper in anything but the lowest calibre of journals. Your comment is certainly making me stop and think twice about how much of the peer review process is legitimate criticism and how much is politics - does the author of the paper get the feedback given during the peer review process directly? If so it feels like it might still be useful.
- austinjp 8y agoI seriously believe that the "cachet" that traditional publishing confers is a major block that prevents innovation in this area. For the racket of academic publishing to be upended, there has to be motivation. This remains the unsolved problems. Opportunity and capability already exist in forms such as blogs, pre-print servers, etc. However, cachet is inevitably conferred by powerful monopolies. For example, some universities are trying to upset the Elsevier applecart by moving their publishing to in-house presses. But this simply shifts the power from one giant to another. Producing an open platform that avoids monopolising but still confers favourable reputation seems very hard.