I've fantasized for years about getting a full-time job in academic typesetting and dealing with math typography, footnotes, reference marks and other stuff you just don't get to play with in books and magazines
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I'll definitely second all those complaints about dealing with the differences between journals. Whats worse is it seems like after all the hoops they make us jump through they still do whatever they want to with the final document (image placement wise etc... not words). Do you advocate a transition to a format where you buy PDFs of only the articles you want rather than paying a flat subscription fee? Most journals now offer that option. Should that fee be waived then when the research was funded by taxpayer money? As to your final question I can say that reviewers are generally not paid so the actually approval process of the merit of the document is extremely low. Do you think the academic journal is just sort of an outdated method for delivering information? One of the PLoS jourals PLoS one has sort of an open ended discusssion board/rating system for papers and I wonder if this might not a better model as we moved forward.
Re: why not...justicefireFebruary 1 2010, 16:38:00 UTC
Would those articles then be available for free as a result? The real question to me is that should taxpayers have to pay to see the results of their money? Drew
Re: why not...huskarlFebruary 1 2010, 17:59:56 UTC
The articles should be free to the individual viewer.
The individual taxpayer should not have to pay, just like the individual taxpayer does not have to fund lab supplies. But the 'taxpayers' as a group have to pay one way or another. Publication is a cost of intellectual production, just like the time spent by the researcher on his literature search is a cost of intellectual production.
Unless the government is going to institute a publication for their funded research, that follows the standards of the scientific community publications, I'm in favour of the wait a year then re-publish. Yes the journals are a headache and could probably refine their processes, but the review process is, more than likely, better than anything the government will put together.
the journal review process is basically a mirror of the review process that was instituted by the NIH, NSF and DOE. In fact, the US peer-review process is the gold standard of the world. Indeed, I think italy recently asked the NIH to review their proposals for them since there is so much corruption in their government. The concern is that this would mean creating another branch for reviewing publications and I think that is too costly... Drew
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PLoS one has sort of an open ended discusssion board/rating system for papers and I wonder if this might not a better model as we moved forward.
http://www.plosone.org/home.actionDrew
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Drew
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The individual taxpayer should not have to pay, just like the individual taxpayer does not have to fund lab supplies. But the 'taxpayers' as a group have to pay one way or another. Publication is a cost of intellectual production, just like the time spent by the researcher on his literature search is a cost of intellectual production.
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Drew
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