22/11/2016 ImpactofSocialSciencesThecaseagainstthejournalarticle:Theageofpublisherauthorityisgoing,going,goneandwellbejustfine.

The case against the journal article: The age of publisher authority is
going, going, gone and well be just fine.

Heidi Laine evaluates the often unsubstantiated claim that the journal article is
centraltotheresearchcommunicationprocess.Isaformalarticlereallysuchalawof
nature?Shearguesthatthejournalarticle(atleastasweknowit)willbecomeathing
of the past. It will soon be replaced by articlestyle narrative reports, blogs, wikis,
videoandaudiorecordings,conferencepapersandpresentations.

It seems that the academic article is currently more part of the problem than the solution for the
scientificcommunity.Theraceforthebiggestimpactandthesocalledpublishorperishmentality
areresponsibleformanyethicallydubiouspractices,suchasdissectingresearchresultsinorderto
producethemaximumnumberofarticles,inflatinglistsofreferencedarticlesandcoauthorstoboost
impactfactors,anddatajealousy(asineventhoughIdonthaveanyuseforthisdataanymore,I
sure as hell am not publishing it to benefit my competitors). Even though these practices cant be
cataloged under scientific misconduct or fraud, they give science a bad name and jeopardize the
qualityofpublishedresearch.

Iamrelativelynewtotheresearchmakingscene,soIgettoaskbasicquestions,suchaswhyon
earthdowerelyonthesejournalsandtheirarticles,hoggingmoneyfromtaxpayers,copyrightsfrom
researchers, creating distorted incentives? Does the system serve some function that could not be
metbyanyothermeans?Letssee.

Function1:Disseminationofscientificknowledge

Haveyouheardoftheinternet?Letsgoanddisseminatethere(orhere)alldaylong.Ofcoursethere
isapossibilityofyounger,notyetestablished,researcherslosingtheirvoiceintothenoise,butIdont
thinkitsmuchdifferentinthecurrentsituation.ThereareonlysomanyarticlesScienceandNature
can publish. The challenge of being heard is one that can be overcome by putting more effort into
teachingundergraduateandgraduatestudentssciencecommunicationskills.

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Image credit:Open Authority by Emily Litsey (Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Function2:Discussingscienceamongpeers

Ithinkthejournalarticlefailsmiserablyinthisrespect,bothinspeedandinclusiveness.Publishingan
articletakesages,publishingacomebackarticletakesequallylong.Theamountofpeoplewhocan
play this pingpong are limited, even if one of the articles has 5000 coauthors. There is loads of
academic discussion going on in Twitter, ResearchGate, blogs Anyone can participate and its in
realtime. A comment posted on a blog isnt as thorough as an article, but consider an entire
discussion: it can sometimes hold enough novel ideas for a dozen articles. The peerreview gets
taken care of on the side, since the discussants are (trolls and other beside the point comments
aside) peers reviewing each others contributions. The original Polymath Project is a powerful
exampleofthis.(Disclaimer:AsahistorianbyoriginIlovethemonograph,longuedureandhistoire
totale. Im all for doing things that require time, thoroughness and narrative. Realtime scientific
discussionandtakingyourtimeresearchshouldntbemutuallyexclusive.)

Function3:Maintainingthequalityofscientificresearchthroughpeerreview

Journalsarenotdoingtoogoodofajobhereeither.ThinkforexampleoftheMichaelLaCourscase,
or Diederik Stapel, father of 60 retracted articles, both of whom published in eminent journals.
Anotherexample:anauthorwasaskedtoaddmalecoauthorsinordertonotdriftintoideologically
basedassumptions.OneresponsetothechallengecamelastweekwhenanAmericanbodycalled
the Transparency and Openness Promotion Committee published their guidelines for journals in
Science.Theirmotivationwastomovescientificcommunication toward greater openness.Tome,
theguidelinesarefine,inprinciple,encouragingjournalstodemandstrongerproofofreproducibility
and more data transparency from publishedtobe research. The problem is that they lack any
mention of open peer review, open source, open data or open access. The article states that the
journal article is central to the research communication process., without giving any arguments to
back the claim up. Is it really such a law of nature? To me a far better solution than the above
mentionedguidelineswouldbeanopenpeerreview,alongthelinesofOpenSciencePeerReview
Oath. Instead of journals, the review process could be handled by, say, the numerous learned
societies,suchasscienceacademiesandscientificassociations(theywouldneedmoreresources,
butwhenthejournalsstopbleedingresearchfunderstherewillbemorecakeleftforeveryone).

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22/11/2016 ImpactofSocialSciencesThecaseagainstthejournalarticle:Theageofpublisherauthorityisgoing,going,goneandwellbejustfine.

Function4:Helpingtocalculatetheimpactfactorandsodetermineacademicmerit

I wonder how anyone in the nonacademic world ever gets recruited or funded. I mean they dont
have the impact factor! How can they evaluate the successfulness of a person/business/endeavor
withoutjournalbasedmetrics?Oh,theyevaluateeachcaseindividuallyandqualitatively,lookingfor
examples on their CVs, noting the things they have accomplished, talking to them in order to find
abouttheirpersonality,theircompetences,etc.?Imeanwhodoestheimpactfactorreallyserve?The
government,theaccountants?Notscience,thatsforsure.Ifthegovernmentcancutfundingwithout
firstcheckingtheimpactfactororPublicationForumclassification,theyshouldbecapableofdoing
theoppositeaswell.

ItsstartingtofeellikeanemperorwithoutclothestypeofsituationandImgoingtocallitifnoone
else will: Open Access publishing is a transition period solution. The journal article (at least as we
knowit)willbecomeathingofthepast,andrathersoonerthanlater.Itwillbereplacedbyarticlestyle
narrative reports, blogs, wikis, video and audio recordings, conference papers and presentations,
documentaryfilms,whatever.Thismightsoundlikeuncontrollablechaosanditprobablyis.Butwhy
try to herd cats, when you can watch them on a cute viral video? We are already finding our daily
doseofinformationviapeers,socialmedia,traditionalmedia,randomgooglingandwhatnot.Theage
ofauthoritiesliketheaforementionedNatureandScienceisgoing,going,gone.Wejusthavetolive
with it. I think well manage fine. (Second disclaimer: I too am planning on writing and publishing
articles.Ihavetodothatinordertohavemydissertationformallyapproved.)

BTW, the Open Knowledge Foundation Finland Open Science Working Group (jeez, we need a
catchiername)isplanningonaworkshopproposalfortheAcademicMindtrekConferenceaboutthis
issue(PublicationForumclassificationlevel1!).

This piece originally appeared on the authors personal blog and is reposted under Creative
CommonsAttributionlicenceCCBY4.0.

Note:Thisarticlegivestheviewsoftheauthors,andnotthepositionoftheImpactofSocialScience
blog,noroftheLondonSchoolofEconomics.PleasereviewourCommentsPolicyifyouhaveany
concernsonpostingacommentbelow.

AbouttheAuthor

HeidiLaine(@heidiklaine)isadoctoralcandidateattheUniversityofHelsinki.Herresearchfocuses
on responsible conduct for research. She also coordinates the Open Knowledge Finland Open
Scienceworkinggroup.

July 14th, 2015 | Academic Publishing, Impact, Open Access, Social Media | 16 Comments

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