For those not in the know, Nature is THE journal to be in if you want to be successful in bioscience. It is peer reviewed, fairly exclusive, and they generally only publish game changer style science. If you are in science, and you get a first author Nature paper, your ticket is punched and you are about to have a moderately successful career.
For all the nitpicking going on about the delivery method, searching, and it not being "enough", this will largely not matter to scientists. Articles are generally shared by DOI or PMID, indexing is very specific. If not, relevant papers in the field are nearly known by heart and new info from competing labs is checked on daily. Problems 1 and 2 are not as underserved as HN thinks.
This is a monster announcement for institutions that may not have the money for a Nature sub, and the public at large to have better access to such a powerful archive of historically hidden info. The fact that it's not delivered in a DRM-free format for every device ever all the way back to the oldest article is nothing compared to how incredibly huge this is. I am spamming this to all my old lab buddies as we speak.
TL;DR: The output system for academic publishing sucks at the high end, but it just got a lot less sucky.
First, I would like to point out that Nature is indeed considered "THE journal" by those who give importance to bibliometrics criteria (which imho is foolish), but it's really not clear that its quality is that good. For instance take this study which finds that Nature has one of the most important retractation rate: http://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855.full.pdf+html.
> (…) will largely not matter to scientists.
Please speak only for yourself. It matters to me and I'm not the only one.
> This is a monster announcement for institutions that may not have the money for a Nature sub.
No it's not. In his answer to your comment, silencio already explained that, but let me just present it in another way:
Before the announcement: when you want a Nature paper, you have to know someone with access to a subscription who can download the PDF for you and then send it to you.
After the announcement: when you want a Nature paper, you have to know someone with access to a subscription who can download the PDF for you and then send it to you, or who can also send you a link to some shitty read-only version of the paper on the condition that you register an account with Nature and that you use DRM-bloated proprietary software.
This is pure marketing, it's only PR, it has nothing to do with open access and it changes nothing in a good way, and it introduces DRMs where they were not.
While this sounds bad it's probably a sign of the amount of scrutiny Nature articles are under not the Quality of what's published. Basically, the rate of detection is higher in Nature so even if the underlying problem is the same or even less it’s going to look worse.
Indeed. I don't think anyone is saying that the high retractation rate implies that Nature paper are worse than other papers. However it is a sign that they may not be that much better either.
I would expect that the resulting quality of not-retracted and proven-by-time papers in Nature is a lot higher than in any other journal. Simply because of higher exposure, more attempts to reproduce or use studies and more scrutiny.
Like it or not, publishing in Nature will give you an advantage over almost any other journal. Maybe it isn't the best way to judge a scientist, but it is a shortcut for many who will be employing them.
I'm not denying that. It's a fact. My point is that it is a very sad truth. I wanted to recall that bibliometrics is something that, as researchers, we have to fight against. For this reason I prefer to explain that although it is a fact that publishing in Nature gives you a big career advantage in academia, it's nonetheless important to be critical about this fact.
There's pubmed search in the readcube app itself and it works fine. I don't see that as a concern. DRM is frustrating but not the big problem right now. What I have a problem with, and I think most of the comments here are along the same lines, is that they're calling this "free" when it's really "free if you get a link from someone with a subscription already". It's an improvement but barely.
As a member of the public greatly missing the access I used to have through school just to satiate my curiosity, the way I get access now is exactly the same as what I did before so it's not really "better access to historically hidden info". I don't see how it's any better for cash-strapped institutions. I ask a friend with access if I don't find it on libgen, booksc, etc. first. Actually, the "can you send me a link" is rather stupid...I get PDFs now, why would I downgrade to DRM and a shitty restricted PDF reader? And the idea of creating libgen-esque sites to share readcube links seems like begging for publishers to revoke said links.
It would be cool if more publications online start to share articles when referencing them. That's the nice benefit to me, at least. No hiccup between reading about something and searching/waiting for the article.
I think this is also about Nature being listed side by side with free access journals, and knowing that if it says "Nature" you're going to have a bad time. They are trying to change their image a bit here, and rightly so.
Remember, this is considered the payest of paywall journals. There is almost no one else at that impact factor that could be more opposite to open access than Nature, and today we see this.
I agree that without institution access, it's hardmode to get Nature papers. I've always had great success just emailing the author. You'd be surprised at how much people like to share their work.
I really see it as the sound of creaking in the timbers withstanding the force of a gale. (how is that for mixing metaphors!)
Basically the push is on for returning science results to the community, and the institutions that used to thrive on the challenge of getting published are being slowly eroded. In this process, and I've seen it before, the institutions start testing possible compromise solutions to avoid destruction. "What if we make it viewable in our app?" "What if one paper a month is free?" "What if you have to provide personally identifiable information which we can use for any purpose in exchange for us letting your read the paper?" it goes on and on.
We have to continue to keep up the pressure, not accept any compromise, and force these publishers to open up the archives for face dismantling.
The list of incredibly influential papers that got rejected from Nature and Science is long and growing. Conversely, a lot of papers in Nature or Science (particularly in bio) do not necessarily represent deep or groundbreaking ideas, though they are widely cited. It's particularly regrettable the hiring and tenure committees do indeed "punch your ticket" if you have one or two publications in high-profile journals, as this creates (imo) an unhealthy obsession with hyping everything you do into a "breakthrough" result worthy of publication in the top journals. Scientific breakthroughs are rare (increasingly so, it must be) and it has always seemed unlikely to me that there are enough of them per week to fill up three or four prestigious journals.
It's not just _the_ journal for bioscience but pretty much all the hard sciences. Back when I was doing my doctoral in physics (I've left academia since), Nature was the top dog of journals; getting even one Nature publication meant near-automatic success on landing a good postdoc. The next best journal which, was still very impressive, was Science.
For those not in the know, Nature is THE journal to be in if you want to be successful in bioscience.
The key words there are "in bioscience". Nature publishes articles on other subjects, including nanotechnology and computer science. Those tend to be underwhelming.
That kind of gives out the wrong picture. Their contribution to the actual scientific process is small, and purely based on their preexisting reputation. It's because scientists in the first place submit their papers there that they hold that position. They do pick out good reviewers, for the same reason. Since they dont really have a say in peer review, their contribution ends in typesetting and printing (do people actually ever use those printed volumes?). And to be honest that's even changing, i spot many great articles (granted, most of them reviews or 'companion' papers) in many different journals.
For scientists, the value of the journals is the reviewer's comments, who spot errors, make useful suggestions etc. Correct me if i m wrong, but we've gotten excellent and extensive reviews from mid-range IF journals. Nature seems rather elitist in the bad sense (cliquish). Elsevier's top journals and Science are rather more strict. In general, the value of the journal for science is the rigorousness of reviews. There have been quite a few retractions from Nature and the misuse of statistics has been a consistent finding in studies by the Ioannides team.
As people (esp. young scientists) learn about these and about open access journals, Nature is definitely becoming less and less "THE journal", and the stranglehold you claim that it has on careers is really not that strong. Good science often speaks by itself.
I hav a better TL;DR: Nature is a gatekeeper that is not provably fair.
So basically, if the knowledge you discovered is TOO revolutionary, Nature can pass on it, and it will get short shrift even if it's true.
I am SO glad that the programming field is not like this. My code stands on its own merits. So would science... since it's, you know, science... independently verifiable... One would think! What if all code had to go through GitHub admins before it was published on GitHub?
Thanks for your opinion, Nature PR guy. However, most of what you state on your opening paragraph is really REALLY wrong.
You are part of the reason journals like Nature can still get away with it. I suggest you put your Nature shirt aside and spend sometime looking at what all the other journals are publishing nowadays, you would be surprised. Also, while you're at it, I suggest you to value your colleagues based on what they actually do instead of the name of the journals where they appear; you may end up doing real science and not these shameful PR stunts.
That is why academia for hard sciences is still very much a cathedral / ivory tower system. It is nearly a polar opposite to tech, where things are judged solely on merit.
I doubt you could argue that a first authorship Nature paper would be a negative with respect to your career prospects as an up and coming PI, either as for securing a position and/or for improving your funding.
Things are changing all the time, and pioneers like PLOS and JOVE are knocking it out of the park especially with their newer media offerings, and completely free access.
You can be as negative as you like, but to see this change from the stodgiest of journals is pretty great.
For all the nitpicking going on about the delivery method, searching, and it not being "enough", this will largely not matter to scientists. Articles are generally shared by DOI or PMID, indexing is very specific. If not, relevant papers in the field are nearly known by heart and new info from competing labs is checked on daily. Problems 1 and 2 are not as underserved as HN thinks.
This is a monster announcement for institutions that may not have the money for a Nature sub, and the public at large to have better access to such a powerful archive of historically hidden info. The fact that it's not delivered in a DRM-free format for every device ever all the way back to the oldest article is nothing compared to how incredibly huge this is. I am spamming this to all my old lab buddies as we speak.
TL;DR: The output system for academic publishing sucks at the high end, but it just got a lot less sucky.