A comment on “The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper?”

By Adeilton Brandão, Editor in Chief of Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, researcher at Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz)

Image: The Guardian.

We cannot think of the science practice without referring to scientific article. It is a crucial element in the modern practice of science. Since the foundation of the first scientific journal, Journal des sçavans in 1665, scientists from every branch of knowledge have conveyed their research results to the public through writing and publishing “scientific articles”. But the contemporary academic science, with its quantitative system of performance evaluation for individual scientists, has taken the scientific article to another level: rather than a means to disseminate research results, it is the “ultimate goal” to be attained by the individual scientist. Under this academic performance metrics the more articles (papers) a scientist publish the better, regardless of their scientific content.

In The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper?,¹ published by the Guardian newspaper, Stuart Ritchie argues for a radical action: scientists should abandon the current format of the scientific paper, which is static and not interactive. Despite being currently published in electronic medium, they are still very similar to the printed version that dominated the scientific publishing landscape for more three centuries. In fact, the current scientific article is only an electronic version of “the physical black and white printed paper” in PDF (portable document format). This format is not friendly for reading on the screen of computers, tablets and mobile phones, which are dynamic and offer countless alternatives to interact with information. Reading a scientific article nowadays should be more than getting passive information about a subject matter, rather it should be an opportunity to think, check, review and reproduce the data and analysis presented in the article.

However, the standards of scientific publishing industry, and the rules of academic establishment as well, oppose any change in this static, passive and mostly non-transparent system of science dissemination. The Guardian newspaper article points out some alternatives to the PDF packaging of scientific articles, e.g., interactive “notebooks” that combine images, data, code, methods, and analysis into a single interactive and dynamic “article” that might be read, reviewed, reproduced, edited, and shared at any time. This format is known as “living article”.

But the problem does not lay solely on the “static scientific article”. There are the journals and the rules dictated (mostly) by the financial interests of the major commercial publishers. The predominant system for the communication of scientific results has not been developed by scientists, and they cannot freely decide what is the best “vehicle” or format to disseminate their research work. Actually, the publishers of scientific journals decide and control which format is accepted or not. A scientist today must follow the rules determined by journal editors, who are also dependent on the consensus and standards defined by the entire publishing industry.

By this reasoning, the problem is not the article itself, rather it is the vehicle that widespread the scientist’s message: the scientific journal and its rules! It is not possible to “get rid of the scientific article” without reforming the concept and practice of the “scientific journal”!

Note

1. RITCHIE, S. The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper? [online]. The Guardian. April 11, 2022 [viewed 14 April 2022]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/11/the-big-idea-should-we-get-rid-of-the-scientific-paper

Reference

RITCHIE, S. The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper? [online]. The Guardian. April 11, 2022 [viewed 14 April 2022]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/11/the-big-idea-should-we-get-rid-of-the-scientific-paper

About Adeilton Alves Brandão

Adeilton Brandão has a doctorate in Biological Sciences from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and an executive education certificate from Sauder School of Business, British Columbia University – Vancouver. His research focuses on the untranslated segments of mRNA from protozoa parasites. He is a researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Endemic Diseases, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz, and Editor-in-Chief of Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, a journal of microbes and their vectors causing human infections.