There is a season for everything. Last year my friend David Mittelman and I teamed up with GigaScience editor Laurie Goodman to write up a commentary in Genome Biology, Dragging scientific publishing into the 21st century. We’re obviously in the 21st century, but for science publishing we’re in the “long twentieth.” But wait, it’s worse! As we noted in the piece, to a great extent the internet is used as a PDF delivery device by many publishers, and the PDF is an electronic form of the classic paper journal article, whose basic outlines were established in the 17th and 18th centuries. In other words, in a qualitative sense we’re not that much beyond the Age of Newton and the heyday of the Royal Society. Scientific publishing today is analogous to “steampunk.” An anachronistic mix of elements somehow persisting deep into the 21st century. Its real purpose is to turn the norms of the past into cold hard cash for large corporations.
Obviously I’m not the only one with this thought. To a great extent PLOS and the open access revolution arose to overturn the procrustean status quo. More recently preprint culture, and the transparency of “personal communication” via Twitter, have changed the terms of discussion. The metabolic pace has increased, and the transparency which breathes life into scientific discourse is on the march. It seems likely that the old order will die a death of a thousand cuts, as one practice after another fades into obscurity.
One of the main weak points of the current framework is that it does not serve the needs of the end user. For many, the goal of getting published is to add a line to the c.v., at least outside of the top-tier journals. This explains the emergence of vanity and fraudulent publishing houses. Many researchers of genuine eminence exist, but for some workaday scientists publishing somewhere will do well enough to keep the salary and perks coming. But science should be more than just a job. Science feeds the spirit of our society, it allows us to see with our mind’s eye how the world truly is. Scientific discussion has to flourish in a manner which is not simply an ends to careerism.
So back to a specific weakness of the current system: how to engage with the end user? David has assembled a small team to begin actualizing the “wish list” that we outlined in Dragging scientific publishing into the 21st century. That actualization takes the form of a new startup, N of Everyone, which exists to roll out technology to help folks better engage with and discuss science. Their first project is a reader which leverages the way people today actually read “papers.” That is, not simply a pixelization of paper, but a form of engagement with science which actually brings to the table the interactivity which is invited by the nature of electronic media. At many journal clubs people now read “papers” on tablets, notebook computers, and even phones. Why retrofit the print format of yore for the cutting-edge technology of today?
This probably sound a bit vague and nebulous. To make this concrete N of Everyone is looking to the crowd for support and to raise initial funds. Funding to transform an idea into a reality. There’s already a prototype (I’ve seen it). Imagine leaving comments on specific sentences of papers. Basically, the sort of annotation you already do emailing files or sharing docs when it comes to collaborating to get a publication polished.
Here’s some more information from their Kickstarter page:
- Share or comment on any sentence in the paper without having to leave the paper
- Get in-line context for references as well as a map of where those references are discussed throughout the paper.
- Get in-line context and discussion of figures in a paper as well as the entire discussion for a figure, even if it is distributed throughout the paper.
Get more information and lots of great screenshots at their their Kickstarter page, and consider contributing to the project (obviously). There’s a lot of ways one can imagine the communication of science going, and it will change. I’m confident of that. David and his partners are attempting to grab the bull by the horns and drive in a fruitful direction. I know they’re passionate about science, and for me that’s key. You can make money in a variety of ways. The reason they’re tackling this project is because this is an issue that’s close to their heart.
Note: comments are closed to this post. Since David & co. would appreciate feedback I’m sure, I’ll just point you to their Twitter, http://twitter.com/nofevery1.