Talk:Opasnet Journal: Difference between revisions

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== A response to a text regarding peer review in the [http://www.badscience.net/2009/09/medical-hypotheses-fails-the-aids-test/ Bad Science blog] ==
== A response to a text regarding peer review in the [http://www.badscience.net/2009/09/medical-hypotheses-fails-the-aids-test/ Bad Science blog] ==


This response does not explicitly consider any single article or journal, but attempts to provide some fresh ideas in regard to the common current practice of peer review in scientific publishing.
We are researchers in the field of environmental health and work on developing open practices to creation and use of scientifically sound knowledge on issues relevant to environment and health. In our work we have come to identify some important shortcomings in the current practice of publishing scientific information as peer reviewed articles in scientific journals.


We are researchers in the field of environmental health and work on developing open practices to creation and use of scientifically sound knowledge on issues relevant to environment and health. In our work of developing methods and tools to facilitate open, ideally unlimited, collaboration on knowledge creation, dissemination and use, we have come to identify important shortcomings in the currently dominant practice of publishing scientific information as peer reviewed articles in scientific journals.
Many articles are only available to those who subscribe to the journal or purchase the specific article. In addition, long review and publication processes and copyright issues often prevent scientists from publishing their findings openly. Despite the recent increase in open access journals and quickened review processes, the reality of disseminating scientific is still far from being open.


# Articles in many journals, including several with high impact factors, are only available to those who subscribe to the journal or purchase the specific article. In addition, long review and publication processes as well as copyright issues often prevent scientists from publishing their findings openly. Despite the recent increase in open access journals and quickened review processes, the reality of scientific publishing is still far from the ideals of scientific openness.
Scientific meriting based on the number of publications directs scientists to write manuscripts that conform to consensual views and propose only incremental changes to current understanding in order to make them easily acceptable by peer-reviewers. Thereby, although the practice of peer review itself does not necessarily suppress new and provocative ideas, the meriting practice makes scientists themselves to suppress them. It also encourages scientists to keep their data secret in order to maximize the amount of publications based on the data under their own name. It is difficult to see this as beneficial to developing scientific understanding.
# Scientific meriting based on the number of publications, and the impact factor of publishing journals, tends to direct scientists to write manuscripts conforming to the consensual view to things and proposing only incremental changes to the current knowledge base, in order to make the peer-reviewers show green light. Thereby, although the practice of peer review itself does not necessarily suppress new and provocative ideas, the meriting practice makes scientists themselves to suppress them. It also directs scientists to keep their data to themselves, instead of providing it for open use, in order to maximize their personal merit by maximizing the amount of publications based on the data under their own name(s). Furthermore, it promotes making science for science, rather than science for society, making a significant proportion of scientific information redundant, excluding the nominal merit it creates.
# The practice of considering a journal article as the basic unit of scientific information is somewhat misleading, as it diverts the focus too much on things like who did the study and where was it published, instead of what is the result and what evidence and reasoning is there, and what conclusions can be drawn from it? Furthermore, journal articles are static objects that once published, do not develop further. Further development on the issue requires creating new and new articles that overlap and replicate what already existed in the previous articles. As articles considering more or less the same issue can be widely dispersed both in time and across the whole range of different scientific journals, the information base created by the currently dominant publication practice can not be described as anything else than fragmented.


We do not have perfect and complete ready-made solutions to the problems we describe above, but there are some known possible alternative approaches that could be pursued in publishing scientific information.
Furthermore, the common idea of a journal article as the basic unit of scientific information is somewhat misleading. It tends to divert attention too much on things of secondary relevance, such as who did the study, who wrote the article and where was it published, instead of focusing on what are the results, what evidence and reasoning is there, and what conclusions can be drawn? Journal articles are static objects that do not develop after publication. Further development on the issues considered in the article requires creating new articles that mostly consist of reproduction of already published information. As articles  considering similar phenomena can be widely dispersed both in time and across the whole range of different scientific journals, the knowledge base created by the current scientific publication practices can not be honestly described as anything else than fragmented.


# One possibility is to apply the "publish first, review later" principle, as is already done in physics and some related fields of science ([http://arxiv.org/ arXiv]). Open publication policy speeds up the process of getting new ideas out in the open and poses no unnecessary need of suppressing ideas in fear of being rejected. When complemented with a review and evaluation process that addresses articles already published, also the scientific quality of publications becomes controlled and scientific merit awarded to those who deserve it.
There are no perfect and complete ready-made solutions to the problems described above, but some possible approaches are worth mentioning.
# A further step could be to start publishing contributions, reasonings, and evidence on an issue- rather that study-basis. This would require changing the basic unit of publication into "issue" or "phenomenon", rather than "article", and changing the publication media from journals to web-based information bases/workspaces where information is collected and synthesized and collective knowledge is created on an issue-basis in iterative processes.


Changes in the scientific meriting system are necessary if we are to get over the shortcomings incurred by the current publication practices. Different kinds of options are available depending on how radical changes we can imagine to take place in the world of scientific publishing.
# Publish first, review later. This principle is already somewhat applied in physics and some related fields of science (see [http://arxiv.org/ arXiv]). It speeds up the process of getting new ideas published and poses no unnecessary need of suppressing controversial ideas. Review and evaluation procedures can well be designed and implemented so that they address already published articles. We believe that open publication policy complemented with good "review later" practices is rather likely to increase than decrease the scientific quality of publications.
# Publishing in web-based information bases/workspaces. Article databases could be replaced with web-based collaborative workspaces where "publication" takes place in form of contributions to shared pieces of information. Instead of publishing study-based articles, scientists could produce contributions and provide reasonings, and evidence on phenomenon-based shared pieces of information.


* If going for the "publish first, review later" practice, ...
If current publication practices are to be developed, changes in the scientific meriting system are also necessary. Instead of mere number of publications, merit should be awarded based on how much the collective knowledge base improved by scientific contributions. At least in some fields of science, merit should be awarded based on the societal relevance and impacts of research results.
* If taking the scientific publishing towards knowledge sharing and creation in collaborative web-based workspaces would bring about interesting opportunities to reconfigure the meriting system. Keeping track of contributions by different users is a trivial task in wiki-like systems. Individual contributions and their impact on improving the piece of information it relates to could be evaluated
 
 
Mikko Pohjola
Jouni Tuomisto

Revision as of 13:45, 17 September 2009

A response to a text regarding peer review in the Bad Science blog

We are researchers in the field of environmental health and work on developing open practices to creation and use of scientifically sound knowledge on issues relevant to environment and health. In our work we have come to identify some important shortcomings in the current practice of publishing scientific information as peer reviewed articles in scientific journals.

Many articles are only available to those who subscribe to the journal or purchase the specific article. In addition, long review and publication processes and copyright issues often prevent scientists from publishing their findings openly. Despite the recent increase in open access journals and quickened review processes, the reality of disseminating scientific is still far from being open.

Scientific meriting based on the number of publications directs scientists to write manuscripts that conform to consensual views and propose only incremental changes to current understanding in order to make them easily acceptable by peer-reviewers. Thereby, although the practice of peer review itself does not necessarily suppress new and provocative ideas, the meriting practice makes scientists themselves to suppress them. It also encourages scientists to keep their data secret in order to maximize the amount of publications based on the data under their own name. It is difficult to see this as beneficial to developing scientific understanding.

Furthermore, the common idea of a journal article as the basic unit of scientific information is somewhat misleading. It tends to divert attention too much on things of secondary relevance, such as who did the study, who wrote the article and where was it published, instead of focusing on what are the results, what evidence and reasoning is there, and what conclusions can be drawn? Journal articles are static objects that do not develop after publication. Further development on the issues considered in the article requires creating new articles that mostly consist of reproduction of already published information. As articles considering similar phenomena can be widely dispersed both in time and across the whole range of different scientific journals, the knowledge base created by the current scientific publication practices can not be honestly described as anything else than fragmented.

There are no perfect and complete ready-made solutions to the problems described above, but some possible approaches are worth mentioning.

  1. Publish first, review later. This principle is already somewhat applied in physics and some related fields of science (see arXiv). It speeds up the process of getting new ideas published and poses no unnecessary need of suppressing controversial ideas. Review and evaluation procedures can well be designed and implemented so that they address already published articles. We believe that open publication policy complemented with good "review later" practices is rather likely to increase than decrease the scientific quality of publications.
  2. Publishing in web-based information bases/workspaces. Article databases could be replaced with web-based collaborative workspaces where "publication" takes place in form of contributions to shared pieces of information. Instead of publishing study-based articles, scientists could produce contributions and provide reasonings, and evidence on phenomenon-based shared pieces of information.

If current publication practices are to be developed, changes in the scientific meriting system are also necessary. Instead of mere number of publications, merit should be awarded based on how much the collective knowledge base improved by scientific contributions. At least in some fields of science, merit should be awarded based on the societal relevance and impacts of research results.


Mikko Pohjola Jouni Tuomisto

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