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It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

nature.com

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Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#81

Post by beanjuice »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #52
ssivark wrote: post #6

The best way to allow multiple submissions while amortizing the review work is to make reviews (and rebuttals) public, and overlay them on submissions made public on some preprint server. This establishes priority (if credit is a concern), can be made blind / double-blind if so desired, and also makes public the reviews (which are as much a public service as writing research papers). Which editorial boards “accept” t…

I recently submitted to PLOS One. They publish the complete review alongside, after acceptance. I feel like this is already a big win for transparency. Immediate review publication would be even better.

Nature also does this, it can be rejected, but this is a suspicious sign.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#82

Post by mfscholar »

foobarbecue wrote: post #76
Muller20 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that the bias is only due to inexperienced reviewers. For example, even at a specialized venue like CoLLAs (I also work in CL), where you could send more esoteric research, you still see most people doing the usual rehearsal+class-incremental stuff. Most experienced researchers are also quite happy with the current state of the field. They may agree with your view, but their actual research and vision is…

What's CL?

Continual Learning, a ML training concept

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#83

Post by _ahxg »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #78
rjurney wrote: post #66

It is time to burn traditional academic publishing to the ground and rebuild it from the ground up, or else let's rebel against the government, give Alexandra Elbakyan citizenship and put her in charge of the Department of Energy to make all computer science research open domain for all the world to see. Requesting $48 for to read a paper funded by your taxes before you even know it is useful to your work will result…

The way forward is for government research-funding bodies (ideally all of them) to insist that funded works only be published under open access. This appears to already be well underway in the UK. [0][1] The article isn't about open access though, so this isn't strictly on topic. [0] https://www.ukri.org/manage-your-award/publishing-your-resea... [1] https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-policies-and-...

Then the publishers get thousands of dollars from taxpayer money for each article published under the open access route, while still billing universities for many thousands to give access to the non open access ones.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#84

Post by JR1427 »

kryptiskt wrote: post #55

I'd rather do away with the whole publish or perish thing. One half-baked idea: For academic hiring, only ever judge the quality of a candidate's research based on their five best papers (as they themselves have nominated), then there is no pressure to publish anything that doesn't break into the top five.

This would mean that not too exciting results never get published. Just because a topic/finding is not earth-shattering now doesn't mean it isn't useful information for the future.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#85

Post by kelipso »

eru wrote: post #45
impendia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In mathematics, at least, papers and preprints are indeed widely considered to be the same thing. In practice, for people working in the field, they are. Math papers tend to be highly technical, read by other specialists in the field. When it comes for correctness -- whether or not I should take a paper with a grain of salt -- the authors' reputation counts for much more than the journal's. And in case of student aut…

You can always overlay a reputation system on top of your pre-print server. The informal one you describe here, or any formal one you can come up with.

Arxiv has been working just fine for a long time, there's no need to change it. Besides I'm not going to voluntarily post my work so I can get publicly rated by a bunch of unknowns lol.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#86

Post by walleeee »

mycologos wrote: post #44

I do computer science research and publish regularly (in conferences, not journals, since that's how computer science mostly works -- you write a paper, look for the soonest upcoming relevant conference deadline, submit there, and get a response 2-3 months later). I think discussions about peer review often fail to explain all of the things peer review can accomplish: 1) Verifying that work is correct, assuming that…

> My perception from computer science is that it should be harder to submit papers, because there are too many authors who simply rarely produce good papers and are clogging up the conferences with endless resubmissions until they get reviewers lazy enough to all say "weak accept".

It seems like the root issue here is pathological incentive to publish for career advancement?

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#87

Post by JR1427 »

Speaking as a former scientist, it's worth remembering that peer review is not just about ensuring quality by preventing poor research being published. It also leads to good research being improved, in a very similar way to how code review can improve good code.

So doing away with peer review would have some negative consequences.

It's also worth remembering that journals are really not very different to newspapers, and the top journals are the tabloids. They want to publish things that people will read and cite. They only care about quality in so far as it is required for people to want to read a paper. Ever wandered why so many top journal papers get retracted? It's because the top journals know people will read the click-bait! My favourite example is when the Lancet published the famous MMR-Autism paper by Wakefield, which is terribly unscientific, but was bound to be much cited.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#88

Post by tiahura »

Why don’t universities publish their own journals in the sciences like they do for law? Why don’t we have the Stanford AI Review or the University of Michigan Journal of Organic Chemistry. Like law, turn them over to the grad students to publish.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#89

Post by krull10 »

_ahxg wrote: post #83
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way forward is for government research-funding bodies (ideally all of them) to insist that funded works only be published under open access. This appears to already be well underway in the UK. [0][1] The article isn't about open access though, so this isn't strictly on topic. [0] https://www.ukri.org/manage-your-award/publishing-your-resea... [1] https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-policies-and-...

Then the publishers get thousands of dollars from taxpayer money for each article published under the open access route, while still billing universities for many thousands to give access to the non open access ones.

Right, and that is why the same government bodies need to cap the amount that can be paid towards open access fees or page charges via a grant. If grants only provided $200 per publication that would end the ridiculous open access fees / APCs that currently get charged. There is no reason it should cost thousands of dollars to publish an article given the limited proofing most journals now do, the ability to easily submit works in a template provided by a journal, and that peer-review is uncompensated.

Re: It’s time to allow researchers to submit manuscripts to multiple journals

#90

Post by krull10 »

nextos wrote: post #16
ssivark wrote: post #6

The best way to allow multiple submissions while amortizing the review work is to make reviews (and rebuttals) public, and overlay them on submissions made public on some preprint server. This establishes priority (if credit is a concern), can be made blind / double-blind if so desired, and also makes public the reviews (which are as much a public service as writing research papers). Which editorial boards “accept” t…

With a few minor changes, eLife is a non-profit journal that has that kind of peer review process: https://elifesciences.org/about/peer-review It is quite well regarded now, they publish excellent research and the whole process is crystal clear.

I think it remains to be seen how/if its reputation changes given their new approach. It will take a number of years before its impact can really be assessed.
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