Final thoughts

Question 27

As we come to the end of this survey, we invite you to share any final thoughts or opinions you may have on the topics covered. This is your opportunity to highlight any issues not sufficiently addressed by previous questions and to offer insights you believe are significant for understanding these issues.

With the final open question, respondents had the possibility to express different perspectives not only on the "Towards Responsible Publishing" proposal, but also regarding preprinting, open peer review and other relevant aspects of scholarly publishing. Overall, there is broad support for the guiding principles proposed by cOAlition S to address the need for more responsible publishing practices:

1. Authors are responsible for the dissemination of their findings.

2. All scholarly outputs are shared immediately and openly.

3. Quality control processes are community-based and open, to ensure trustworthiness of research findings.

4. All scholarly outputs are eligible for consideration in research assessment.

5. Stakeholders commit to support the sustainability and diversity of the scholar-led publishing ecosystem.

However, responses also highlight significant concerns and reservations that need to be addressed to ensure the successful implementation of these principles.

Principle 1

Authors are responsible for the dissemination of their findings.

Many respondents expressed a strong belief in the authors' responsibility to disseminate their findings. Two main approaches can be seen in the answers, the first being non-profit and scholar-led publishing models. Respondents suggested that these models could offer a more equitable and sustainable approach to academic publishing.

"The single best way to improve both access to published work, keeping its cost down, and ensuring quality is through non-profit journals operated by the research community itself. This means creating incentives for researchers to volunteer their time as editors, reviewers, proof readers, content management system operators, and the like."

The second approach for authors to be responsible for the dissemination of their findings is preprinting, which has gotten support as a means for making research immediately accessible to a wider audience, even if aligned with the traditional journal publishing.

"We do not need a system of only open access. Subscription that permits preprinting and open access can go hand-in-hand."

"It is important for the scientific community to build and control their own reviewing and publishing infrastructure, because it allows the empirical study of what works best."

Furthermore, many respondents highlighted barriers that hinder authors from effectively disseminating their work. High publication costs were frequently mentioned as a significant obstacle. Another concern was the protectionism of supervisors and collaborators, making it difficult to share preprints.

"It is very difficult for us to publish due to the cost of it. Always asking for waivers." "I have been working under supervisors... and it is an uphill battle to push for sharing information before the completion of the peer-review process."

Principle 2

All scholarly outputs are shared immediately and openly.

Several respondents highlighted the problems of the current publishing system, supporting the immediate and open sharing of scholarly outputs through preprints, noting that it enhances accessibility and transparency. However, challenges such as the need for proper recognition and rewards have been listed as obstacles.

"Something has to be done about the cost of publishing open science and the lag time of review."

"If the turnaround time for publication was much shorter, or if the preprint was highly valued, it would be much more rewarding to complete an article, because your research would be out there immediately."

Concerns were raised about the quality and ethics of preprints, particularly the risk of disseminating unvetted or flawed research. In that sense, it is clear that many see only the publish part of the publish-review-curate model, which justifies some resistance to adopting or transitioning to new publishing practices.

"Increasing accessibility via open publication is great, however preprints aren't necessarily the way to go about it. We still need peer-review to catch errors and bad research."

Principle 3

Quality control processes are community-based and open, to ensure trustworthiness of research findings.

There was support for community-based and open quality control processes, with some respondents highlighting the potential for increased accountability and transparency.

"While preprints and open access can enhance accessibility and transparency, it's crucial to maintain rigorous peer review and quality standards to ensure the reliability and credibility of published research."

"The peer-review process can be slow but invaluable, and preprints are geared towards rapid and prompt dissemination but are susceptible to abuse and may become harbingers of fabricated data and unsound Science! Striking a balance will be the genius."

Some respondents were skeptical about open peer review, citing concerns about bias, retaliation, and the potential for superficial reviews.

"I would strongly discourage you to publish the reviews in any form... It will offer nothing to the reader of the final paper."

"If reviews were open, the process becomes corrupted. For example, [a publisher I reviewed for] publishes whatever is submitted... I said 'not publishable', but they sent it to someone else who accepted it."

However, others reconized the value of open peer review, while sometimes acknowledging the challenges they could represent.

"In theory, I like the idea of publishing review reports. I think it would increase quality and care of reviews. however, I wouldn't accept more review requests, as I would feel I needed to put even more time into writing publishable (and quoteable) texts."

"Publishing non-anonymous peer reviews will invite new challenges in research publication process... But on the contrary, it is one definitive way of making the review process transparent and the reviewers more accountable."

Principle 4

All scholarly outputs are eligible for consideration in research assessment.

Respondents generally agreed that all scholarly outputs, including preprints, should be considered in research assessments to provide a more comprehensive view of a researcher's contributions.

"I generally feel that faster publication turnaround, and/or valuing preprints more strongly, would motivate researchers to write preprints themselves more quickly."

"Definitely, this entire system needs to be improved, through more innovative and effective ways of evaluating article content, also including and considering the anonymous or non-anonymous work of reviewers. I understand that the more transparent, inclusive and equitable the process for the actors involved, the better its results will be and, consequently, the faster science will advance as a whole."

However, there was some concern that preprints and non-traditional outputs might not be adequately recognised or valued by institutions and funding agencies.

"While sharing a preprint of my research can be good for that field, it doesn't count in my employers system. As an extreme example, solely sharing preprints and self-published final products while never publishing in the traditional sense would leave me with 0% research time in my contract."

Principle 5

Stakeholders commit to support the sustainability and diversity of the scholar-led publishing ecosystem.

Some respondents expressed skepticism about the feasibility and effectiveness of entirely scholar-led models, especially given the current dominance of large commercial publishers. Another concern was the risk of predatory behavior in an open access model.

"The publishing industry is too controlled by the financial interests of publishers. We need more independent publishing channels with an equally high reputation."

"The lure of financial gains from APC may endue the proliferation of predatory journals and should be addressed."

Many recognise the value of the publish-review-curate model and of open access as a whole. However, there is concern regarding how to operationalise the proposed advancements.

"The topics we've covered, such as preprints, peer review, open access, and dissemination of research findings, all contribute to the evolving landscape of scholarly communication."

"Addressing this issue requires exploring alternative publishing models, such as open access initiatives or collective funding mechanisms, to ensure that knowledge remains accessible to all who seek it."

"I believe, there's much space here, whereas the cost for funding institutions wouldn't go up (they already provide a lot of money for OA and this would shift to paying reviewers); some money could be devoted for hosting purposes, editing and management, and the remainder could be provided as pay incentive to the reviewers."