Following the prior article from Wired about the lost possibilities and new developments in e-books, this is actually an exciting development in science publishing. The idea of versioned journal...
Following the prior article from Wired about the lost possibilities and new developments in e-books, this is actually an exciting development in science publishing.
The idea of versioned journal articles is terrific. Historically, retractions and corrections to research publications have huge reputational penalties, of the "you couldn't get it right the first time?" or "what kind of fakery are you hiding!" varieties. It's a legacy from the paper journal days, when any reprinting took significant effort, and appearing in the "Corrections and Retractions" pages meant painful career damage.
This often results in silently uncorrected errors and all the other institutional toxicity that blameless post-mortems help to correct. Being able to update or correct quickly (or even salvage valid parts of a paper which would otherwise have to be retracted), without drama, and a journaled change log, is a big deal.
Also, much of the work in science is about methodology. Part of the replication crisis is due to the fact that published material usually glosses over detailed methods in favor of the sexy analysis and conclusions.
The ability to break out methodology, and get publication credit for the hard work of explaining and educating on how to do the experiments, is another step in the right direction.
Following the prior article from Wired about the lost possibilities and new developments in e-books, this is actually an exciting development in science publishing.
The idea of versioned journal articles is terrific. Historically, retractions and corrections to research publications have huge reputational penalties, of the "you couldn't get it right the first time?" or "what kind of fakery are you hiding!" varieties. It's a legacy from the paper journal days, when any reprinting took significant effort, and appearing in the "Corrections and Retractions" pages meant painful career damage.
This often results in silently uncorrected errors and all the other institutional toxicity that blameless post-mortems help to correct. Being able to update or correct quickly (or even salvage valid parts of a paper which would otherwise have to be retracted), without drama, and a journaled change log, is a big deal.
Also, much of the work in science is about methodology. Part of the replication crisis is due to the fact that published material usually glosses over detailed methods in favor of the sexy analysis and conclusions.
The ability to break out methodology, and get publication credit for the hard work of explaining and educating on how to do the experiments, is another step in the right direction.