Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 11/12/2012 15:58:56
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A new scientific journal is being launched this week in Cambridge. We hear how it differs to existing journals and why it is important.
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1000050/)
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It seems like a good idea. It is irksome to have to pay for a paper based on a crude synopsis only to find it is either a load of junk or, at best, does not actually cover the parts that may be interesting to you. In my experience, this is about 95% of the papers, which makes the hit rate so low as to make the exercise expensive, although much of this would not apply if you are in an academic institution. It also dissuades anyone from browsing so that something may strike a chord and trigger some new idea or direction of thought.
I can also see there may be a downside in that there may be considerable bad feeling generated between a critical reviewer and an author. This may lead to changes in behaviour by either or both parties, some of which may be beneficial and in other cases not so. On the whole it's worth a try.
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I think there will always remain a disjoint between 99% of the public reading secondary sources, and the few reading and trying to understand the primary sources.
However, I wholly agree that we need better availability of the primary sources to everyone. Perhaps this, and other e-publishers will start making a dent in the locked up publishing model, and other more established publishers will start looking for better universal access models.