What is the value of a scientific article?

What is the value of a scientific article?

Thoughts about the state of scholarly publishing!

Anders Kastberg @kast12berg

November, 20141/35

The past

-

current

status

Now -

Changes Near f

uture -

What’s

happening

? Moving on

-

Do WE ne

ed

to chang

e?

Outline:

time

2/35

Current state of affairs

Current state of affairs3/35

How do we diffuse our research?

Articles!

Current state of affairs4/35

How do we diffuse our research?

Articles!

Format determined by technical limitations Current state

of affairs4/35

Evaluations are dominated by publication statistics

Current state of affairs

Evaluation of journals Impact factor

Evaluation of articles Citation statistics

Evaluation of scientists/Number of publications

institutes/universitiesh-factor

5/35

So, is there a problem with all this?

changes = problems

Problems/Changes6/35

Who is in control?

Thomson Reuter has the power to control global research policies


There are other sources than ISI

Who should I trust? Problems/Changes8/35

There are other sources than ISI

254

165

Who should I trust? Problems/Changes8/35

Misconduct / malpractice

• Plagiarism

• Cheating

• Citation cartels

• Predatory Open Access


Is it possible to communicate science in any other way?

We have always communicated in more ways!


Is it possible to communicate science in any other way?

We have always communicated in more ways!

WHAT’S NEW? other things than articles leave

searchable traces! Problems/Changes10/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes

How often is an article downloaded? How often is an article read?

11/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes


Reports in media

11/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes


Reports in media

Social media

11/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes


Reports in media

Social media

Blogs, other places on the web …

11/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes


Reports in media

Social media


11/35

The internet!

Problems/Changes


Reports in media

Social media


Things that CAN be measured WILL be measured!

11/35

Digital identifiersDOI - the fingerprint of a scientific article

crossref.org



crossref.org

Exemple:



crossref.org

More than 70 million registered linksProblems/Changes12/35

Digital identifiersORCID - the digital ID of researchers

orcid.org



orcid.org


• Searching articles facilitated

• Ensures that you are properly credited

• Change of name or institute no longer a problem

• Standardized CV and list of publications online


orcid.org







orcid.org






Types of publications - possible problems with traditional journals

• Pseudo-monopoly - market signals don’t work

• Huge increase in submissions

• ⇒ price increase

• Could this be solved by Open Access? Maybe, maybe not


Types of publications - new types of journals

• Pure Open Access journals (OA gold)

• You pay for publishing - reading is free

• Changes to peer review • post-peer review

• Incorporated article metrics



Problems/Changes

One example: “The Public Library of Science”

16/35



PLOS ONE


PLOS ONE

• Open for all fields of science

• Impact factor: 3.534 (2013)

• 31520 articles published 2013

• Publication cost: USD 1350

• Peer review: a bit different


PLOS ONE - peer review

Problems/Changes

The “interest” will not be assessed by the referees

Instead, there is a “post-peer review”, via comments and metrics

18/35


Problems/Changes



18/35


Problems/Changes



18/35


Problems/Changes



18/35

PLOS ONE• No copy editing

• Life science dominates

• Subject areas identified automatically?


PLOS ONE

Problems/Changes

one example: quantum tunneling in PLOS ONE

19/35

PLOS ONE

Problems/Changes

one example: quantum tunneling in PLOS ONE

discussion on: !http://anderskastberg.wordpress.com19/35


Other new journals

Do we dilute science publishing? Problems/Changes20/35

Types of publications - not limited by articles

• Data

• Software

• Images

• Videos

• Experimental setups

• Negative results

• Reproduction of previous research


Biomedicine rules

Problems/Changes

Many policies based on needs in biomedicine

Things are different in fields less intense on citations

This is not necessarily good for us

22/35

Developments already on the way

Alternative metrics

What’s happening now?23/35

Alternative metics? Complementary metrics?


Societal impact• Citations

• Downloads

• Saves in Mendeley, etc.

• Mentions in books

• Wikipedia

• Exposure in media

• Blogs

• Social media

• Patents

• Impact on legislation

• Policy documents

How can such things be measured, and normalized in a fair way? What’s

happening now?25/35

This already exists!










Example of Altmetrics in action:














It’s not just about evaluations

• Can facilitate literature searches GREATLY!

• Helps me select between thousands of articles

• Vanity! Who reads my article?


What should we do?

Do we need to adapt?29/35

What should we do?

Do we need to adapt?

Does everything have to be evaluated?

Isn’t peer review enough? Can competence ever be reduced to a number?

A world totally void of quantified evaluations will probably never exist

30/35

Unfortunately unavoidable


Someone WILL measure our work. Isn’t better if we have some insight/control in this?

31/35

Who should decide how science is evaluated?


Maybe we need a new, community driven, non-for profit organization?

Maybe a good thing that we have more than ONE type of measuring?

32/35

ORCID Yes!

ResearchID, Google scholar, Scopus, PubMed …… Maybe

twitter, blogs If you like it

Mendeley, Zotero ….. If it helps your productivity

Should we register at all these sites? Should we be active on social media?

Do we need to adapt?33/35



Think about it!

Should we persist with articles as the only true method for dissemination and evaluation?

34/35



The general public is ignorant about science (?) Who’s fault is that?

Think about it!34/35



• New types of journals • New types of metrics • Social media and such nonsense

Think about it!

The younger among us may need to adapt!

34/35

¡Muchas gracias!

Anders Kastberg @kast12berg

November, 201435/35

this talk is published on figshare: