Stage 4: Grading Model
Break the "one article, one journal" model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets Other Information:
A Grading Evaluation System and a Diversified Dissemination System -- Through Stage 3, nothing in the scientist's daily practices,
save for the editor's role, must change. The changes are, instead, in the communication ecosystem. Scientists can continue
operating exactly as they do presently; the changes just increase opportunity for more and faster access to others' research.
Stage 4 is the first stage in which scientific communication necessarily changes for the scientist. In this stage, we alter
the peer review system and diversify the dissemination system.
Stakeholder(s):
- Research Authors: The standard practice has an article evaluated for the journal considering it, and then publishing articles in one and only
one journal. In Stage 4, we separate the link between peer review and specific journals. Instead of submitting a manuscript
for review by a particular journal with a particular level of prestige, authors submit to a review service for peer review
(see, e.g., RIOJA [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja/about/], designed as a peer review overlay to arXiv).
- Research Review Services: The review service does not decide whether the article meets the "accept" standard for any particular journal. Instead, it
gives the article a grade.
- Journals: Journals could retain their own review process, as they do now, or they could drop their internal review system and use the
results of one or many review services. Because all articles are published (Stage 3), journals are not publishing articles,
they are promoting them. Journals would have no exclusivity claim on individual articles. Dozens of journals could promote
the same article. For example, SSRN (http://SSRN.com/) has many research networks and eJournals for filtering and disseminating
the more than 300,000 papers contained in their repository. Authors can submit their paper to as many eJournals as they like,
and editors consider its relevance for dissemination through their portal.
- Journal Editors: This change splits the editor role further. Most of the editorial infrastructure of journals gets consolidated into review
services (e.g., APA journal boards could consolidate into a single review service for all of psychology), and a distinct,
"curator" editorial role emerges that is just for selecting articles to be promoted in any given journal.
- Research Curators
Objective(s):
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