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The speed of academic publishing was challenged at the ALPSP (Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers) conference, held at Heathrow last week (14th–16th September), with two speakers—academic clinician Philippa Matthews and Wellcome Library’s head of digital services Robert Kiley—separately urging publishers to reform their approach.
During a session on academic engagement, Matthews, a consultant in clinical infection at Oxford University, told publishers that among her colleagues there was “frustration over the length of time it takes to get to publication”. She cited delays in deciding whether to accept or reject an article, and in getting an accepted article to publication, arguing “data is out of date before it gets into print”. It also means “paralysis” for the researcher, who cannot get on with a new project, she added.
Matthews criticised publishers for a lack of dialogue, closed online submission portals and extensive article submission requirements. She claimed publishers were “not flexible or allowing creativity”, and needed to give “more recognition” to peer reviewers.
Kiley, speaking in a panel titled Shifting Sands: What’s Affecting Your Business?, urged academics and publishers to embrace the use of preprints (versions of articles circulated ahead of publication) “as a fast way to disseminate outputs”. He added: “We need to change [academic] culture by encouraging researchers to cite preprints, and to [persuading] publishers to accept that preprints don’t constitute ‘prior publication’.”
Kiley noted the speed of his institution’s new platform Wellcome Open Research, which publishes articles online in just a week. During that time it checks for “hygiene” issues, such as plagiarism. It offers researchers the ability to publish across all their research outputs (including datasets), and works on an author-led, open review system.
It is one of several initiatives by Wellcome aimed at changing the dynamics of scholarly communication, another being Open Access journal eLife, to which it has just given a further five years of funding.