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The publishing system is ever more confusing and it’s starting to stress me. I used to consider myself more on top of it but now am really not sure what the ‘right thing to do’ is to either publish our work or to recommend to others what they should do...a thread. 1/12
Yes, I’d like to publish everything through a @biorxivpreprint (I’m an affiliate) and final version in @J_Cell_Sci (I’m an editor so....) and my other favourite journals but I still cannot convince myself that this is always the best route to the widest readership. 2/12
This isn’t about impact factor, this is about visibility of work. 3/12
The immediate impact of the work is undeniably more in a more widely read journal. Like it or not, peers judge you on that basis. Similar to any area (thinking about “top 4 accountancy firms”, national versus local press, getting a product in a supermarket vs local deli). 4/12
And of course it costs, it all costs. Editorial systems, screening, initial review, screening, hosting, copy editing etc. That’s before we even get to peer review. How do we pay for it? How do scientists make a judgement call when costs and sources of funding are so opaque? 5/12
In particular where should/can the money come from and could it be put to better use? Examples around the charitable open access fund hit home here in particular. Also studentships funded by institutions or philanthropy and self-funding individuals. 6/12
I am a firm believer that there are issues, especially in academic research, of valuing quantity over quality. The move to open access will highlight this I think, it should make people consider what is worth publishing and could even drive more preprint-only behaviour. 7/12
I know there is a lot of debate and discussion out there and some great reading material. Time to engage with all that is another thing entirely. And, yes, I get the post publication peer review thing but again I question visibility and engagement. 8/12
In the meantime, we have some fabulous work to publish and I am really confused and unclear how we should make the most of it. Simply, we now have to consider cost in our thinking. 9/12
Our @BristolUniLib open access team are amazing on helping make such calls but they will be overwhelmed if they have to consult on every submission. 10/12
It’s important to think about this as it frames how we write our work up, it affects the careers of the early career researchers involved, it affects the likelihood of further grant support, and the potential impact through how others might pick up and run with our findings.11/12
You all know this though, this is the Twitter bubble. Just ranting about one more thing that I am struggling to manage! 12/12
