Journals, the open science question
July 4th, 2007I think journal policies towards preprint servers are covered by the data from the Romeo database, outlined previously. For the next stage of the open science edition of tips and tricks I think I need to include clarification of journal positions towards publication and discussion of data on blogs, wikis, and such like.
I spent a while trying to come up with a suitably clever letter, but this is the best I could do.
Dear Sirs,
I’m compiling, with the bioinformatics blogging community, a guide to open science. I believe one of the one of most important points on in this issue are journal editorial polices towards sharing and discussing research, prior to publication. The use of preprint servers is becoming accepted, however the position of journals towards the use of blogs and wikis to discuss results is less clear.
I am writing to ask for your policy regarding this. I would like to permission to include your reply in the finished guide. You can find wiki page for this at wiki.nodalpoint.org/open_science.
As you might expect, I’ve put this on a nodal point wiki page. If you’ve got any corrections or suggestions, you can leave them here in the comments or edit the letter yourself. I’ll load up them into the SPAM bot and send them out on Friday.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Mike, this is a great idea. Attila has already done a little bit of asking-around on this issue, and it would be wonderful to have a RoMEO-style database of journal policies regarding up-and-coming forms of science communication.
I think the letter is good; the only thing I might think about adding is a pointer to Jean-Claude Bradley’s UsefulChem wiki and blog, so that the readers, if they’re not already familiar with it, can see what sorts of communication methods you’re talking about. (Is “Sirs” the usual address these days, or is Sir/Madam still the polite version?)
To whom do you plan to send it? (SHERPA/RoMEO might have the publisher addresses in a more convenient format that they could send you.) Email or snail-mail or both?
Let me know if I can help at all.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Depending if you want or not to make it something more formal or not (I guess at this stage it might not make to much sense) you could think of collecting some signatures. I agree with Bill that pointing out some examples where this is already happening would be useful.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Thanks for the feedback guys.
I saw Attila’s post, which was part of the inspiration for this, since he had such a comprehensive response. Including a link to Jean-Claude’s wiki and blog is a good idea too. I’ll updated the letter with this and send it off soon.