The Transformation of Research Publishing and the Competitive Nature of the Scientific Community

ABSTRACT. The main objective of this paper is to explore and describe the quality and reliability of the scientific literature, the importance of validation in online publishing, the publication of unworthy scientific research, and the dissemination of scholarly knowledge. I am specifically interested in how previous research investigated the potential rise in scientific misconduct, the competitive nature of the scientific community, the fundamental force driving the speed of the move towards full open access, and the rational use of citation data as a primary source of performance evaluation.Keywords: research, publishing, science, misconduct, impact factor1. IntroductionIn the present paper, I focus on the objective evaluation of scientists, scientific publications, and journals, the values and limitations of the citation index and the impact factor, and shady publishing practices. The findings of this study have implications for the future of science communication, the transformation of research publishing, the broad use of the citation index as a general measure of scientific quality, and scholarly publishing scams. The results of the current study converge with prior research on the changes that have taken place in scientific publishing since the rise of the open-access movement, the exponential growth of questionable publishers, the cost-effectiveness of open-access journals, and the integrity of scientific self-assessment.2. The Rational Use of Citation Data as a Primary Source of Performance EvaluationThe San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) notes that the JIF, which ranks scholarly journals by the average number of citations their articles attract in a set period warps the way that research is conducted, reported, and funded: the JIF is the average number of citations received in a year per paper published in the journal during the two preceding years (the earliest that a new journal can have a JIF is the end of its third full year of publication), has become a powerful proxy for scientific value and is being widely misused to assess individual scientists and research institutions (the JIF can be gamed by editors and authors), and is based on the mean of the citations to papers in a given journal, rather than the median.1Loscalzo argues that the citation index and the impact factor are used as quantifiable measures of quality, of the scientist and of the journal in which the scientist publishes. These indices are increasingly incorporated in curricula vitae and letters of reference for promotion, and may be used formally as objective indicators of suitability for promotion or increased financial compensation. the impact factor us the central currency in the journal realm, as authors wish to publish in journals with the highest impact factors. A journal's impact factor is an index of journal quality and success, determining the extent to which the journal is resourced by its sponsoring organization or publisher.The citation index is driven by the scientific community of which the publishing scientist is a part. If that community is comparatively large and active, comprising members who publish frequently, the likelihood that a published paper will be cited is greater than if that community is more limited in size and productivity. [...] The citation index and the impact factor are only weakly correlated, at best, with true quality, were we to have an independent measure of quality against which to compare them.2It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that any scientist doing work recognized as sufficiently novel and ground-breaking may be highly cited. As Loscalzo puts it, the impact factor is riddled with many flaws that can be misleading to readers and to journal editors: one can decrease the overall number of published articles, and the number of original articles published, and increase the number of highly citable reviews published (the impact factor is a surrogate for use). …