Bishop Hill Open access and gatekeeping
Jan 13, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Journals Nature is to start up an open-access scientific journal. The new journal, to be called Scientific Reports, will cover biology, chemistry, the earth sciences and physics.
The story, in the Times Higher Education Supplement, concentrates on the implications for subscription-based journals, but it is interesting also to consider whether this will have any effect on attempts to keep sceptics out of the scientific literature.
Like the Public Library of Science's PLoS ONE journal, Scientific Reports will be entirely open access and will publish every submission deemed by a faster peer-review process to be technologically sound - including those reporting useful negative results.
One wonders if a "faster" peer-review process, 88 pages of peer review correspondence can simply be replaced with the word "No".
Reader Comments (11)
"publish every submission deemed by a faster peer-review process to be technologically sound - including those reporting useful negative results."
Err.. call me naive, but I thought that was the way peer review was supposed to work? I didn't realise journal editorial policy had so much impact. Unless it's talking about improving access to 'dark data', which was something I learned about recently, ie 'failed' experiments that never made it to publication, but may still provide useful information and data and help researchers avoid wasting time repeating them.
Yes. But as your general "value" in academia is on number of published papers (and hence citations), it doesn't make sense to investigate the null hypothesis, especially if publication bias means you're unlikely to get your failure published.
Interesting timing, given that Nature Climate Change is about to do an article on openness of the climate scene generally. The journalist that contacted me admitted they were still working on their own policy in this regard. (Having raised it, I said that I had some sympathy, due to competitive pressure and the lack of a firm line elsewhere.) The 'dark data' issue is crucial, especially I've always assumed in discounted runs of General Circulation Models. We would learn a lot from them. But in many other areas too. Let's hope that's exactly what they mean.
Even with the re-imaging/re-branding by the use of the word 'open', gate-keeping and other human special interest endeavors are bound to continue.
lol
so lots of pro-AGW artilces with even lower standards as this fast-review process opens the door for the Team to get the 'correct' massage out with even less effort, progress !
Open in this context only means no paywall. Open to readers, that is, not open to writers who dare to thread on forbidden ground and reach inconvenient conclusions.
It will be intesting to see how this new subscription-free journal will handle the issue of access to, and archiving of, data and code !
@KnR
Exactly my thoughts on reading the headpost. I am very sceptical that this is anything other than a new angle of attack by the warmists. Time will tell.
@Atomic H.
That's what peer review should be not what it is. I have rejected papers with awful methodological errors and biases that were finally accepted by the editor on the basis of "editorial policies". The last word is with the editor, not the reviewer. Much to the shame of the journal.
The opposite happens with the reviewing of projects, the most bizarre or subjective objection is accepted as valid against research projects that do not follow the general consensus
Definitely, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark
"The new journal, to be called Scientific Reports, will cover biology, chemistry, the earth sciences and physics."
Good. That excludes climate science.