4 ms·
Now that it's free and easy to take photos and videos, I don't understand why research papers don't come with copious attached media showing methods.
by FriedPickles 7y ago
Now that it's free and easy to take photos and videos, I don't understand why research papers don't come with copious attached media showing methods.
- wyattpeak 7y agoI don't know that adding material kitchen-sink-style would necessarily be helpful. Something loaded down with hundreds of pages of addenda is as likely to make itself harder to follow as it is easier, as well as adding considerably to writing and editing time. If a point is unclear it'll likely be caught by reviewers, if it's not the researcher's contact details are there on the paper.
- nwah1 7y agoIf websites and footnotes are structured well, it should be quite easy to allow people to dive more deeply into such things without distracting those who don't care.
- wyattpeak 7y agoTwo concerns: - I'm unconvinced that hyperlinked websites are a good idea as a primary format for research. Research needs to be accessible in perpetuity. We've proven atrocious at keeping websites available and software running. - Lots of properly structured footnotes and labelled photos are, as I mentioned earlier, a large timesink. Writing papers is already a substantial time investment, which both distracts from other research and can dissuade researchers from publishing more minor results. Both of these are superable for the right reasons (e.g. CS research by its nature needs digital components), but adding material because photos are cheap isn't to my mind the right reason.
- nwah1 7y agoUsing lab automation equipment, and listing out which equipment was used is another step in the right direction. I'm thinking about it from the perspective of a software developer for whom things like jenkinsfiles, vagrantfiles, and CloudFormation templates are a thing. Science should have a similar standardized domain-specific way to specify their experiment setup procedures.
- wyattpeak 7y agoScience does have a standardised domain-specific way to specify their experiment setup procedures. Scientists do list out which equipment they use. I think you're overstating the case for more addenda to the point of sophistry. All specification systems have weaknesses, and there are good reasons why those weaknesses are tolerated. The mere statement that a specification could be more accurate, without engaging with those reasons, isn't productive.
- s1dev 7y agoJournals often charge extra publication fees per figure. Any supplementary material also needs to be available decades from now
- gchamonlive 7y agoCan somebody in the academia explain to me the upsides of using journals to publish articles?
- allovernow 7y agoInstitutional momentum and lack of legitimate alternative.
- gchamonlive 7y agocloud computing is relatively cheap, could't the universities themselves or labs host their publications? I mean, the contents of the paper should be enough by itself to prompt momentum, otherwise is it worth publishing the paper at all?
- qmmmur 7y agoSo you're incessant line manager can justify your job to their line manager ad infinitum till you hit someone who is overpaid and doesnt see you as a person.
- taneq 7y agoMaybe they could use some of the gratuitously high fees they charge for access to the paper to fund the ongoing storage requirements? Especially given that storage costs tend to drop faster than material to be stored accrues.
- 45ure 7y agoA criticism offered by a Nobel prize winner, who slammed this practice as fashion journalism. Randy Schekman, a US biologist who won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine this year and receives his prize in Stockholm on Tuesday, said his lab would no longer send research papers to the top-tier journals, Nature, Cell and Science. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner...