In his latest post, Simon Linacre argues that in order for authors to make optimal decisions – and not to get drawn into predatory publishing nightmares – research and publishing efforts should overlap substantially.
In a recent online discussion on predatory publishing, there was some debate as to the motivations of authors to chose predatory journals. A recent study in the ALPSP journal Learned Publishing found that academics publishing in such journals usually fell into one of two camps – either they were “uninformed” that the journal they had chosen to publish in was predatory in nature, or they were “unethical” in knowingly choosing such a journal in order to satisfy some publication goals.
However, a third category of researcher was suggested, that of the ‘unfussy’ author who neither cares nor knows what sort of journal they are publishing in. Certainly, there may be some overlap with the other two categories, but what they all have in common is bad decision-making. Whether one does not know, does not care, or does not mind which journal one publishes in, it seems to me that one should do so on all three counts.
It was at this point where one of the group posed one of the best questions I have seen in many years in scholarly communications: when it comes to article publication, where does the science end in scientific research? Due in part to the terminology as well as the differing processes, the concept of research and publication are regarded as somehow distinct or separate. Part of the same eco-system, for sure, but requiring different skills, knowledge and approaches. The question is a good one as it challenges this duality. Isn’t is possible for science to encompass some of the publishing process itself? And shouldn’t the publishing process become more involved in the process of research?
The latter is already happening to a degree in moves by major publishers to climb up the supply chain and become more involved in research services provision (e.g. the acquisition of article platform services provider Atypon by Wiley). On the other side, there is surely an argument that at the end of experiments or data collection, analyzing data logically and writing up conclusions, there is a place for scientific process to be followed in choosing a legitimate outlet with appropriate peer review processes? Surely any university or funder would expect such a scientific approach at every level from their employees or beneficiaries. And a failure to do this allows in not only sub-optimal choices of journal, but worse predatory outlets which will ultimately delegitimize scientific research as a whole.
I get that that it may not be such a huge scandal if some ho-hum research is published in a ‘crappy’ journal so that an academic can tick some boxes at their university. However, while the outcome may not be particularly harmful, the tacit allowing of such lazy academic behavior surely has no place in modern research. Structures that force gaming of the system should, of course, be revised, but one can’t help thinking that if academics carried the same rigor and logic forward into their publishing decisions as they did in their research, scholarly communications would be in much better shape for all concerned.