I agree with Tassos - and don't deny the power of evolution. Choice of journals, submissions, peer review, editorial assistance and citations are all in our hands - publishing has become what we have made it. We can argue that we want it differently (and to stay in the evolution terms: I also know of a number of life forms that do really stupid things), but it is not easy to play God, change things rationally and make it work.
I like the online methods sections with e.g. Nature papers that also come with the pdf - they also count for citations, the citations are not within the manuscript allowance on numbers, they get peer reviewed and they actually leave quite a lot of space for readers to understand the experiments and for authors to cite methods properly. Easy fix in my mind. Also we do need printed journals still - I don't know how often I find great stuff that I didn't know to search for if I hadn't being going over it in a disconnected moment. Poul On 18/11/2010, at 11.47, Anastassis Perrakis wrote: > > On Nov 18, 2010, at 11:18, James Stroud wrote: > >> The future of publishing will be >> >> (1) Publish your own work >> (2) Peer review by the entire community > > Although I have been remarkably bad at predicting the future, I still like > attempting to do so ...! > This will not happen ...! ;-) > > To be honest, I am not even sure its a great idea ... > > Let me outline what I think are problems of peer review: > > 1. 'review by last author name'. Very often the last author is well known, or > a friend, and the reviewers' critical judgement takes a temporary leave of > abesnse. > 2. 'preferred reviewers'. a double edged sword .. think about it. > 3. too much power of decision on editors (professional or academic) being > able to reject papers without peer-review in many journals. > 4. Bad refereeing - sometimes I wonder if people read the paper. > 5. Lack of referee expertise: you get papers these days with: a structure, > some biochemistry, some SAXS, some biophysics, and a cell based assay. Two or > three people being > able to pick up all the mistakes is very unlikely. > > Having outlines these, I can see ways that all can be amplified if you just > publish all your work, and anybody can comment on it: > Pairing to the above problems, you just amplify them: > > 1. Even more tempting to earn brownie points online! > 2. you can ask your friends or I can ask your enemies to review > 3. the other way around: far too many things out... how to filter ? > 4. Lack of 'obligation', or even fear to make yourself look like a fool to > the editors, will make commenting even more sloppy > 5. People that think they are experts dwell on meaningless technicalities. > > Peer review is like democracy, its the worst publication system we can have, > except the ones that have been tried or suggested ... > > A. > > >> (3) Citation = Link >> >> #3 makes it work. >> >> Give it 25 years. The journals won't be in the position to lobby lawmakers >> to prevent this trend if we make sure the journals die so slowly that they >> don't realize it. >> >> James >> >> >> On Nov 18, 2010, at 1:14 AM, John R Helliwell wrote: >> >>> Dear Jacob, >>> Your posting reminds me of a Research Information Network Conference I >>> went to in 2006 in London. >>> Your views coincide with a presenter there, Peter Mika. >>> His talk can be found at:- >>> http://www.rin.ac.uk/news/events/data-webs-new-visions-research-data-web >>> In his talk he referred to:- openacademia.org >>> Peter Mika and I were on the Closing Panel; he advocated that >>> refereeing is an imposition on a researcher's >>> individual freedom and thus he/she should 'publish' their work on >>> their own website. By contrast, I argued in favour of >>> Journals and peer review, both with respect to my articles and my >>> experiences as an Editor of more than one Journal. >>> >>> I would be happy to continue corresponding on this not least as >>> publication should be a varied spectrum of options. >>> Also I feel obliged to say that one cannot apply simply, by rote, >>> 'Learned Society publisher is good', 'commercial publisher is bad'; >>> there are exceptions in both camps. [in effect this was the tone of my >>> last posting.] >>> >>> Greetings, >>> John >>> >>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 8:13 PM, Jacob Keller >>> <j-kell...@fsm.northwestern.edu> wrote: >>>> I guess the practice of being "on your best behavior" is good in terms >>>> of getting the research trimmed into shape, but there is a huge >>>> temptation to fudge things to get published, and to hide unpleasant >>>> artifacts, as can be seen by the many recent (and not so recent) >>>> scandals. Maybe as a lab website things would be more open. Also, >>>> having a comments section always seemed like an excellent idea to me, >>>> even for journals as they are, but would be really easy to implement >>>> in a website. I would love to read comments from others in the field >>>> about the papers I read, as sometimes people can help to point out >>>> gaping holes where one might not see them otherwise. It would be like >>>> "journal club" for the whole scientific community. >>>> >>>> Jacob >>>> >>>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Jrh <jrhelliw...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> Dear Jacob >>>>> Re journals out of the window:- >>>>> Well, like democracy, journals may not be ideal but I believe other >>>>> alternatives such as free for all personal website publishing, are worse. >>>>> So, journals that are community driven offer an optimal approach, >>>>> critically based on specialist peer review. That is why our community >>>>> effort IUCr Journals I believe are so important. Open access, where we >>>>> can sustain it financially, also can convey access to the widest >>>>> readership ie that the high impact magazines currently, mainly, command. >>>>> All best wishes, >>>>> John >>>>> Prof John R Helliwell DSc >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 17 Nov 2010, at 18:28, Jacob Keller <j-kell...@fsm.northwestern.edu> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Supplementary info seems to me to be a double-edged sword--I just read >>>>>> a Nature article that had 45 pages of supplementary info. This means >>>>>> that you get a lot more for your money, but all of the methods and >>>>>> >>>>>> Why not have papers be as long as the authors want, now that almost >>>>>> everything is internet-based? It would make the papers much more >>>>>> organized overall, and would obviate the reference issue mentioned in >>>>>> this thread. To avoid them being too too long, reviewers could object >>>>>> to long-windedness etc. But, it would definitely make for a more >>>>>> complete "lab notebook of the scientific community," assuming that >>>>>> that is what we are after. >>>>>> >>>>>> Incidentally, I have been curious in the past why journals are not >>>>>> going out the window themselves--why not have individual labs just >>>>>> post their most recent data and interpretations on their own websites, >>>>>> with a comments section perhaps? (I know there are about a thousand >>>>>> cynical reasons why not...) One could even have a place for >>>>>> "reliability rating" or "impact rating" on each new chunk of data. >>>>>> Anyway, it would be much more like a real-time, public lab notebook, >>>>>> and would make interaction much faster, and cut out the publishing >>>>>> middlemen. >>>>>> >>>>>> JPK >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Phoebe Rice <pr...@uchicago.edu> wrote: >>>>>>> Another unfortunate aspect of this sort of editorial policy is that >>>>>>> many of these papers contain almost no technical information at all, >>>>>>> except for the supplement. I've started to avoid using Nature papers >>>>>>> for class discussions becuase they leave the students so puzzled, and >>>>>>> with a glossiness-is-all-that-matters idea of science. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ===================================== >>>>>>> Phoebe A. Rice >>>>>>> Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology >>>>>>> The University of Chicago >>>>>>> phone 773 834 1723 >>>>>>> http://bmb.bsd.uchicago.edu/Faculty_and_Research/01_Faculty/01_Faculty_Alphabetically.php?faculty_id=123 >>>>>>> http://www.rsc.org/shop/books/2008/9780854042722.asp >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ---- Original message ---- >>>>>>>> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:12:26 +0000 >>>>>>>> From: CCP4 bulletin board <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> (on behalf of John R >>>>>>>> Helliwell <jrhelliw...@gmail.com>) >>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Citations in supplementary material >>>>>>>> To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Dear Victor, >>>>>>>> I strongly support the stance that is in the Acta D Editorial. >>>>>>>> Manfred Weiss worked very hard assembling those details and over quite >>>>>>>> some time; he deserves our thanks. >>>>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>>>> John >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Victor Lamzin >>>>>>>> <vic...@embl-hamburg.de> wrote: >>>>>>>>> Dear All, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I would like to bring to your attention the recent Editorial in Acta >>>>>>>>> Cryst D >>>>>>>>> (http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2010/12/00/issconts.html), which >>>>>>>>> highlights the long-standing issue of under-citation of papers >>>>>>>>> published in >>>>>>>>> the IUCr journals. The Editorial, having looked at the papers >>>>>>>>> published in >>>>>>>>> 2009 in Nature, Science, Cell and PNAS, concluded: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> 'almost half of all references to publications in IUCr journals end >>>>>>>>> up being >>>>>>>>> published in the supplementary material only... Not only does this >>>>>>>>> mean that >>>>>>>>> the impact factor of IUCr journals should be higher, but also that >>>>>>>>> the real >>>>>>>>> overall numbers of citations of methods papers are much higher than >>>>>>>>> what is >>>>>>>>> reported, for instance, by the Web of Science' >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Although this topic may seem to concern mostly methods developers, I >>>>>>>>> think >>>>>>>>> the whole research community will only benefit from more fair credit >>>>>>>>> that we >>>>>>>>> all give to our colleagues via referencing their publications. What >>>>>>>>> do you >>>>>>>>> think? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Victor >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>>> Professor John R Helliwell DSc >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Professor John R Helliwell DSc > > P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to > Anastassis (Tassos) Perrakis, Principal Investigator / Staff Member > Department of Biochemistry (B8) > Netherlands Cancer Institute, > Dept. B8, 1066 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands > Tel: +31 20 512 1951 Fax: +31 20 512 1954 Mobile / SMS: +31 6 28 597791 > > > >
