scholarly journals Beyond Journals and Peer Review: Towards a More Flexible Ecosystem for Scholarly Communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wood
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Publishing Research ◽  
Web Based ◽  
User Reviews ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
New Ideas

This article challenges the assumption that journals and peer review are essential for developing, evaluating and disseminating scientific and other academic knowledge. It suggests a more flexible ecosystem, and examines some of the possibilities this might facilitate. The market for academic outputs should be opened up by encouraging the separation of the dissemination service from the evaluation service. Publishing research in subject-specific journals encourages compartmentalizing research into rigid categories. The dissemination of knowledge would be better served by an open access, web-based repository system encompassing all disciplines. Reviews from peers should be supplemented by reviews from non-peers from a variety of different perspectives: user reviews, statistical reviews, reviews from the perspective of different disciplines, and so on. This should reduce the inevitably conservative influence of relying on two or three peers, and make the evaluation system more critical, multi-dimensional and responsive to the requirements of different audience groups, changing circumstances, and new ideas. Non-peer review might make it easier to challenge dominant paradigms, and expanding the potential audience beyond a narrow group of peers might encourage the criterion of simplicity to be taken more seriously - which is essential if knowledge is to continue to progress.

scholarly journals Beyond Journals and Peer Review: Towards a More Flexible Ecosystem for Scholarly Communication

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wood
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Publishing Research ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Quality Work ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
New Ideas

This article challenges the assumption that journals and peer review are essential for developing, evaluating and disseminating scientific and other academic knowledge. It suggests a more flexible ecosystem, and examines some of the possibilities this might facilitate. The market for academic outputs should be opened up by encouraging the separation of the dissemination service from the evaluation service. Publishing research in subject-specific journals encourages compartmentalising research into rigid categories. The dissemination of knowledge would be better served by an open access, web-based repository system encompassing all disciplines. There would then be a role for organisations to assess the items in this repository to help users find relevant, high-quality work. There could be a variety of such organisations which could enable reviews from peers to be supplemented with evaluation by non-peers from a variety of different perspectives: user reviews, statistical reviews, reviews from the perspective of different disciplines, and so on. This should reduce the inevitably conservative influence of relying on two or three peers, and make the evaluation system more critical, multi-dimensional and responsive to the requirements of different audience groups, changing circumstances, and new ideas. Non-peer review might make it easier to challenge dominant paradigms, and expanding the potential audience beyond a narrow group of peers might encourage the criterion of simplicity to be taken more seriously - which is essential if human knowledge is to continue to progress.

Faculty Attitudes Towards Open Access Publishing, E-Print Servers and Institutional Repositories

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Wust
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Faculty Attitudes ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Etude Qualitative

This qualitative study investigates how faculty gather information for teaching and research and their opinions on open access approaches to scholarly communication. Despite generally favorable reactions, a perceived lack of peer review and impact factors were among the most common reasons for not publishing through open-access forums.Cette étude qualitative examine comment les membres du corps professoral recueillent l’information pour l’enseignement et la recherche, et leurs opinions envers les approches de la communication scientifique à libre accès. Malgré des réactions généralement favorables, le manque perçu de révision par les pairs et les facteurs d’impact comptent parmi les motifs habituellement évoqués pour ne pas publier sur ces tribunes à libre accès. 

scholarly journals Open Science in the Humanities, or: Open Humanities?

Publications ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Knöchelmann
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Open Research ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Do So

Open science refers to both the practices and norms of more open and transparent communication and research in scientific disciplines and the discourse on these practices and norms. There is no such discourse dedicated to the humanities. Though the humanities appear to be less coherent as a cluster of scholarship than the sciences are, they do share unique characteristics which lead to distinct scholarly communication and research practices. A discourse on making these practices more open and transparent needs to take account of these characteristics. The prevalent scientific perspective in the discourse on more open practices does not do so, which confirms that the discourse’s name, open science, indeed excludes the humanities so that talking about open science in the humanities is incoherent. In this paper, I argue that there needs to be a dedicated discourse for more open research and communication practices in the humanities, one that integrates several elements currently fragmented into smaller, unconnected discourses (such as on open access, preprints, or peer review). I discuss three essential elements of open science—preprints, open peer review practices, and liberal open licences—in the realm of the humanities to demonstrate why a dedicated open humanities discourse is required.

scholarly journals Model Collaboration: University Library System and Rehabilitation Research Team to Advance Telepractice Knowledge

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Timothy S. Deliyannides ◽  
Vanessa E. Gabler
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Federally Funded ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
University Library ◽  
Information Technologists

This Publisher’s Report describes the collaboration between a university library system’s scholarly communication and publishing office and a federally funded research team, the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Telerehabilitation. This novel interdisciplinary collaboration engages librarians, information technologists, publishing professionals, clinicians, policy experts, and engineers and has produced a new Open Access journal, International Journal of Telerehabilitation, and a developing, interactive web-based product dedicated to disseminating information about telerehabilitation.  Readership statistics are presented for March 1, 2011 - February 29, 2012.

scholarly journals Open-access mega-journals

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Spezi ◽  
Simon Wakeling ◽  
Stephen Pinfield ◽  
Claire Creaser ◽  
Jenny Fry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Article Processing Charges ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty or importance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy, and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and e-mail discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety. Findings While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing. Originality/value This paper represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised.

«Открытый» не значит «бесплатный»: размышления на тему потенциальных плюсов и минусов публикаций Open Access

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Фрэнк Маниста
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Publishing Research ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages

<div><p class="Style">В статье поднимается проблема доступности и полезности открытого доступа для научного сообщества. Рассмотрены преимущества и недостатки Open Access, в том числе финансовые вопросы и вопросы рентабельности. Автор отмечает отсутствие контролирующей организации и непроработанный вопрос о финансовом участии организаций в научных исследованиях.</p><p class="Style"> </p><p class="Style">Оригнал публикации: </p><div><p>Manista, FC. (2012). “Open Don’t Mean Free”: A Reflection on the Potential Advantages and Disadvantages of Publishing Research via Open Access. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 1(2):eP1049. http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1049</p></div></div>

scholarly journals “Let the community decide”? The vision and reality of soundness-only peer review in open-access mega-journals

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Spezi ◽  
Simon Wakeling ◽  
Stephen Pinfield ◽  
Jenny Fry ◽  
Claire Creaser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Editorial Decisions ◽  
Review Criteria ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to better understand the theory and practice of peer review in open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs typically operate a “soundness-only” review policy aiming to evaluate only the rigour of an article, not the novelty or significance of the research or its relevance to a particular community, with these elements being left for “the community to decide” post-publication. Design/methodology/approach The paper reports the results of interviews with 31 senior publishers and editors representing 16 different organisations, including 10 that publish an OAMJ. Thematic analysis was carried out on the data and an analytical model developed to explicate their significance. Findings Findings suggest that in reality criteria beyond technical or scientific soundness can and do influence editorial decisions. Deviations from the original OAMJ model are both publisher supported (in the form of requirements for an article to be “worthy” of publication) and practice driven (in the form of some reviewers and editors applying traditional peer review criteria to OAMJ submissions). Also publishers believe post-publication evaluation of novelty, significance and relevance remains problematic. Originality/value The study is based on unprecedented access to senior publishers and editors, allowing insight into their strategic and operational priorities. The paper is the first to report in-depth qualitative data relating specifically to soundness-only peer review for OAMJs, shedding new light on the OAMJ phenomenon and helping inform discussion on its future role in scholarly communication. The paper proposes a new model for understanding the OAMJ approach to quality assurance, and how it is different from traditional peer review.

scholarly journals The four pillars of scholarly publishing: The future and a foundation

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarrett E.K. Byrnes ◽  
Edward Baskerville ◽  
Bruce Caron ◽  
Cameron Neylon ◽  
Carol Tenopir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
The Future

With the rise of electronic publishing and the inherent paradigm shifts for so many other scientific endeavours, it is time to consider a change in the practices of scholarly publication in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. To facilitate the speed and quality of science, the future of scholarly communication will rest on four pillars - an ecosystem of scholarly products, immediate and open access, open peer review, and full recognition for participating in the process. These four pillars enable us to build better tools to facilitate the discovery of new relevant work for individual scientists, one of the greatest challenges of our time as we cope with the current deluge of scientific information. By incorporating these principles into future publication platforms, we argue that science and society will be better served than by remaining locked into a publication formula that arose in the 1600s. It has served its purpose admirably and well, but it is time to move forward. With the rise of the Internet, scholarly publishing has embraced electronic distribution. But the tools afforded by the Internet and other advancing technologies have profound implications for scholarly communication beyond just distribution. We argue that, to best serve science, the process of scholarly communication must embrace these advances and evolve. Here we consider the current state of the process in ecology and evolutionary biology and propose directions for change. We identify four pillars for the future of scientific communication: (1) an ecosystem of scholarly products; (2) immediate and open access; (3) open peer review; and (4) full recognition for participating in the process. These four pillars will guide the development of better tools and practices for discovering and sharing scientific knowledge in a modern networked world. Things were far different when the existing system arose in the 1600s, and though it has served its purpose admirably and well, it is time to move forward.

scholarly journals The four pillars of scholarly publishing: The future and a foundation

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarrett E.K. Byrnes ◽  
Edward Baskerville ◽  
Bruce Caron ◽  
Cameron Neylon ◽  
Carol Tenopir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
The Future

With the rise of electronic publishing and the inherent paradigm shifts for so many other scientific endeavours, it is time to consider a change in the practices of scholarly publication in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. To facilitate the speed and quality of science, the future of scholarly communication will rest on four pillars - an ecosystem of scholarly products, immediate and open access, open peer review, and full recognition for participating in the process. These four pillars enable us to build better tools to facilitate the discovery of new relevant work for individual scientists, one of the greatest challenges of our time as we cope with the current deluge of scientific information. By incorporating these principles into future publication platforms, we argue that science and society will be better served than by remaining locked into a publication formula that arose in the 1600s. It has served its purpose admirably and well, but it is time to move forward. With the rise of the Internet, scholarly publishing has embraced electronic distribution. But the tools afforded by the Internet and other advancing technologies have profound implications for scholarly communication beyond just distribution. We argue that, to best serve science, the process of scholarly communication must embrace these advances and evolve. Here we consider the current state of the process in ecology and evolutionary biology and propose directions for change. We identify four pillars for the future of scientific communication: (1) an ecosystem of scholarly products; (2) immediate and open access; (3) open peer review; and (4) full recognition for participating in the process. These four pillars will guide the development of better tools and practices for discovering and sharing scientific knowledge in a modern networked world. Things were far different when the existing system arose in the 1600s, and though it has served its purpose admirably and well, it is time to move forward.

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