The strain on scientific publishing
Hanson, Mark A. (University of Exeter. Centre for Ecology and Conservation)
Gómez Barreiro, Pablo (Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
Crosetto, Paolo (Université Grenoble Alpes)
Brockington, Dan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Dret Privat

Data:	2024
Resum:	Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was ~47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth-if any-in the number of practicing scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist has increased dramatically. We define this problem as "the strain on scientific publishing. " To analyze this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviors. We draw these data from web scrapes, and from publishers through their websites or upon request. Specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by hosting "special issues" with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to "publish or perish" to compete for funding, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.
Nota:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000940-M
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Article processing charge ; Impact factor ; Open access ; Scopus ; Web of Science
Publicat a:	Quantitative Science Studies, Vol. 5, issue. 4 (Fall 2024) , p. 823-843, ISSN 2641-3337
Obra relacionada:	Hanson, M. A., Pablo Gómez Barreiro, Crosetto, P., & Brockington, D. «The strain on scientific publishing», 2023. Hanson, M. A., Pablo Gómez Barreiro, Crosetto, P., & Brockington, D. (2024). The strain on scientific publishing. Quantitative Science Studies, 5(4), 823-843 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.15884

Prepublicació: https://ddd.uab.cat/record/284700
DOI: 10.1162/qss_a_00327

22 p, 1.2 MB

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