
Show Notes
Open access articles have democratized the availability of scientific research, but are author-paid publication fees undermining the quality of science?
The preprint by Morgan and Smaldino - https://osf.io/preprints/osf/3ez9v
Paul Smaldino's text book - Modeling social behavior
Main edisode takeaways (AI-assisted summary)
There is a wide variability in the quality of papers published in gold open access journals and a wide variate of open access journals, some of which prioritise quality research
Diamond open access and green open access are alternative models to consider.
The publishing industry needs more transparency and mandatory reporting of data. The pressure to publish more can lead to a crowding out problem and a focus on quantity over quality.
Determining the quality of journals and papers is challenging, and there are varying levels of quality within different tiers of journals.
Fraudulent publishing practices, such as paper mills and fake papers, can be facilitated by the market for publishing.
The Publons service (R.I.P) and similar platforms can improve the transparency of peer review and provide a record of reviewers' contributions.
Society journals may offer a better publishing model as they have a reputation to maintain and are less likely to prioritize quantity over quality.
Other links
Everything Hertz on social media
Dan on twitter
James on twitter
Everything Hertz on twitter
Everything Hertz on Facebook
Support us on Patreon and get bonus stuff!
$1 per month: A 20% discount on Everything Hertz merchandise, access to the occasional bonus episode, and the the warm feeling you're supporting the show
$5 per month or more: All the stuff you get in the one dollar tier PLUS a bonus episode every month
Citation
Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2024, Sept 5). 184: A race to the bottom, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3MUJV Support Everything Hertz
More from Everything Hertz
We discuss how living meta‑analyses—meta‑analyses that are continuously updated as new studies appear—can cut research waste and keep evidence current. We also chat about how using synthetic research participants is a terrible idea.
We discuss whether preprint servers and journals should require author identity verification for submitting manuscripts. This would probably speed up the submission process, but is this worth the potential downsides? We also discuss the similarities and differences between academia and professional sports and a weird case of author identity theft.
Dan and James chat about a a new 'pop-up journal' concept for addressing specific research questions. They also answer a listener question from a journal grammar editor and discuss a new PNAS article on paper mills
Dan and James answer listener questions on outsourcing in academia and differences in research culture between academic institutions and commercial institutions.
James and Dan discuss James' newly funded 'Medical Evidence Project', whose goal is to find questionable medical evidence that is contaminating treatment guidelines.