Dan Goodman on Nostr: Scientific publishing reform thought inspired by US election. Those of us who push ...
Scientific publishing reform thought inspired by US election.
Those of us who push for publishing reform can sometimes be a little - how should I put it - self-righteous. And I think this might be harming our efforts to engage with scientists who just see us saying that you can't publish in XYZ journal that they feel they need to publish in for their careers, and then instantly turn off.
I suspect that at least part of the US election result is due to the same attitude by the Democrats, although I doubt it's enough to explain the whole result.
I think we don't need to compromise our beliefs or suggest reforms that are weaker than we think are necessary, but maybe we need to engage a little bit more with people where they are at, and offer them something of value. This is the big thing that the Democrats failed at I think. They weren't offering to make life better in the short term. They were saying put us in charge and eventually maybe life will be slightly less worse, but it's hard to get that excited by that.
So what could we offer?
I think the big - maybe only? - success of the publishing reform movement is preprint servers. These offer something of immediate value and they've seen huge growth. Can we build something equally valuable that pushes the argument a little bit further?
I don't know that new journals built on open principles is enough, because new journals not from established publishers struggle to get enough recognition to count in researcher assessment. I've seen a lot of efforts founder for this reason. They offer a nice alternative but no reason for people to use it, and many reasons not to (submitting to a nice but low rank journal stops you from submitting the same paper to a less good but higher impact journal that will be better for your career).
What else can we do? I have some thoughts but I'd like to hear others' ideas too.
Those of us who push for publishing reform can sometimes be a little - how should I put it - self-righteous. And I think this might be harming our efforts to engage with scientists who just see us saying that you can't publish in XYZ journal that they feel they need to publish in for their careers, and then instantly turn off.
I suspect that at least part of the US election result is due to the same attitude by the Democrats, although I doubt it's enough to explain the whole result.
I think we don't need to compromise our beliefs or suggest reforms that are weaker than we think are necessary, but maybe we need to engage a little bit more with people where they are at, and offer them something of value. This is the big thing that the Democrats failed at I think. They weren't offering to make life better in the short term. They were saying put us in charge and eventually maybe life will be slightly less worse, but it's hard to get that excited by that.
So what could we offer?
I think the big - maybe only? - success of the publishing reform movement is preprint servers. These offer something of immediate value and they've seen huge growth. Can we build something equally valuable that pushes the argument a little bit further?
I don't know that new journals built on open principles is enough, because new journals not from established publishers struggle to get enough recognition to count in researcher assessment. I've seen a lot of efforts founder for this reason. They offer a nice alternative but no reason for people to use it, and many reasons not to (submitting to a nice but low rank journal stops you from submitting the same paper to a less good but higher impact journal that will be better for your career).
What else can we do? I have some thoughts but I'd like to hear others' ideas too.