Comments on: Scientific Publishing in the Digital Age

By: Olivier Gandrillon

Olivier Gandrillon — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:41 +0000

I definitely think C would be the best way to go. Science should be back to the hand of scientists. But one should expect publishers to fight back to preserve their huge income sources…

By: Bodo Stern

Bodo Stern — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:41 +0000

HI Olivier,
thanks for your comment. You are right that model C will not be palatable to publishers who favor the status quo. But if the scientific community agrees that model C is the best solution for science, we can move towards it through experiments outside the journal system or in collaboration with journals that are willing to change.

By: guillemaud

guillemaud — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:41 +0000

The publishing system you want to develop is extremely interesting. Just one thing that we do not clearly understand: When an author deposits his/her preprint in an open archive, he/she publishes (makes publicly available) his/her article. So, is there a fundamental difference between the deposit of a preprint on an open archive and the publication by the author? Fig C suggests a difference since the ‘pre-print’ and ‘publish’ steps are disconnected. Right?

The system you describe seems close to a system that we have been proposing for a year (with some differences): Peer Community In (PCI). The first community – Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology (PCI Evol Biol, evolbiol.peercommunityin.org) – has already evaluated preprints and published recommendations for preprints. Two other PCIs just come out: PCI Paleontology (paleo.peercommunityin.org) and PCI Ecology (ecology.peercommunityin.org.
This system is based on the existence of disciplinary communities that evaluate on the basis of peer review and possibly recommend preprints deposited on open archives. The system is extremely inexpensive and therefore can be offered free of charge for readers and authors (thanks to a few small public subsidies).
A description of this system can be found here: https://peercommunityin.org and a short video can be seen here: https://youtu.be/4PZhpnc8wwo

The similarities with your proposal are striking:
-‘First, publish peer reviews, whether anonymously or with attribution, to make the publishing process more transparent.’
–> In PCI, peer reviewers are chosen by 1 ‘recommender’ of the community (similar to an editor of a journal). If the preprint is eventually ‘recommended’, peer-reviews (signed or not), authors replies, and recommendation (signed) are published (freely)
-‘Second, transfer the publishing decision from the editor to the author, removing the notion that publication itself is a quality-defining step.’
–> In PCI, we do that if preprint deposit on preprint open archives is considered a publication.
-‘And third, attach robust post-publication evaluations to papers to create proxies for quality that are article-specific, that capture long-term impact, and that are more meaningful than current journal-based metrics’
–> in PCI we publish a recommendation of the peer-reviewed preprint when peer-reviews are positive, convergent and the preprint is considered recommendable by one of the community member.

The main difference with what you propose is that peer-reviews are not published if the preprint is not recommended by the ‘recommender’ of the community. However, reviews are sent to the author to allow him/her to improve his/her manuscript.

Thanks for the thoughtful ideas!

By: guillemaud

guillemaud — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:41 +0000

This system is based on the existence of disciplinary communities that evaluate on the basis of peer review and possibly recommend preprints deposited on open archives. The system is extremely inexpensive and therefore can be offered free of charge for readers and authors (thanks to a few small public subsidies).

The similarities with your proposal are striking:

-‘First, publish peer reviews, whether anonymously or with attribution, to make the publishing process more transparent.’

–> In PCI, peer reviewers are chosen by 1 ‘recommender’ of the community (similar to an editor of a journal). If the preprint is eventually ‘recommended’, peer-reviews (signed or not), authors replies, and recommendation (signed) are published (freely)

-‘Second, transfer the publishing decision from the editor to the author, removing the notion that publication itself is a quality-defining step.’

–> In PCI, we do that if preprint deposit on preprint open archives is considered a publication.

-‘And third, attach robust post-publication evaluations to papers to create proxies for quality that are article-specific, that capture long-term impact, and that are more meaningful than current journal-based metrics’

–> in PCI we publish a recommendation of the peer-reviewed preprint when peer-reviews are positive, convergent and the preprint is considered recommendable by one of the community member.

Thanks for the thoughtful ideas!

By: Richard Sever

Richard Sever — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:39 +0000

This is a nice idea. But “tag” is the wrong word here. It is frequently used online in various existing ways that might be confused with this – e.g. in blogging – and of course tags also refer to the basis for article mark up. A much better word would be “badge.

By: Bodo Stern

Bodo Stern — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:39 +0000

thanks Richard. You raise a good point. We’ll consider changing the term to badges.