Albert Einstein said: “An academic career, in which a person is forced to produce scientific writings in great amounts, creates a danger of intellectual superficiality”.
Researchers have been working with the pressures of ‘Publish or Perish’ for decades. The default response is to question the value of microPublications that are produced as a result. But what about when microPublications are carefully defined; peer review is stringently completed; and they enable publishers to more efficiently produce the ‘longer story’ research articles with pre-validated research outputs? Are there largely unknown opportunities and values to be gained quickly? Can microPublications enable synthesizing and distilling of information and integrate this information in established repositories to create a more meaningful and greater corpus of knowledge - dare we say, global knowledgebase?
In this blog we hear from scientific curators with new roles as editors of a microPublication, and from a publisher who encourages this new publishing genre.
Chair: Heather Staines, Head of
Partnerships, MIT Knowledge Futures Group.
Contributors:
- Daniela Raciti, Scientific Curator for Wormbase and Managing Editor, microPublication Biology
- Karen Yook, Scientific Curator for Wormbase and Managing Editor, microPublication Biology
- Tracey DePellegrin, Executive Director, Genetics Society of America
Heather Staines: As an historian
and former acquiring editor for books, I’ve long thought of articles as short-form
publications and have struggled with the ‘less is more’ school of thought. When
I started to hear about microPublications a few years back, I was intrigued. I
wondered how researchers would define the scope of these postings, how they
would be viewed within their respective disciplines, and how they would fit
within the larger scholarly communications infrastructure. I was thrilled to be
asked to moderate the ALPSP webinar, to get to hear directly from the folks at
microPublication Biology and at the Genetics Society of America. Here is a bit
of what I’ve learned in preparation for the session.
Question 1: How would you define a microPublication?
microPublication Biology: A microPublication is a peer-reviewed report of findings from a single experiment. A microPublication typically has a single figure and/or results table, the text is brief, but has sufficient relevant background to give the scientific community an understanding of the experiment and the findings, and there is sufficient methodological & reagent information and references that the experiment can be replicated by others.
Question 1: How would you define a microPublication?
microPublication Biology: A microPublication is a peer-reviewed report of findings from a single experiment. A microPublication typically has a single figure and/or results table, the text is brief, but has sufficient relevant background to give the scientific community an understanding of the experiment and the findings, and there is sufficient methodological & reagent information and references that the experiment can be replicated by others.
Genetics Society of America (GSA):
I’ve got to agree with my colleagues on this one. I think one key here is that
the findings in microPublication Biology are in fact peer-reviewed.
They’re also discoverable, so they’re not lost in the literature. And I love
the idea that these are compact yet powerful components scientists can build upon.
Question 2: What was the driving
force behind the decision to move forward with microPublications?
microPublication Biology: There
are two driving forces. The first is to increase the entry of research
finding into the public domain. These findings are of value to the scientific
community, they give the authors credit for their work, and publication fulfils
the agreement researchers make with funding agencies (and taxpayers) to
disseminate their findings. The second is to efficiently incorporate new
data into scientific databases, such as WormBase. Scientific databases
organize, aggregate and display data in ways that have tremendous value for
researchers, greatly facilitating experimentation (increasing efficiency,
decreasing cost). Databases are most useful when they are comprehensive; the
microPublication platform allows efficient and economical incorporation of
information into databases. We hope that in the long term, other
scientific publishers will come on board to directly deposit data from publications
into the authoritative databases.
GSA:
GSA is supportive of microPublications for several reasons. First,
incorporating new data into scientific databases is critical. Researchers in
our fields depend on model organism databases like WormBase, FlyBase, Saccharomyces
Genome Database (SGD), the Zebrafish Information Network (zfin), and
others, many of which are supported by the National Human Genome Research
Institute (NHGRI) and included in the Alliance of Genome Resources. These
databases are critical in understanding the genetic and genomic basis of human
biology, health, and disease, and are curated by experts in the field. The
microPublication platform helps authors by incorporating their findings into
these databases in a way that’s seamless and painless for busy scientists.
Second, microPublication Biology reduces the barrier of entry for
scientists hoping to freely share their peer-reviewed research in a credible
venue. Also, it’s terrific that microPublication provides the
opportunity to publish a negative result. Negative results are important, yet
too few journals publish them. The bottom line is that microPublication
Biology addresses a need in scholarly publishing, serving authors and
readers alike by filling a gap existing journals don’t serve.
Question 3: How does the peer
review process differ, if at all, from the peer review of longer articles?
microPublication Biology: The
peer-review process is similar to other journals, with a few distinguishing
features. First, since the publication is limited in scope and length, it is
simple and quick to review. Second, the publication criteria are
straightforward – is the work experimentally sound? - does the data support the
conclusion? – is there sufficient information to allow replication? – and, are
the findings of use to the community? The last point goes along with the
categorical assignment of the microPublication as a New finding, Finding
not previously shown (unpublished result in a prior publication), Negative
result, Replication – successful, Replication – unsuccessful, and Commodity validation.
GSA: Because I’m not an editor at
microPublication Biology, I can only generalize here. But I will use
this opportunity to underscore the importance of high-quality peer review as
well as editors who are well-respected leaders in the field. One glance at the
editorial board of microPublication Biology shows that these scientists
are in a position to guide the careful review and decision on submitted data in
their respective fields. I also find the categorial assignments interesting –
especially the idea of a successful (or unsuccessful) replication.
Question 4: What do you see as
the future for microPublications?
microPublication Biology: Huge!
This publishing model will help change how researchers communicate with one
another, how a researcher’s accomplishments are evaluated and tracked, and
provide an earlier step for budding researchers to be introduced to scholarly
communication. The microPublication venue easily lends itself to
expansion into entirely new fields. However, such expansions need to be driven
by the field’s scientific community (the group that will submit manuscripts,
peer review the manuscripts, and maintain community standards).
GSA: The sky’s the limit. I agree
with everything (above). In times where we’re trying to encourage grant review
panels and others to evaluate scientists by the data they’re publishing (rather
than the impact factor of the journal in which the article appears), such
venues as microPublication Biology provide a chance for researchers to
get credit for contributions that might not otherwise be recognized. And that’s
progress!
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Heather Staines: I’d like to take
this opportunity to thank our panellists for taking the time to weigh in on
these questions. I hope you will now agree with me that microPublications
provide an interesting and useful twist on the traditional journal publication
model.
To learn more, please register
for the ALPSP webinar: 'Making the case
for embracing microPublications: Are they a way forward for scholarly
publishing?'
Wednesday 26 June.
16:00-17:00 BST, 11.00-12:00 EDT,
17:00-18:00 CEST, 08:00-09:00 PDT.
The webinar
is ideal for: publishing executives, editors,
librarians, funders and researchers.
