I realized that to publish your work in average it takes three years, so we are all reading the research from the past. So, the question is, does a present slow, painful, expensive and unfair practice of publishing process is keeping us far from being up to date? Should we all go straigt online and open acces to set things in order? Chasing impact factors is like a battle with widmils, I hope someone would realuze that publishers are actually making citizens pay three times to read scientific papers(when they pay taxes, when a scientist is paying for publication and when someone wants to read the paper). What do you think?
I agree. The most damaging aspect seems to me to be the delay in communicating research results. In addition, I think peer review policies of publications hamper real changes in research perspective.
Daniela Sorea, thank you for your comment. I really feel the need to communicate this with peers, since we are working hard and the visibility of our efforts is zero.
Another option is for example opting for arxiv.com, for our authorisation sake, but we are suffering from it for any kind of evaluation, impact factors became monetized which is deeply wrong.
Let us leave aside IF for the time being. The journal has to be good with proper reviewing process. I hope you will agree with me in this point.
The quality of all the online journals are not good. Some of them might be predatory too.
Secondly many of the good online journals also ask for money to make the papers open access. Otherwise they give restricted access.
I like online journals when they publish within six months with proper review (yes possible in my field of work) and give access to the readers without charging money.
I agree with you that the reviewers should give their consent to review only if they can do so within a reasonable time limit.
Dear Subir Bandyopadhayay, I agree with you. But this is only part of the story. I am thinking here about transparency of the reviewing process (because sometimes I just got the suggestions/comments/questions revealing that the reviewer is not educated enough about the topic he is reviewing/or simply do not have enough experience, but has the possibility to stop your publication or affect the quality of the publication)because especially in multidisciplinary work the choice of reviewer is very sensitive. Additionally I heard that EC is preparing a novel rule for all the Projects supported by their funds not to pay for publications, meaning that a creation of bih Online Open Access platform is in the making. Predatory journals are completely different story.
There lies the difference between good and bad reviewers. A bad reviewer gives irrelevant comments but a good reviewer can drastically improve your MS or guide you to do so.
Good journal Editors have this knowledge; who would be the appropriate reviewer to review the MS.
However, reviewers like cricket umpires are also human beings. They can also make mistake but apologise when their mistakes are pointed out. They would never argue with you.
An ideal example is paste below:
Dear Dr Bandyopadhyay:
I owe you a sincere apology for my carelessness in reviewing your MS, "Lectotypification of Phanera macrostachya Benth. (Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae)" submitted to the Edinburgh Journal of Botany.
You are perfectly correct that because Phanera macrostachya Benth. is validated solely by reference to the description in Roxburgh’s Flora Indica (1832), the name must be lectotypified by an element selected from the context of Roxburgh’s description of Bauhinia scandens.
My only excuse – and not a very good one – is that I started my review on 5 May reading the first few paragraphs and making what became Comments **2 and **3 and then had to put the paper aside for a few days. When I came back to it on 10 May (the date of the other Comments), I had completely forgotten that Bentham’s name was validates solely by reference to Roxburgh’s description and concentrated instead on your incorrect – and as it turns out irrelevant – argument that the Larsens had not cited a single specimen.
Again my apologies.
Best wishes
[Name withheld by me. The reviewer is a world famous specialist on plant nomenclature].
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