Presentation given at the BSRG annual meeting in December 2017, Newcastle: http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/bsrg2017/programme/#technicalprogramme

1. Dr. Jon Tennant
@protohedgehog

2. Also..
• PLOS Paleo Community Editor
• Founder of paleorXiv
• Founder of the Open Science MOOC
• Palaeontologist
• ASAPbio ambassador, COS Ambassador
• Freelance journalist covering school comms

4. What do you think of when
you hear “published”?
How old do you think peer
review is?
Have you ever been
frustrated by the publishing
process?
How much do you hate the
term “Open Access”? http://whyopenresearch.org/

6. The Royal Society, 1845
Académie royale des
sciences, c.1671
The first journals appeared in
the mid-17th Century.
However..
The formalised practice that we
now call “peer review”
emerged in the early 19th
century.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/peer-review-not-old-you-might-think

7. Henry Oldenburg – The
first Editor?
“Although the beginnings of "peer review"
are frequently associated with the Royal
Society of London when it took over
official responsibility for the Philosophical
Transactions in 1752, antecedents of peer
review practices go back to the 17th
century. ”
- David Kronick (1990)
Origins of editorial “peer review” as a
gentlemanly, constructive, discussion.
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/380935

8. - Has full text articles going back to 1811.
- Current publishing house launched in 1988!

9.  Originality of research key as societies
sought public interest.
 Self-authorship dominant. Collaboration non-
existent.
 Origin of “peer review” as we now know it.
 Between 1,000-2,000 scientific periodicals.
 Nature launched around 1869.

10.  English becomes the language of science.
 Huge increase in the number of papers being published.
 Industry begins to get interested (££).
 Typewriters (1890s).
 Photocopiers (1959).
 Professional services become involved (££).
 Editorial.
 Publishing.
 Use of formalised peer review becomes more widespread.
 Around 21,000 peer reviewed journals (Dalen & Klamer, 2005).
 Geographic expansion.
 Specialisation of journals.

11. https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-
too-27405
Based on a paper on
gravitational waves
submitted to Physical
Review in 1935.
“According to the physicist and historian of
science Daniel Kennefick, it may well be that only a
single paper of Einstein’s was ever subject to peer
review.”
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/three-myths-about-scientific-peer-review/

12. I published a few things
in Nature when I was a PhD student
[in the 1960s] and almost anything
could get into it at the time, if it wasn't
actually wrong. Refereeing was pretty
erratic and I think they took more
notice of where it came from than the
content.50
- Walter Gratzer, 1966
http://www.nature.com/nature/history/timeline_1960s.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC4528400/

13.  The practice of editorial peer reviewing did
not become general until sometime after
World War II.
 Editorial peer review procedures did not
spread in an orderly way.
 Institutionalization of the process took
place mostly in the 20th century.
 To handle new problems in the numbers of
articles submitted.
 To meet the demands for expert authority
and objectivity in an increasingly
specialized world.
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-
abstract/380937
https://www.timeshighereducation.com
/features/peer-review-not-old-you-
might-think

14.  The practices of peer review and publishing
are not set in stone.
 Journals began with learned societies – they
matter!
 Peer review and publishing are very diverse
processes.
 Should practices developed for a print era be
the same in a digital world?
 Is the ideal of peer review still matched by the
process?
 "The Present is the Key to the Past is the Key
to the Future". James Hutton

16. We spend 1/3 of the total global research
budget (~£59/175bn) on publishing &
communicating results that 99% of people
cannot access
http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Activites-costs-flows-report.pdf

17.  We have an academic system where
researchers are forced to enter into a
publication-based economy dictated by
commercial values.
 The mantra ‘publish or perish’ is dead,
replaced by ‘publish and perish’ due to
under-funding and competitiveness in
climbing the academic career ladder.

18. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2017/june/acs-files-suit-against-sci-hub.html
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elsevier-victory-over-sci-hub-shows-research-corporate-asset
http://www.machinedesign.com/news/elsevi
er-restores-journal-access-german-
institutions

19. It doesn’t matter which ‘side’ you’re on. There are huge conflicts
happening, and they illustrate deep issues with our scholarly
communication system.

20. Peer Review Guidelines at Elsevier
http://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/reviewer-guidelines

21.  Librarians: serials crisis.
 Researchers: more visibility/citations.
 Economists: helps small businesses.
 Activists: morality, freedom, equality.
 Publishers: money, money, money.
 Funders: money, money, money .
 Editors: want quality content published.
 Policymakers: have to resolve all of this.
 Students: Quite like learning, apparently.

22. “There is a nearly unanimous perception
among molecular and cell biologists that
publishing has become the most discouraging
and frustrating part of research. The
trepidation level peaks at each stage of the
process: the editorial stage where rejection
without review has become the norm; the
review stage where reviewers frequently do
not fully understand the work or its
implications; and the revision stage, when
authors shoulder the disproportionate effort
to revise the paper per reviewers' demands.”
http://embor.embopress.org/content/16/12/1588

23. Peer review is.. “slow, expensive, profligate of academic
time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to
bias, and easily abused.”
- Richard Smith, former EiC of the BMJ
“Pre-publication peer review is no longer necessary
because the power of the internet now allows instant
publication of all results without requiring assessments
of their novelty or impact in the field.”
http://embor.embopress.org/content/16/12/1588

24.  “In the physical sciences, preprints have been de
rigueur for a quarter of a century—the majority of
research across a wide spectrum of disciplines is first
posted on arXiv as non‐peer‐reviewed manuscripts
(Ginsparg, 2016).”
 “Thus, more than 100,000 research manuscripts
annually on arXiv are open to comments from
colleagues, which fosters collaboration and helps
scientists to improve manuscripts before they are
submitted to a peer‐reviewed journal.”
http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2016/12/01/embj.201670030

25.  Researchers are all guilty of
“glam-humping”.
 Impact factors mean very, very
little.
 Except the higher it is, the more
likely you committed fraud.
 If you use the impact factor for
anything other than it’s intended
purpose, you are statistically
illiterate and should have all of
your research retracted.
http://www.nature.com/news/why-high-profile-
journals-have-more-retractions-1.15951
http://journal.frontiersin.org/articl
e/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00291/full

26. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502.g0
07
Percentage of papers published by the five major publishers in Physics

27. “...my CV needed a paper in a big-
name glam journal. Publishing in
this journal is seen as some kind of
holy grail...”
“...It does not feel like a good deal:
paper took 12 months to publish,
contains BnW figures, and cost me
deep in the purse.”
“...the amount we paid for the
paper is just subsidizing the paper
press of the journal, which society
members ‘demand’...”
“...the society will drive us to lose
any nostalgia if they don’t evolve;
worryingly for them, the latest
generation don’t give a shit about
the past.”
“The original bill made us spit out
our tea.”
“I will not be publishing with this
journal in the near-future; it left a
really bad taste.
“...it is the RIGHT place for many
key papers, just the WRONG
price.”
$4675 c. $8000$7500

28. Scholarly journal expenditures
percentage increase 1986–2010
compared to consumer price index. Data
from Association for Research Libraries.

29.  OA publishers were some of the first to experiment
with peer review
 PLOS ONE – megajournal with ‘objective peer
review’ (2006)
 Publishes “scientifically rigorous research regardless
of novelty”
 Frontiers – OA journal series with “interactive
collaborative peer review” (2007)
 “direct online dialogue, enabling quick iterations and
facilitating consensus”
 eLife – ‘Takes the pain out of peer review’ (2012)

30. https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/young-researchers-preach-open-access-yet-many-dont-practice
“Researchers under 35 as well as PhD candidates, master’s students and research
assistants had the least experience with open-access publishing.”

32. Almost all journals allow some form of it
Easily discoverable via e.g., Unpaywall
We all know “publishing isn’t free”
Real question: How much should it be?
https://figshare.com/articles/How_to_make_your_research_open_access_
For_free_and_legally_/5285512

33. http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/179-Raincoat-Science.html

35. “60.8% of researchers do not self-archive
their work even when it is free and in
keeping with journal policy.”
- Smith et al., (2017)
https://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-017-0235-3
“In a field where OA seems of practical and
ethical importance for the sharing of
knowledge promoting health equity, it is
surprising that researchers do not make
their papers available when they are legally
able to do so without any cost.”
- Smith et al., (2017)

36.  Publishing and peer review has become
synonymous with quality.
 The myth that journals and peer review
belong together.
 The myth that “it has always been this
way”.
 An industry that relies on perpetuating this
myth.
 Conflation of the ideal with the process.
 A ‘prestige economy’ based on publications,
and the brands associated with them.

38. No choice in
publishing
venue
Feel forced to
play the game
Reinforcement
of power
imbalances
Cultural inertia
and innovation
stifling
Commercial
interests govern

39. Slowly but surely
adapting to the Web of
1995

40. Why didn’t Open Access and the internet
cause the extinction of the dinosaurs
publishers?

41. People realise that the Web
is actually pretty powerful.
Most new tools developed
around a journal-based
system. Therefore depend
on publishers for
sustenance.
Very little thought generally
into long-term
sustainability.

42. “If preprints should attain the dominant
role they have in physics, publishing
papers in journals may remain attractive
only in journals that add real value to
the scientific communication process.”
- Bernd Pulverer (2016)
https://twitter.com/Graham_Coop/status/819738131612123137
http://emboj.embopress.org/content/e
arly/2016/12/01/embj.201670030
It only took 25 years..

43. https://www.nature.com/news/heavyweight-funders-
back-central-site-for-life-sciences-preprints-1.21466
Credit: Jordan Anaya

44. It’s your work. Publish where you want. But don’t lock it up.

46.  “The European Commission’s vision is
that information already paid for by the
public purse should not be paid for again
each time it is accessed or used, and that
it should benefit European companies and
citizens to the full.”
 http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/
data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/
h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf

47. Image Credit: dee_ , Flickr CC BY-NC-SA
Everywhere we are using networks to evaluate
information on the Web. Why not in science?

48.  Imagine Wikipedia, Stack Exchange,
and GitHub all had a baby together..
 Research communities coming
together to use Web technologies for
what they were actually designed for
 We could help to redefine the 3 core
aspects of any good peer review
process:
 Quality control and moderation
 Performance and engagement
incentives
 Certification and reputation

49. Use the power of professional
networks to evaluate scientific
results.

50. Traditional
 Conducted in a closed system
 Coupled with journal venue
 Exclusive with few actors
 Associates journal brand with
researcher prestige
 Based on trust
 Cannot be objectively assessed
Future
 Self-organised communities and
governance structures
 Elected ‘mods’ as editors
 Social norms dictate engagement
 Continuous process
 Inclusive community participation
 Quality defined by process of
engagement
 Independent of journals

51. Traditional
 Altruism
 A quid pro quo sense of duty
 Imbalanced
 Often unrewarded
 Often unrecognised
 Certification and reputation
decoupled
Future
 Link to academic profiles (e.g.,
Publons, ORCID, ScienceOpen)
 Virtual engagement rewards
 Quantified performance indices
 Community-based evaluation
 Badges?
 Reviewing the reviewers
 Encourages positive engagement

52. Traditional
 Terrible
 Virtually non-existent
 Journal-based
 Nothing else matters (besides the
impact factor)
 Reputation basically pilfered by
journals to build their brands
Future
 Transparent and interactive
 Community evaluation process
 Fully identified
 Connected to researcher profiles
 At the object and individual level
 Evolving and continuous process
 Can be easily quantified

53.  Publishers (most of them)
 Reconciling commercial interests with that of the wider public
 Commercial hi-jacking of public policies
 An almost complete lack of leadership from researchers
 An almost complete lack of education for researchers
 No effective communication strategy anywhere
 No coalescence of a globally heterogeneous community
 Total misalignment of open science with current incentive structures
 Copyright law restraints
 No linking to wider issues of public literacy in science

54. “For better or for worse, science will
have to live with traditional
peer‐reviewed journals, which are,
in any case, already evolving and
adapting.”
http://embor.embopress.org/content/16/12/1588
But..
• Do we really need journals?
• Do we really want journals..?
https://twitter.com/AsuraEnkhbayar/st
atus/838423030464409600

55.  Working models exist already that show
publishing can be better as a process
 Simultaneous uptake of new models
across the whole scholarly ecosystem
 Standardised communication between a
range of key participants
 Interoperability between specific and
diverse communities
 Increasing the recognition of more than
just research paperss across the board
 Getting research funders (and
researchers..) interested

56.  Education and training for our
students.
 Learn skills for new ways of doing
research.
 Empowerment and leadership for the
next generation.
 Shifting power dynamics to reduce
bias and abuse.
 Building a global community based on
sharing and collaboration.
 Massive-scale engagement to re-align
Open Science with current incentive
structures.

57.  Building a peer review and scholarly communication
platform designed for a Web-native research community
 Resolution of all the technical and social issues
associated with peer review
 Disruption of the entire scholarly communication process
 Decoupling of peer review and communication from
journals
 Community adoption of standards to encourage practice
and adoption
 Research communication in the hands of researchers
 Saving the global research community $billions every
year