(
http://www.theguardian.com)
Randy Schekman, a US biologist who won this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work on cellular vesicle transportation, has declared a boycott on top "luxury" science journals. Specifically, he says that the prestigious journals
Nature,
Cell and
Science have become complicit in a system that rewards authors of more popular papers with science-distorting incentives. Having a paper be published in one of these top journals has become a major goal among scientists, because doing so boosts their reputation, benefiting them professionally.
Due to their reputation, such journals are expected to publish high-quality research. And, in many cases, they do, but not all the time. High-end journal editors only accept a limited amount of papers in order to increase demand for having one's paper accepted; furthermore, they often decide to publish papers that are eye-catching or provocative, rather than of good quality, in order to increase subscriptions and the journal's impact factor and revenue. Schekman also criticizes impact factors, the flawed metric by which journals attempt to quantify the quality of their research, saying that they merely reflect how often a journal's papers are cited, which hardly translates to quality accurately. And, in fact, many journals simply pursue higher impact factors to increase their prestige and revenue, rather than focusing on publishing meaningful scientific research. Another problem is that these journals foster research in fields that are popular, rather than important, and discourage
replication studies; after all, a one-time experiment linking a common substance to a lethal disease, for example, would make a much larger splash, and be more likely to be accepted, than a subsequent experiment to prove or disprove the first would. These luxury journals can also "encourage the cutting of corners," contributing to the number of flawed or fraudulent papers with sensational claims, which journals are often eager to accept after a minimal peer-review process that often leads to
later retractions and scientific criticism.
"I have published in the big brands, including the papers that won me the Nobel prize... But no longer," Scheckman wrote in
The Guardian.
"There is a better way, through the new breed of open-access journals that are free for anybody to read, and have no expensive subscriptions to promote," Scheckman wrote. "Born on the web, they can accept all papers that meet quality standards, with no artificial caps. Many are edited by working scientists, who can assess the worth of papers without regard for citations."
Open-access journals are the imminent way of the future. As information becomes more free and accessible, quality improves as well and everyone benefits. In the end, after science breaks the tyranny of profit-seeking luxury journals, "[t]he result will be better research that better serves science and society."
Click here to read Schekman's full article, "How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science."
