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"[T]hese companies do nothing for us." I agree 99%. The one thing they do for us, and the one thing that any alternative system would have to replicate, is provide a signal of quality through their history and prestige. The whole constellation of scientific publications, grant writing, grant reviews, tenure committees, faculty searches, and dissertation committees revolve around publications. But it seems nobody can, or desires, to read all of an individual's publications, synthesize the content of what they've produced, and compare it to the other work in increasingly specialized sub-fields. Instead, to evaluate the quality of work and the scientists themselves, we rely on the number of articles published multiplied by the journal's impact factor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor), roughly speaking. This we've used as a proxy for scientific quality. And besides lazy, it's insidious, too. Before even sitting down to read an article, I've already absorbed which journal this article appeared in. If a prestigious journal, how can I help being predisposed to think favorably of it? It's a seductive shortcut. This is why the academic journals are so entrenched. And it shows what any alternative system must replicate. It is relatively easy to create a website that unites authors, peer reviewers, editors, and a publishing/editing system. What is not straight-forward is to create a system with that last 1%: the external quality signal. |