Scientific Utopia: I. Opening scientific communication

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a transformative overhaul of scientific communication, emphasizing digital, open, and continuous practices to enhance knowledge sharing and efficiency in science.

Contribution

It proposes six innovative reforms to modernize scientific communication, moving away from traditional, inefficient models towards more open, digital, and evaluative systems.

Findings

Digital communication and open access are already being adopted.

Disentangling publication from evaluation can improve efficiency.

Open peer review fosters transparency and continuous improvement.

Abstract

Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science - knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the "one article, one journal" model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it.