In this episode of The Research Pages podcast, join hosts Andrew and Niamh as they delve into the world of academic publishing and explore how the process can be improved for researchers everywhere. They examine the complexities and inefficiencies of the current publishing landscape and envision a future where the systems are more user-friendly, allowing academics to focus on their research instead of navigating cumbersome publication processes.

The conversation begins with a discussion on the challenges faced by researchers, such as managing multiple usernames and passwords across different journal websites and providing excessive amounts of personal information for submissions. Andrew and Niamh acknowledge the recent improvements brought by ORCID ID, which simplifies the login process and helps disambiguate researchers with similar names.

As they explore ways to streamline the publishing process, the hosts emphasize that the primary goal for researchers is to have their work hosted permanently with a citable DOI, without the need for additional complications. They express their desire for a centralized hosting service that indexes uploaded papers and extracts metadata automatically, saving researchers time and effort.

The episode also dives into the often opaque world of peer review, examining the lack of transparency in the process and sharing concerns about the quality of reviews. Andrew and Niamh question the value of peer review without transparency and discuss the pros and cons of signed, public peer reviews. They highlight the importance of striking a balance between anonymity for protection and openness for credibility.

The hosts propose an ideal scholarly publishing landscape that includes a content hosting platform with search functionality, good metadata, and a transparent peer review system. They consider existing platforms like Faculty of 1000 and Journal of Open Source Software, which meet some of these criteria, but acknowledge that researchers may still hesitate to publish there due to concerns about journal prestige and quality perception.

In the pursuit of reinventing the scholarly publishing landscape, Andrew and Niamh emphasize the need for open peer review, content filtering for relevance, and search functionality that reaches the right audience. They also stress the importance of ensuring a diverse range of voices for accurate information dissemination. However, the challenge remains in convincing researchers to adopt such a new system without being negatively impacted by traditional perceptions of journal quality.

Tune in to this thought-provoking episode to learn more about the hosts' vision for a better academic publishing process and join the conversation on how we can work together to create a more efficient, transparent, and inclusive scholarly communication system.

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