We've received a lot of feedback on the idea of PubCreds. Below we address most of the concerns we've heard so far. For discussion of the single most-commonly raised concern--what to do about students and others who aren't asked to review much--go here.1) If only some journals participate, authors may try to avoid the system by submitting to non-participating journals. Indeed, leading journals have an incentive not to require the use of credits, if they want to keep the best papers coming to them in order to keep their impact factors up. Big name journals will probably have little trouble getting qualified reviewers even if they don't participate.Ideally, all journals within a relatively well-defined field (like "ecology") will participate voluntarily, because doing so is in their individual interests, and because doing so incurs little or no associated cost. Journals that wish to attract mss from authors who want to avoid the PubCred system, and that are currently able to easily...
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PubCreds is an explicitly economic solution to the tragedy of the reviewer commons. So it's interesting to consider what lessons, if any, can be learned about PubCreds from one of the most famous case studies in economics: the Capitol Hill Baby-sitting Co-op.For details on the Co-op and its use as a metaphor for economics, see here, here, and here. Briefly, the co-op was started in 1958 or 1959 by Washington, D.C. families who wanted to exchange baby-sitting services in a fair and efficient way. Families could earn "scrip" by baby-sitting for other families, and use the scrip to buy baby-sitting. There was a central administration which performed tasks like matching families who wanted a sitter with families who could provide sitting, and the basic system was modified in various ways to ensure fair, effective operation (e.g., new families were issued with some scrip to start them off, which had to be repaid when they left the co-op). In all these respects, the co-op is closely...
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The most common concern voiced to us so far about PubCreds is that it might negatively impact students, postdocs, and others who aren't asked to review very much and so have little opportunity to earn PubCreds. So I thought I'd offer some further thoughts on what's clearly a very important issue. Believe me, the last thing Owen and I would want would be for PubCreds to hurt students and postdocs! My most important comment is that I think that this issue can only fully be addressed after a period of data collection before the PubCred system goes live, as suggested in our article. It's essential to be able to put numbers on the problem. How often do students and postdocs submit, what fraction of those submissions have more senior co-authors (who are likely to be able to pay the submission fee), and how often are they asked to review? Having good data would help choose among, and refine the details of, the many possible solutions to the problem. Besides the overdraft system we...
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Tom Webb's Mola Mola blog at Nature.com discusses our PubCreds idea. Thanks for posting Tom!Edit: I'm a Chordata, Urochordata also discusses (and heartily backs!) our idea.Edit: More PubCred blogging at This Might Be Science and Jabberwocky Ecology. We'll be doing a guest post at Jabberwocky, responding to their post, which suggests an alternative version of PubCreds based on real money (!) Ironically, we considered this idea some time ago (as have others) before rejecting it; we'll be explaining why...Edit: Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, an economics blog, takes up PubCreds. Reassuring that proper economists didn't raise any concerns about our idea that haven't been raised already...
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An essential step in getting the idea of PubCreds implemented is for journal editors and owners to discuss the idea. Looks like that's starting to happen:-Aaron Ellison and Don Strong (EiCs of Ecological Monographs and Ecology Letters) will be raising the idea with the ESA Publications Committee and Governing Board at the ESA meeting in Pittsburgh-Tim Benton (EiC, Oikos) has indicated his support-Several colleagues will be pushing for discussion at the journals where they serve as handling editors
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We've already received a lot of very positive feedback (and *no* negative feedback!) on the idea of PubCreds, including from many people who have yet to sign the petition. We've also received many thoughtful comments on the operational details, which we'll be addressing here in the days ahead. For now, here's a representative sample of the responses we've received so far:"Brilliant, just brilliant. I love it." - Aaron Ellison, Editor-in-Chief, Ecological Monographs"Yes, yes, yes." - Don Strong, Editor-in-Chief, Ecology"I'm glad to see it out. I've also forwarded it on to a few other people
who are Editors of various flavors. I'll be interested to see what
their take is." - Mark McPeek, Editor-in-Chief, American Naturalist"I am very supportive of this!" - Tim Benton, Editor-in-Chief, Oikos"Interesting article. You make a well-reasoned and balanced argument for PubCreds." - David Tilman, University of Minnesota"Thank god. Something needs to be done. I...
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