Global Young Academy 5th International Conference for Young Scientists 2015
Will the the Open Science Movement Disrupt the Science Publishing Model?
Interaction group leader: Sabina Leonelli, University of Exeter, UK
If you wish to return to the summary of themes discussed at the Interactive Session (10:30am — 12:00pm) please click here.
Session Summary
• Need for regulation of scientific journals, threat to scientific credibility and communication (predatory journals; some way of assessing whether one should submit or not to a particular journal): Publication has become a commercial industry
- author pays model is problematic
• Quality control
- want to be inclusive and let creativity flourish but misleading information can be very problematic.
• At the same time issues with the refereeing process regarding who is considered for publication in traditional journals and potential to reform publication & refereeing format.
- Discrimination against research coming from developing countries
- Need for alternative models of publishing (costs)
• What counts as publication and the way that the different forms are impacting on community understanding of science
• Institutional measures/promotion/importance of publication for visibility of research — how do we assess the value of different forms of exposure
General Notes (facilitator):
- Science vs humanities publishing models
- Getting communication back into publishing
- Absence of realistic markers for information
- Journals that allow comments and quality assessment?
- Problems of quality control
- Regulation for journals — lacking — serious problems with predatorial journals
- Academic publishing as a commercial industry — we need to regain control, limit number of journals
- Institutions that only recognise certain kinds of publishers; assumption that only non_OA publishers are good
- Author-paying models — disaster, needs to be removed as creates wrong incentives and constraints
- Why should a publication be in the form of a research article?
- Institutional measurements
- Visibility and networking of researchers — how to collaborate
- Problems of workload associated to publication and communication
- DIY discussions — — huge problem with quality control
- Cycles of research — different steps, different models
- Metrics beyond academic, and within
- Most papers rejected before they get to refereeing — for assumptions about what fits in a given journal
- OS — environment, new forms of technology and evaluation
