As far as I know, we considered scientific publishing in peer-reviewed journals as a tool of communicating our worthy scientific messages to the scientific community elsewhere. This was a nice progress done while upgrading our scientific method. However, I can see the literature inflating with publications that were only published for increasing numbers not enriching us with any valuable knowledge. With COVID-19, the situation is even worse with dozens of nonsense articles published even in the top and highly ranked journals we usually trust. Add to that, the effect of preprints and the circulation of those articles everywhere by everyone through social media. Do you think we need to re-evaluate the process we accepted for years?
Dear all, it is true. Here, it is a matter of conscience. One should know that if the work is not well done may induce others into errors. In the field of science it is not important to show speed and acceleration, rather the input and the additional contribution. My Regards
Mohamed Fahmy Doheim So true. Everywhere, not only in newspapers but also in so-called scholarly journals. UFfF!
Dear all, it is true. Here, it is a matter of conscience. One should know that if the work is not well done may induce others into errors. In the field of science it is not important to show speed and acceleration, rather the input and the additional contribution. My Regards
DR M H DOHEIM! The proliferation of information , both veracious and otherwise , is mind numbing. So are the publications -- resembling those in 1984 following the NP in Physics for a new SC material ( Bednorz & Muller) when Physicists of all hues went for publishing full throttle as it was something ground breaking. So is COVID-19 a novelty so anybody who knows anything, will start writing or speaking -- naturally pre prints are still to be peer reviewed so they are not acceptable. Prestigious Journals who publish in this area should raise the bar by several notches , tighten the review process and ensure what gets through is the gospel truth. Sadly, these are the times when Charlatans make hay!! Best regards--
My understanding is that publishing doesn't have anything to do with the authors or the quality of the content; it serves the sole purpose of generating revenue for the publisher. Sadly, scientists working at scientific institutions are typically required to write a certain number of papers -- their scientific career, salary, and job prospects being at stake here. Ultimately it's not even about the scientists' careers, it's really just about the prosperity of a publisher. The business model employed by the publishers consists in an irrational but paradoxically valid assumption that the governments will keep spending money to access information owned but not authored by certain private companies without any proof of the credibility of this information except for having been 'reviewed' by anonymous people who are believed to be objective and impartial on the sole ground of their scientific renown -- which again is measured in the quantity of publications and impact factors of the journals, the latter being a mysterious figure allegedly indicating the merit not only of a journal to which it has been ascribed but also potentially (!) of all publications in the journal. Needless to say that the reviewers who are basically the gatekeepers of the scientific world are regarded almost as a nuisance and their work at reviewing something isn't even considered being worth to be paid for -- this is their real value in this business model. This whole thing about publishing is absolutely mind-blowing really and you would think it's absolutely unviable but hey it's still working and people are still paying money!
yes it is true and definitely needed to re evaluate the scientific contributions and the process.
I think that there are two sides of the coin:
- it is a hot topic and everybody wants to contribute a view or help or present a solution...
- that means whenever COVID-19 is mentioned the topic will be highlighted as urgent (and if it helps eventually that may be juged as helpful)...
- on the other hand quality must always be at the center of scholarly publishing...
- I expect quality journals to be of quality...
- this is also a psychological effect of halo: COVID-19 is so important that some quality measures may be dropped... That should not be acclaimed...
Thank you everyone for your valuable inputs. It's frustrating for me personally to see what's exceeding 20 thousands of articles about COVID-19 with no true value. Very strange to see all this secondary and misconducted primary work just to get some publishing merits in terms of number of publications, citations... etc. Finally, we should respect the value we introduce beyond our work. Imagine the amount of wrongly proved data and how media used them.
Dear Mohamed Fahmy Doheim;
I think you are absolutely right in underlining the need to re-evaluate the process and the scientific quality of what is produced.
With my best regards
In the case of publishing for science, we must remember the case of the epidemic of a hundred years ago, where the number of documents in the medical area increased almost threefold after the event. This shows us a cycle of scientific publication where science advances and its publication according to the social problem to be solved. We can also see this with climate change, whose number of articles has increased in the last decade as it is an issue that affects society and the economy.
Dear Mohamed Fahmy Doheim
I prefer Publishing for science. It is meaninful.
Best regards
I agree with some, not all of your topic. the agreement part is the emergency of the situation to save a life which is the priority of everything. So you can imagine we don't have this researches and now we are almost 6 months, can you describe the death rate?
That why I asked a few weeks ago for the 10 must-read COVID publications.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_most_important_COVID_publications_which_everybody_should_have_read2
I believe that in the long term the less necessary papers lose their value getting less citations and visibility among scientists, because probably they are less useful for the advancement of the science.
In other words, what is really important in the science sooner or later emerges.
With the regard to the choices of researchers/authors, everyone is free to work and write as he/she does prefer, on condition that there is no scientific fraud.
But how do you measure whether it is necessary or not? At what moment are they necessary? And what is its value? The fact that a document is not used does not mean that it does not have impact and visibility, nor that it is not cited does not mean that it does not have quality. Citation is one thing and impact and visibility is another. Perhaps it is not their moment in the document or perhaps it is not a new topic for scientists.
Exactly what is useful for science emerges, we must understand a bit of historical bibliometrics to be able to determine the moment of each document and its possible citation.
If the freedom of scientific expression is open in all universities, avoiding fraud, but above all the freedom to work on thematic lines or to research and publish on them must be respected.
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