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I took a look at his slides--looks pretty interesting, and I would have liked to have heard the talk! I am not sure I would be ready to advocate having no more journals, but I am interested in thinking about the idea. Imagine just putting your data up on the website, and you're finished! And then wait for comments/links to show up, I guess--would that be the metric for grants/funding? I also wonder what could be done so that the record would not be changed? JPK On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 3:14 AM, John R Helliwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear Jacob, > Your posting reminds me of a Research Information Network Conference I > went to in 2006 in London. > Your views coincide with a presenter there, Peter Mika. > His talk can be found at:- > http://www.rin.ac.uk/news/events/data-webs-new-visions-research-data-web > In his talk he referred to:- openacademia.org > Peter Mika and I were on the Closing Panel; he advocated that > refereeing is an imposition on a researcher's > individual freedom and thus he/she should 'publish' their work on > their own website. By contrast, I argued in favour of > Journals and peer review, both with respect to my articles and my > experiences as an Editor of more than one Journal. > > I would be happy to continue corresponding on this not least as > publication should be a varied spectrum of options. > Also I feel obliged to say that one cannot apply simply, by rote, > 'Learned Society publisher is good', 'commercial publisher is bad'; > there are exceptions in both camps. [in effect this was the tone of my > last posting.] > > Greetings, > John > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 8:13 PM, Jacob Keller > <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> I guess the practice of being "on your best behavior" is good in terms >> of getting the research trimmed into shape, but there is a huge >> temptation to fudge things to get published, and to hide unpleasant >> artifacts, as can be seen by the many recent (and not so recent) >> scandals. Maybe as a lab website things would be more open. Also, >> having a comments section always seemed like an excellent idea to me, >> even for journals as they are, but would be really easy to implement >> in a website. I would love to read comments from others in the field >> about the papers I read, as sometimes people can help to point out >> gaping holes where one might not see them otherwise. It would be like >> "journal club" for the whole scientific community. >> >> Jacob >> >> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Jrh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> Dear Jacob >>> Re journals out of the window:- >>> Well, like democracy, journals may not be ideal but I believe other alternatives such as free for all personal website publishing, are worse. So, journals that are community driven offer an optimal approach, critically based on specialist peer review. That is why our community effort IUCr Journals I believe are so important. Open access, where we can sustain it financially, also can convey access to the widest readership ie that the high impact magazines currently, mainly, command. >>> All best wishes, >>> John >>> Prof John R Helliwell DSc >>> >>> >>> On 17 Nov 2010, at 18:28, Jacob Keller <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> >>>> Supplementary info seems to me to be a double-edged sword--I just read >>>> a Nature article that had 45 pages of supplementary info. This means >>>> that you get a lot more for your money, but all of the methods and >>>> >>>> Why not have papers be as long as the authors want, now that almost >>>> everything is internet-based? It would make the papers much more >>>> organized overall, and would obviate the reference issue mentioned in >>>> this thread. To avoid them being too too long, reviewers could object >>>> to long-windedness etc. But, it would definitely make for a more >>>> complete "lab notebook of the scientific community," assuming that >>>> that is what we are after. >>>> >>>> Incidentally, I have been curious in the past why journals are not >>>> going out the window themselves--why not have individual labs just >>>> post their most recent data and interpretations on their own websites, >>>> with a comments section perhaps? (I know there are about a thousand >>>> cynical reasons why not...) One could even have a place for >>>> "reliability rating" or "impact rating" on each new chunk of data. >>>> Anyway, it would be much more like a real-time, public lab notebook, >>>> and would make interaction much faster, and cut out the publishing >>>> middlemen. >>>> >>>> JPK >>>> >>>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Phoebe Rice <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>>> Another unfortunate aspect of this sort of editorial policy is that many of these papers contain almost no technical information at all, except for the supplement. I've started to avoid using Nature papers for class discussions becuase they leave the students so puzzled, and with a glossiness-is-all-that-matters idea of science. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ===================================== >>>>> Phoebe A. Rice >>>>> Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology >>>>> The University of Chicago >>>>> phone 773 834 1723 >>>>> http://bmb.bsd.uchicago.edu/Faculty_and_Research/01_Faculty/01_Faculty_Alphabetically.php?faculty_id=123 >>>>> http://www.rsc.org/shop/books/2008/9780854042722.asp >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---- Original message ---- >>>>>> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:12:26 +0000 >>>>>> From: CCP4 bulletin board <[log in to unmask]> (on behalf of John R Helliwell <[log in to unmask]>) >>>>>> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Citations in supplementary material >>>>>> To: [log in to unmask] >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Victor, >>>>>> I strongly support the stance that is in the Acta D Editorial. >>>>>> Manfred Weiss worked very hard assembling those details and over quite >>>>>> some time; he deserves our thanks. >>>>>> Greetings, >>>>>> John >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Victor Lamzin <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>>>>> Dear All, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I would like to bring to your attention the recent Editorial in Acta Cryst D >>>>>>> (http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2010/12/00/issconts.html), which >>>>>>> highlights the long-standing issue of under-citation of papers published in >>>>>>> the IUCr journals. The Editorial, having looked at the papers published in >>>>>>> 2009 in Nature, Science, Cell and PNAS, concluded: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> 'almost half of all references to publications in IUCr journals end up being >>>>>>> published in the supplementary material only... Not only does this mean that >>>>>>> the impact factor of IUCr journals should be higher, but also that the real >>>>>>> overall numbers of citations of methods papers are much higher than what is >>>>>>> reported, for instance, by the Web of Science' >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Although this topic may seem to concern mostly methods developers, I think >>>>>>> the whole research community will only benefit from more fair credit that we >>>>>>> all give to our colleagues via referencing their publications. What do you >>>>>>> think? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Victor >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Professor John R Helliwell DSc >>>>> >>> >> > > > > -- > Professor John R Helliwell DSc >