Like the title says, what would be your thoughts on how academic publishing would be in a perfect world? Describe how you would like publishing to be and how far off it is from today's current situation.
I think that in a perfect world all research should also be reviewed and scrutinized because this is the basic of scientific research
Best Regards Dakota Shade
In a perfect world:
a) we are meticulous and fair when describing theoretical developments and designing experiments, and we are honest when reporting the results from them;
b) we do not borrow from anyone, or - if we do borrow a little - we always acknowledge the fact that we have;
c) we do not take any short-cuts when designing experiments, motivate the route taken, or provide proofs; and
d) we acknowledge others through a correct and generous series of citations.
What I often see though, is that:
a) people take shortcuts when reporting experiments or theoretical results;
b) people borrow a lot from each other, without acknowledging it;
c) people are lazy when writing, at such a grave level that many papers are hard to read because of severe language errors;
d) reviewers demand that their own papers are cited, or editors demand that papers from the journal we have submitted to should be cited more.
All I can say is that in a perfect world, even failed theoretical and experimental results would be published.
Hi all,
In a perfect world - all my submitted manuscripts would be published in my journal of choice without any amendments!! How far am I off; quite a way I suspect!! That's because I have an 'over-inflated' opinion of my first draft submissions. Thank goodness that reviewers often bring me 'back down to earth' and that the publishing environment is so much more competitive than ever. I say - keep it as it is - in my opinion. There is always going to be 'good and bad - and all sorts in-between'.
Dean,
With the certain aspects described, I would agree with keeping the Peer-review aspect of academic publishing. I was more leaning towards the publishing entities themselves in my question, but I wanted to leave it open to interpretation. Personally, I enjoy the back and forth between editor and author(s) with respect to reviewer criticisms. I would like to see more transparency with reviewers, as opposed being blind. However, I do understand the importance of why it is this way.
Temitayo,
I agree, I seems some open access journals are steering that direction with publishing perfect results. Unfortunately, the cost of publishing in those journals are still pretty steep to publish 'failed results', regardless of how valuable the information.
Michael,
That is exactly an issue, if only institutions focused more on ethics in sciences and conducting themselves accordingly opposed to only wanting 'sexy results' and money. Maybe I am off-base with that assumption, but the more I see the more the opinion is strengthened.
I think that in a perfect world all research should also be reviewed and scrutinized because this is the basic of scientific research
Best Regards Dakota Shade
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