Blog: New Paradigm for Scientific Publication and Peer Review

New Paradigm for Scientific Publication and Peer Review
ICT Results (08/09/10)

A European research project aims to replace scientific papers and peer reviews with a process inspired by social networking. The LiquidPublication project seeks to revolutionize how scientists share their work and evaluate contributions from others. The current scientific publication paradigm leads to wasted time, a heavy load for peer reviewers, and too many papers that recycle already published research or dribble out results a bit at a time, says project leader Fabio Casati. The researchers are developing a new way to share scientific knowledge, which they call liquid publication. The method takes advantage of the Web's ability to speed communication, facilitate data storage, search and retrieve data, and foster communities of interest to replace traditional peer reviews and paper publications. "If we can make scientists' work even 10 percent more efficient, it will give a great benefit to the community," Casati says. He says liquid publication could reduce the number of multiple papers that just report incremental new results. Instead, the researchers want to see incremental changes clearly identified by versions. They also suggest replacing peer reviews with the assessment that is implicitly given by the relevant community while editing and reading liquid journals.

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