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by AndrewGYork 3040 days ago
In the same spirit, our lab is experimenting with a new approach to scientific publishing via Github: https://twitter.com/AndrewGYork/status/965765089373515776

No paywall, no delay, straight to the web. Open data, open code, interactive/animated figures. Transparent, rolling peer review, version control, CC-BY license, citable DOIs. I was worried no one would read it, but it turns out science twitter is awesome. Very positive experience, so far.
1 comments
greeneggs 3040 days ago
That's good, but it is not a substitute for preprint servers. In particular, preprint servers are archival and more discoverable.
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AndrewGYork 3040 days ago
Sounds like we're pulling in the same direction re:improving scientific publishing. At the risk of debating an ally, do you mean to imply that preprint servers are "more archival"? I'm guessing you're familiar with CERN/Zenodo; you trust bioArxiv's continued existence more than CERN's? I rate them as similar, arguably with an edge to CERN.

My experience with publishing is that discoverability is a stronger function of advertising and (especially) getting cited than the publication venue. I do agree that bioarxiv and arxiv are nice advertising venues, but there are lots of ways to skin that cat.

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greeneggs 3040 days ago
I'm actually only familiar with the arXiv, for physics and computer science research. I don't know much about biorxiv or Zenodo, but they both seem much better than a personal website or github page.

The arXiv has overlay sites, such as http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/ or https://scirate.com/ , that improve discoverability over the basic arXiv interface; for example, you can browse all the papers in a given area posted in the last two months, sorted by some proxy for "interest." Of course there is also Google Scholar, and perhaps there are better ways.

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