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The Roles of Scholarly Journals
Although the motivation for creating Philosophical Transactions was primarily to limit controversy and promote an orderly scientific institution with a hierarchy based on peer-defined excellence, it is the role of disseminating information that forms the crux of the debate over how the scholarly publication process should be structured. To make sense of the debate, it is helpful to distinguish two somewhat different forms of dissemination that along with ensuring authors receive appropriate credit for their intellectual achievements form the three core purposes fulfilled by scholarly journals. The first is facilitating the exchange of ideas among scholars working in the same narrow field that is the engine of progress. The second is forming a constantly evolving historical archive of scholarly thought. These three roles of journals have different though overlapping requirements that are also to some extent in conflict.
Science and scholarship is a social activity. Communication among scientists in a field is an essential ingredient for scientific progress and thrives on the free interactive exchange of ideas. The vetting of poor quality material through peer review provides little value for experts in a field while significantly hampering the interactive nature of this type of communication. Likewise, copyediting and typesetting are not particularly helpful as long as a manuscript adequately communicates the intended meaning and again just hinders the interactive nature of the communication. Traditional peer-reviewed journals have never served this role particularly well and their weaknesses have become increasingly apparent, as advances in technology have provided other more suitable options. This role has begun to shift to other forms of communication and in particular, preprint archives, the most notable of which is the arXiv.org in physics and computer science [5]. It is interesting to note that while arXiv.org has become the predominant way physicists communicate, the traditional peer-reviewed physics journals remain strong and in fact have the highest average subscription fees of the journals in any scientific field! [6]
Peer-reviewed journals also serve as a continually updated comprehensive and authoritative archive of knowledge. While it is important that the archive reflect the current thought and findings within the field, the need for quick turnaround from submission to dissemination is far less crucial than for the role of supporting interactive communication among experts in a field. Ensuring the accuracy and quality of the information contained in a manuscript as well as the clarity of the writing and quality of the presentation is far more important and in some cases crucial [7]. What is also crucial for this role is the robustness and stability of the archive. Traditional paper journals have served this role exceedingly well. Ironically, what are generally seen as limitations of paper as a media help make it well suited for this role.
The time consuming and expensive task creating multiple copies and distributing them to hundreds if not thousands of research libraries creates an incredibly robust archive that is virtually indestructible with the exception of the slow breakdown of paper over time. It is not that in theory an equally robust electronic archive could be created, it is just not an inherent feature of the media.
Likewise, the immutability of paper creates an almost neurotic concern about the accuracy of the material and the clarity of the presentation that helps ensure a high quality product. As stated by Burbules and Bruce (1995):
"On the other hand, the care and precision of proofreading, revision, editing, designing and typesetting manuscripts to create an authoritative (and aesthetically appealing) version of an author or authors' document has traditionally been linked with the finality of creating a printed, bound version that will be archived as such for posterity. Both the producer of the text and its editor and publisher have a common interest in seeing it be as complete, persuasive and carefully written as possible, since there is a sense in which, once published, there is no taking it back. The printed medium, therefore, has distinct benefits" [8].Again, it is not that this level of care and concern cannot be achieved in electronic publication; it is just not an inherent feature of the media.
As has been the case for hundreds of years, publication in peer-review journals remains a cornerstone in the ranking of scholarly achievement. What has changed is that there are now thousands of peer-reviewed journals. A hierarchy of journals has developed in most fields that form a complex ranking system for the quality of an individual's scholarship. To some extent, this hierarchy of journals is contained in a tacit understanding among the scholars in a field. As noted by Guédon (2001) it has also been codified to some degree through citation indexes that record the extent journals are cited. Ironically, these indexes, which were created to help librarians deal with the difficult question of which journals to subscribe have substantially exasperated the problem they were designed to help address. By providing a vehicle for codifying the concept of "core journals" within scholarly fields, particularly in the physical sciences, these indexes have created a situation that has allowed at least some unscrupulous publishers to raise the price of the core journals they own through the roof, in the view of some, creating the serial pricing crisis. The ten-fold spread in the average cost of journals across scholarly fields with the arts and letters at the low end and the physical sciences at the high end tends to support this hypothesis [9].
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The complete paper discusses some of the problems with "peer review" and its attendant consequences. Bottom line in my estimation, and pre-internet at least, it put way too much control into the hands of a few "publishers" of scholarly journals. In the past they had the ability to cherry pick articles that favored a particular sacred cow or "acceptable" scientist.
Now, before anyone suggests being fitted for tin foil, consider this: Evil does not wear a scarlet letter on its forehead nor does it wave a banner signalling its whereabouts or its intentions.
Given the seemingly widespread acceptance of junk science in this country, how many would argue the scientific community is not broken?
The links don't render properly from this article or from the original posted, so I at least wanted to redo some links from the bottom of the original:
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