There is this novel kind of (hopefully) "scientific" journals that publish any received papers right away without issuing an acceptance or rejection. Instead of pre-acceptance peer-review, there is post-publication peer-review, in which the authors keep improving and correcting their already published article based on the newly received reviews.
1. What are the pros and cons of such journals?
2. Do you consider them scientific enough?
- For example, do you cite or trust articles published in them?
- How far are you willing to publish in them?
3. Can they compete with or replace conventional scientific journals?
4. How can these newly formed journals get better?
5. What else?
Hello Dr Vahid Rakhshan
You have raised a very interesting point. I think the answer will differ for each person and their attitudes.
I think, on the one hand, it is potentially for researchers to be much easier and faster to get their work/study/paper published. But if they make mistakes, it will only be discovered later by readers. In that time, the article and information might be read by other people who do not realise it needs to be corrected.
If a reader (post-publication peer-reviewer) finds some areas should be changed, what does the journal do to make sure those changes are done? What if the author does not do it well enough for the reviewer to be satisfied?
Thanks Dr Joseph C Lee for the insightful comment.
I agree. Or what if the methodology is not sound? For example, what if it is weak or even incorrect, or even fabricated? Such a paper should be rejected without being given the smallest chance to see the light. Its publication can pollute and poison the literature and lower the bar.
But at the same time, I think it is still better than a never-peer-reviewed preprint stacked on ResearchGate or Arxiv etc.