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Right now, "I published in Nature" is simply a proxy for "I published an important paper." or "I am a productive faculty member." I certainly agree that these a
by xaa 14y ago
Right now, "I published in Nature" is simply a proxy for "I published an important paper." or "I am a productive faculty member." I certainly agree that these are valuable messages to signal.
My entire point was that better and more objective ways are being developed that can signal this same message, while cutting out the cost and inconvenience of the journal middleman. The exact recipe for these better ways is still an open question, but I do know several people who are working on it, and I listed several specific examples.
Branding no doubt plays a role. But there is already a major trend towards downplaying branding in favor of more objective metrics like impact factor and the H-index. And I do hope that science can be held to a slightly higher standard of objectivity than the general economy (maybe that's too idealistic?).
- nooneelse 14y ago> And I do hope that science can be held to a slightly higher standard of objectivity than the general economy (maybe that's too idealistic?). Doesn't sound to idealistic to this science-oriented engineer. With the field of scientometrics, the feedback loops look like they can be closed entirely within the domain of science instead of needing to extend outside of it to be closed. There is no reason to think that actual experimental studies can't be brought to bear on the matter of what ranking/organizing metrics of papers/research best (for various definitions of 'best') help scientists do their work. Also no a priori reason I can see why various fields would converge to the same measures; or that those most used within science would be the ones that the press, students, people external to the fields, and such would find most helpful.