Imprimatur

We spent quite a bit of time talking about "authentication" -- the role that publishers play in vetting material, managing peer review, essentially saying, "this is the stuff that's worth checking out."  The economic model that has sustained publishing in the print world ties revenue to distribution, but in the digital world, distribution is easy (although, as has been pointed out to me by publishers, presentation is still complex).  So I keep trying to figure out a way to develop a business model that ties revenue more directly to the peer review function.

I imagine something like this -- young, ambitious physiologist goes before the tenure and promotion committee.  They've got a list of the papers that they've written and deposited in various open repositories -- young physiologist has been hard-working and prolific.  Chair of the committee looks through the list and says, "But where are the papers that have been vetted by the American Physiological Society?  How do we know that any of these are any good?"

In this version of an alternative future, APS has gotten out of the distribution business, but has become the most respected source of the imprimatur in physiology.  Want to get the stamp of approval of the best of your peers?  Send your paper to APS, and they'll put it through their (vastly improved from present day, as long as we're dreaming) peer review process.  It comes back with their seal of approval (with authenticated metadata so that regardless of where it is deposited it is easy for somebody to find and verify it).  After all, it's not that present-day ambitious young scientist wants to get a paper into Nature because they've got the best distribution system!  It's because they are respected as presenting the material of the highest quality.   

How might such a system work economically?  It could be done on a paper by paper basis, similar to the transaction model of publishing used by PLoS or BMC.  One can imagine that in that case, there' d be an incentive for young scientist to only send their very best work to APS -- you wouldn't want to spend the money on having your piece reviewed unless you were as sure as you could be that it would pass muster.   Alternatively, if an institution is a hotbed of physiological research, it might be in that institution's interest to contract on an annual basis with APS to handle review of everything that its young scientists produce.     My department of biophysics becomes an institutional member of APS, and one of the benefits is access to their imprimatur process.

When I floated this idea down the long conference table, the publishers were quick to point out the difficulties inherent in moving to such a system.  Well, of course!  It's a massive disruption from the current system, and any such disruption is going to result in some current players having to put more money into the system, and some current players ending up with less.   

But one way or another, massive economic disruption is happening.  The current system is changing radically, and that is not going to stop.  The question, it seems to me, is whether we can devise a system in which we are paying more directly for the most essential element of the process -- peer review and the stamp of authenticity -- rather than using what is now the least important part of the process -- distribution -- as a proxy.

It's going to be tough, no question about it.  But I would love to see librarians and the people who run scholarly societies putting their heads together to see how we might make such a system work.  We have the same interests at heart.

 

Comments

[Tom George]

Doesn’t this come with a large risk that some important progress and findings may be lost? Let’s assume the author either can’t afford to pay for your peer-review process system, or isn’t quite confident enough in their findings to risk asking their institution to pay for them – would these potentially important findings disappear forever? I guess you could perhaps counter this by having some kind of sliding scale of payment for peer-review, depending on the prestige of the peer-review board you submit to?

To take the example further, imagine a large drug company who’ve found a researcher who’s done some research which shows their new drug is safe and effective. The large drug company then offers the researcher the money to put their paper for peer-review at the most prestigious journal. In the meantime, a researcher with no spare money has some findings which question the safety of the drug, but can’t afford to put their paper through the peer-review process – what happens?

Isn’t there also a risk of this system becoming very susceptible to corruption? If money starts becoming heavily involved in the peer-review process (rather than the distribution process), perhaps there would be a bigger incentive for back handers, and people doing favours for their friends?

I’m not saying it’s definitely a bad idea (and it’s also possible I’ve misinterpreted it), I’m just putting forward some questions.

[T Scott]

Very good questions and exactly the kind of probing that an idea like this deserves. One can, of course, point out that the current system is also clearly susceptible to the same flaws.