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ntroduction and motivation journal concept A large proportion of scientific publi- cations are careless, useless or false, I and inhibit scholarly communication and scientific progress. This statement may for improved sound provocative, but unfortunately is not an exaggeration. The spectacular recent cases of scientific fraud (e.g. Nature 2003:422, 92–3; Nature scientific 2002:419, 419–21; Science 2003:299, 31; Science 2002:298, 961) are only the tip of the iceberg. Many scientific papers fail to provide sufficiently accurate and detailed publishing and information to ensure that fellow research- ers can efficiently repeat the experiments or calculations and directly follow the line of quality assurance arguments leading to the presented con- clusions. Even in reputable peer-reviewed journals with high impact factors many Ulrich Pöschl contributions exhibit a lack of scientific Technical University of Munich rigour and thorough discussion. All too often papers fail to reflect the actual state- © Ulrich Pöschl 2004 of-the-art and do not take into account related studies in a critical and constructive ABSTRACT: Many scientific publications are way. careless, useless or false, and inhibit scholarly Many papers reflect a mentality of pub- communication and scientific progress. This is lishing just as much and as fast as possible, caused by the failure of traditional journal rather than participation in vital scientific publishing and peer review to provide efficient exchange and discussion. The inflationary scientific exchange and quality assurance in today’s increase of scientific publications is fuelled highly diverse world of science. The most promising by the habit of evaluating scientific produc- waytoimprovemattersisatwo-stage(or tivity by the number of papers. In many multi-stage) publication processes with interactive research areas scientists have to spend an peer review and public discussion in new and excessive amount of time to maintain an traditional scientific journals. A concept for such overview of the information dispersed and interactive scientific journals is outlined, and its dilutedintheincreasingfloodofpublic- applicability is demonstrated by the open access ations. These nuisances and aberrations lead journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. to an enormous waste and misallocation of resources: researchers invest lots of time and effort in the reconstruction of poorly described methods and results; useless activ- ities and erroneous conclusions are repeated and propagated; and scientists and projects are misevaluated. Central to the problems outlined above is Ulrich Pöschl

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thefailureofthetraditionalwaysofjournal to invest a lot of time and effort in it. Errico3 publishing and peer review to provide gives a detailed analysis of the problems efficient scientific exchange and quality outlined above and shows for a couple of assurance in today’s fast-developing and atmospheric science journals that the ratio highly diverse world of science. of commentaries to regular research articles The traditional closed peer-review process has decreased from about 1:20 to about is hampered by limited competence and the 1:100 from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. sometimes conflicting interests of editors Similar developments and deficiencies of and referees. It frequently leads to a retard- critical discussion and quality assurance are the ation and loss of scientific information. evident in most, if not all, fields of science. Because of the high degree of specializa- Most colleagues from physics, chemistry and best-qualified tion and the enormous variety of research the life sciences concede that the phenomena referees for a activities, institutions and interdisciplinary outlined above are a serious problem which particular aspects, even scientists within the same substantially inhibits scientific progress. discipline are frequently not aware of all the Scientific publishing faces a dilemma manuscript details relevant for a critical and thorough between important and conflicting needs may often not review. The best-qualified referees for a which the traditional ways of journal pub- be known to particular manuscript may often not be lishing and peer review cannot resolve: the editor known to the editor. Even if very well- rapid publication and dissemination versus qualified referees are known, they often do thorough review and discussion of novel not have enough time and motivation to ideas and results. evaluate thoroughly all the manuscripts they Rapid publication is required for efficient are asked to review. They usually get little or exchange of new findings, and it is widely no public recognition of their efforts and pursued in current scientific publishing. Most contributions, which effectively disappear successful journals in physics, chemistry and ‘behind the curtains’. Critical, supportive life sciences push for very short peer-review and complementary referee comments are times (2–4 weeks), and short papers with sometimes as interesting as the reviewed a lack of detailed information and scientific paper, but in traditional scientific journals rigour are often treated preferentially. The these comments are generally not available legitimate quest for rapid exchange and the to the public. On the other hand, revisions regrettable trend towards ever-shorter peer imposedonauthorscandilutetheimpactof review, shorter articles and an increasing original manuscripts and inhibit scientific number of publications have resulted in the innovation.Lastbutnotleast,theclosed scientific information market being flooded peer-review process allows referees to delay by journal articles, preprints and proceed- and obstruct the publications of their com- ings with little or no quality control. Thorough petitors. It also facilitates hidden plagiarism. review and discussion are essential for the These and other aspects of peer review in detection and minimization of flawed and scientific journals have been discussed in useless research activities and results, but detail by Campanario.1,2 under the existing conditions this is hard to Because of the large number of publi- achieve. cations and the slow and time-consuming Resolution of the dilemma of rapid scientific review and publication process of com- exchange versus thorough quality assurance mentaries in traditional scientific journals, requires a two-stage (or multi-stage) public- individual papers rarely face critical public ation process. Efficient quality assurance in discussion once they have passed the peer- the highly diverse world of science requires review process. Incomplete, unbalanced or interactive forms of peer review and public plainly unsustainable presentations are discussion. rarely complemented or corrected by public commentaries. In traditional journals the Interactive scientific journal concept publication of a commentary requires almost as much effort as the publication of a regular The most promising, if not the only practic- research paper, and few scientists are ready able way to substantially improve mainstream

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scientific publishing and quality assurance on a short to medium timescale (years to decade) is the implementation of a two- stage publication process comprising inter- active peer review and public discussion. The basic principle of the interactive scientific journal concept is illustrated in Figure 1. In the first stage, manuscripts that pass an efficient access peer review or pre- selection by the editor are immediately published in a scientific discussion forum on Figure 1 Basic principle of the interactive scientific journal concept: two-stage publication the Internet. Then they are made available process with interactive peer review and public for full interactive peer review and public discussion. discussion, during which the comments of referees (anonymous or attributed), additional ț The interactive peer review and public short comments by other scientists (attrib- discussion offer direct feedback and pub- uted) and the authors’ replies are published lic recognition for high-quality papers alongside the discussion paper. The inter- (authors’ advantage); they prevent or active comments are published without peer minimize the opportunity for hidden review and revision, but can be censored in obstruction and plagiarism (authors’ case of abusive commenting (personal offence, advantage); they provide complete and etc.). The access review (pre-selection by citable documentation of critical com- the editor with optional advice from ref- ments, controversial arguments, scientific erees) is meant to avoid a potential overload flaws and complementary information of the discussion forum with papers that are (referees’ and readers’ advantage); they clearly deficient or out of scope. In case of deter submissions of careless, useless and doubt, however, editorial decisions should false manuscripts (referees’ and readers’ be predisposed in favour of publication in all-win advantage). the discussion forum. To ensure publication ț The final revised paper offers a maximum situation for precedence for authors and to provide a of scientific information density and lasting record of scientific discussion, the authors, quality assurance through full peer review, discussion papers and interactive comments referees and public discussion and final revision based are permanently archived and fully citable. on the referee comments and additional readers In the second stage, the peer-review pro- comments from other interested scientists cess is completed and final revised papers (readers’ advantage). arepublishedinthescientificjournal.Com- pletion of peer review and the final editorial Readers who are primarily interested in decision to publish are performed as in thequintessenceofmanuscriptsthathave traditional scientific journals (with iterative been fully peer reviewed and approved by review and revision if required), taking into referees and editors can simply focus on the account the comments from the preceding final revised paper (or, indeed, its abstract) public discussion. published in the journal and neglect the The interactive scientific journal concept preceding discussion papers and interactive with its two-stage publication process (Fig- comments published in the discussion forum. ure1)offersanall-winsituationforauthors, Thus the two-stage publication process does referees and readers. The primary positive not inflate the amount of time required to effects and advantages compared to trad- maintain an overview of final revised papers. itional scientific journals with closed peer On the other hand, readers who want to see review are: original scientific manuscripts and messages before they are influenced by peer review ț The discussion paper offers ‘free speech’ and revision, and who want to follow the and rapid dissemination of novel results scientific discussion between authors, referees (authors’ and readers’ advantage). and other interested scientists, can browse

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the papers and interactive comments in the open to the public and all colleagues with discussion forum. related research interests. The possibility to compare a final revised Moreover, the transparent review process paper with the preceding discussion paper prevents authors from abusing the peer- and to follow the interactive peer review and review process by delegating some of their public discussion facilitates the evaluation of own tasks and responsibilities to the referees the individual publications also for non-specialist during review and revision behind the readers and scientific evaluation commit- scenes. Referees often make substantial con- transparent tees. The style and quality of interactive tributions to the quality of scientific papers, review process commenting and argumentation provide but in traditional closed peer review their prevents insights that go beyond, and complement, input rarely receives public recognition. authors from the information contained in the research The full credit for the quality of a paper article itself. published in a traditional journal generally abusing the The two-stage publication process stim- goes to the authors, even when they have submitted a carelessly prepared manuscript peer-review ulates scientists to prove their competence that has taken a lot of time and effort on the via individual high-quality papers and their process part of the referees to turn it into a good discussion, rather than just by pushing as one. many papers as possible through journals with closed peer review and no direct public feedback and recognition for their work. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Authors have a much stronger incentive Figure 2 illustrates the two-stage publication to maximize the quality of their manuscripts process with interactive peer review and prior to submission for peer review and public discussion as practised in the inter- publication, since experimental weaknesses, national scientific journal Atmospheric erroneous interpretations, and relevant but Chemistry and Physics (ACP), which was unreferenced earlier studies are more likely launched in September 2001. ACP and its to be detected and pointed out in the course discussion forum ACPD (Atmospheric Chem- of interactive peer review and discussion istry and Physics Discussions)areproduced

Figure 2 Two-stage publication with interactive peer review and public discussion practised in the interactive scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) and its discussion forum ACPD (bold arrows: basic processes; dashed arrows: optional processes).

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and published by the European Geosciences series of papers arising from a particular Union (EGU, www.copernicus.org/EGU/ conference or measurement campaign. In EGU.html) and the Copernicus Society ACP such special issues are handled in an (www.copernicus.org). Both ACP and ACPD efficient new way, which offers several are ISSN-registered and freely accessible via advantages compared to special issue pub- the Internet (www.atmos-chem-phys.org). lications in traditional print journals (e.g. no Paper copies and CDs are printed and sold publication delays by waiting for the last on demand; for archiving purposes, free paper), and is described in detail on the paper copies are distributed to several major journal homepage. libraries around the world. A globally The fraction of submitted manuscripts distributed network of about 70 editors, rejected by the editors or withdrawn by the co-ordinated by an executive committee and authors after the access review (before a chief executive editor, cover 32 major publication in ACPD)was~15%.The subject areas (research subjects and activities) fraction of manuscripts that were published within the scope of the journal. Manuscripts as discussion papers in ACPD but for which are normally handled by an editor with a a revised version for publication in ACP was high degree of specialist knowledge in the not submitted by the authors or not subject area of the submitted work. Details accepted by the editors was less than 10%. about the efficient and largely automated Thus the overall fraction of manuscripts handling and editor-assignment of submitted submitted but not accepted for publication manuscripts, as well as other technical in ACP (~20%) was much lower than in aspectsandanswerstofrequentlyasked traditional atmospheric science journals questions, are given on the journal website. (~50%), although the quality standards of The publication market in the atmos- ACP are by no means lower. These results pheric sciences currently comprises approx- confirm that interactive peer review and imately 40 traditional journals publishing public discussion indeed deter deficient about 4,000 papers per year. Well- submissions and counteract the flooding of interactive established traditional journals competing the scientific publication market. peer review with ACP are the Journal of Geophysical The time from submission of a research and public Research – Atmospheres (American Geophys- article to its publication as a discussion discussion ical Union, ~1,000 papers/year), Atmospheric paper in ACPD was typically 1–2 months, Environment (Elsevier, ~500 papers/year), including access review and typesetting of indeed deter Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (American the discussion paper. The time from deficient Meteorological Society, ~200 papers/year), publication in ACPD to publication in ACP submissions Atmospheric Research (Elsevier, ~100 was typically 2–4 months, including inter- papers/year), and Journal of Atmospheric active peer review and public discussion, Chemistry (Kluwer, ~50 papers/year). Two revision, peer-review completion and type- years after its launch ACP is already very setting. Accordingly, the complete time well positioned among its traditional com- from initial submission of a research article petitors. It publishes over 150 high-quality to its final publication in ACP was typically papers per year with an increasing trend, 3–6 months. Full automation of the editorial and it has been positively evaluated and is and production processes are expected to fully covered by the major citation indices: further reduce processing times in the near ISI (Institute of Scientific Information) and future. The absolute minimum time from CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service). More- submission to final publication in an inter- over, ACP has received widespread public active journal is given by the duration of the recognition as a promising scientific publish- open discussion. In ACP this was set to ing initiative.4,5 8 weeks, with an option for flexible exten- In late 2003 the rate of regular manuscript sion if required, and this has proved to be a submissions was about 15 per month (and suitable arrangement. increasing). In addition to the regular A publication alert service informing submissions, over 100 manuscripts have interested scientists about new discussion been submitted to several ‘special issues’, i.e. papers is obviously desirable for lively public

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discussion and was foreseen from the begin- discussion paper published in an interactive ning of ACP.Fortechnicalreasonsthis journal. Also, for papers that receive no service has not yet been activated (hopefully comments from the public, full peer review it will be in 2004), which has limited the by the referees and editors is guaranteed, visibility of new discussion papers up to now. and the transparency of the referees’ com- Nevertheless, an average of four interactive ments and authors’ replies, combined with a substantial comments are published per discussion the option for public commenting, assures amount of paper, and the total number of interactive most of the advantages of the interactive complementary comment pages amounts to ~40% of the journal concept outlined above. information not total number of discussion paper pages, An example of interactive discussions in which is a substantial amount of comple- ACPD is illustrated in Figure 3. Note that in available for mentary information not available for this case the discussion paper was a peer- traditional traditional journal publications. Most inter- reviewed commentary, which is analogous to journal active comments were published by referees the commentaries published in traditional and authors, but on average one in four journals and allows scientific discussions to publications papers received an additional short com- go beyond the limits of interactive com- ment by other interested members of the menting. The interactive comments published scientific community, which is much more in ACPD comprise compliments and plaudits than the rate of commentaries in traditional (e.g. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 2003:3, atmospheric science journals (about one in S1107–8), constructive supplements (e.g. 100 papers). A further increase of comments Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 2002:2, S530–2), from interested members of the scientific and harsh criticism and controversy (e.g. community is expected upon activation of Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 2003:3, S448–51 the ACPD publication alert service. Note, and S912–18). So far, however, no personal however, that such additional comments are or abusive comments have occurred, and neither expected nor required for every there has been no need for the editors to

Figure 3 Screenshot of an interactive discussion in ACPD (Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 2003:3, 3361–72).

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intervene. About two-thirds of the referee the years 2000 and 2001, I was looking for – comments are published anonymously. The but was unable to find – similar initiatives to rate of attributed referee comments is much compare with and learn from. It was only at lower among experimentalists (~20%) than an e-publishing workshop of the Max Planck among modellers (~50%). Apparently the Center for Information Management in May referee comments on modelling studies con- 2002 that I learned of a similar initiative tain more suggestions and ideas, for which launched as early as 1996. That initiative the referees like to claim authorship. was the Journal of Interactive Media in Edu- During the start-up phase, ACP has been cation (JIME, http://www-jime.open.ac.uk). financed by the Copernicus Society, the Coming from a different scientific back- European Geophysical Society (EGS) and ground, the founders of JIME had designed the EGU. To maintain open access, future andrealizedasimilarconceptofinteractive manuscript processing will be financed by peer review and public discussion. Unfor- moderate service charges levied on tunately, however, JIME has not grown as the authors (http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/ fast as ACP and seems not to have inspired guidelines_for_manuscript_and_article.htm). the foundation of similar journals in related Interactive commenting will of course re- fields of science and humanities. Despite the main free of charge. overall conceptual similarities, JIME does not show some of the key features of the Key features of the ACP interactive ACP interactive journal concept. In partic- journal concept and comparison with ular, the ‘private open peer review’ of JIME other initiatives foresees a non-public exchange of arguments between referees and authors, which is The key features of the ACP interactive opened to the public only after approval by journal concept for maximum efficiency of the editor. This seems to limit the publication scientific exchange and quality assurance and documentation of controversial scien- are: tific innovations or flaws much more than the ‘access peer review’ of ACP (quick successfully ț Publication of discussion papers before demonstrated full peer review and revision: rapid go/no-go decision essentially without non- publication, ‘free speech’, and public public exchange of arguments between the applicability accountability of authors for their original authors and referees). Moreover, all referees and advantages manuscript (leads to reduction of careless are named and no anonymous referee com- of interactive submissions). ments are allowed in JIME, which is likely to ț Interactive peer review and public dis- limit and inhibit critical review and discus- peer review and cussion: support of peer review, revision sion. These differences may appear subtle at public discussion and editorial decision by comments from first sight, but they are highly relevant for interested members of the scientific the practical operation of a scientific journal community (leads to maximum quality and may be decisive for its success and assurance and information density for acceptance in the target scientific com- final revised manuscripts). munity. Nevertheless, the basic aims and ț Optional anonymity for referees: enables principles of ACP and JIME are very similar, critical comments and questions by and both have successfully demonstrated the referees who might be reluctant to risk applicability and advantages of interactive appearing ignorant or disrespectful. peer review and public discussion. ț Archiving and citability of every dis- Alternative approaches to improved sci- cussion paper and interactive comment: entific publishing and quality assurance are enables documentation of controversial being pursued by several journals that pro- scientific innovations or flaws, and the vide access to the ‘pre-publication history’ public recognition of commentators’ con- and/or offer the opportunity for open ‘peer tributions. commentary’ only after completion of the actual peer review and publication of the During the initiation and planning of final revised manuscript. Examples are the ACP and its interactive journal concept in medical journals published by BioMed Central

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(www.biomedcentral.com) and the journals publishing, and the two-stage publication Behavioral and Brain Sciences (www. process with interactive peer review and bbsonline.org) and Psycholoquy (psycprints. public discussion can be easily combined ecs.soton.ac.uk). The features offered by with other innovative publishing concepts. these journals are very useful and represent For example, ACP is considering the intro- an improvement over traditional scientific duction of separate journal sections for final publishing, but they miss some of the key revised manuscripts of different general features and fall short of the advantages of relevance or for different audiences. This the ACP interactive journal concept. Con- approach would be analogous to the quality troversial scientific innovations or flaws in rating system of the Berkeley electronic papers rejected after peer review are not press journals in economics (www.bepress. documented for the public and scientific com/bejeap, www.bepress.com/bejm, http:// community. Moreover, the completion of www.bepress.com/bejte), and support the peer review and revision before publication implementation of quality assurance feed- and public discussion of a manuscript does back loops by comparison of editorial ratings not allow interested members of the scientific with statistical ratings of individual papers community to have any input to the revision (citation, commenting and download stat- and the final editorial decision. There is istics). thus suboptimal quality assurance and infor- mation density. As long as pre-print servers or e-print Perspectives and propositions archives (e.g. arXiv) are not involved in a The vision behind the interactive journal process of interactive peer review and public concept of ACP is to promote scientific discussion but just serve as repositories for progress by the introduction of a two-stage manuscripts that are later peer reviewed in (or multi-stage) publication process with the interactive traditional journals, they do not efficiently interactive peer review and public discussion improve scientific quality assurance and as a general new standard of scientific journal information density. If, on the other hand, quality assurance and evaluation. concept can be they were embedded in an open access Based on the principles and experiences very flexibly publishing environment, they could serve as outlined above, the general introduction of the basis for quality assurance by interactive interactive peer review and public discussion adapted peer review and public discussion. Plans for should lead to: (i) re-evaluation and higher open access scholarly communication sys- information density of scientific literature tems, which allow flexible distribution of the (betterandfewerpapers);(ii)improved individual processes involved in scholarly documentation and evaluation of scientific communication and quality assurance among quality and competence; (iii) faster scientific different parties in a global network of open innovation and more efficient disclosure of access repositories, do already exist and are scientific flaws. being pursued.6–8 Such novel commun- The success of ACP has motivated col- ication systems could and should certainly leagues from the geosciences community to include two-stage or multi-stage publication start a journal based on the same concept. processes with interactive peer review and This new journal, Biogeosciences,willbe public discussion; their creation, however, launched in 2004, and more interactive will probably take more than just a few journals are being planned. years. In the meantime, the implementation To pave the way for a substantial large- of the interactive journal concept in new scale improvement of scholarly commun- and existing journals appears to be the most ication and scientific quality assurance and promising way to achieve the urgently evaluation the following measures are needed improvement of scientific quality proposed: assurance. The interactive journal concept can be 1. Promotion of the implementation of two- very flexibly adapted for implementation in stage (or multi-stage) publication processes present and future forms of scientific with interactive peer review and public

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discussion, including discussion forums in well as the general support by the Max Planck Society (Heinz Nixdorf Center for Information Management) are new scientific journals and adding them gratefully acknowledged. A generous research grant by the to existing journals, and moving from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (obsolete) media-oriented terminology of (AFO2000–07ATC05, CARBAERO) has enabled the pre-prints and (r)e-prints to a quality- author to pursue the interactive journal concept for improved scientific publishing and quality assurance in oriented terminology of (original) dis- addition to active scientific research. cussion papers and (final) revised papers. 2. Promotion of open access publishing to References enable unrestricted interactive peer review 1. Campanario, J. M. Peer review for journals as it stands and public discussion as well as other today – Part 1. Science Communications 1998:19, 181–211. innovative forms of improved scientific 2. Campanario, J. M. Peer review for journals as it stands publishing, supporting open access by today – Part 2, Science Communications 1998:19, appropriate guidelines and funding for 277–306. scientific institutions and publishers, and 3. Errico, R. M. On the lack of accountability in meteorological research. Bulletin of the American moving funding from subscription charges Meteorological Society 2000:81, 1333–7. to publishing service charges to create a 4. Gura,T.Peerreviewunmasked.Nature 2001:411, more dynamic and innovative market for 521–2. the exchange of scientific information 5. Pöschl, U. Interactive journal concept for future scientific quality assurance. Conference on Open (see http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess- Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, berlin and related websites/publications). Berlin, 2003 (www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/ 3. Fostering the evaluation of scientists Pschl_OABerlin2003_130_hand2.pdf). 6. Baldwin,I.,Brammer,M.,Newmark,P.,Pöschl,U., and scientific projects by individual Schutz, B. and von der Lieth, C. Statement of the publications rather than just publication Quality Assessment Working Group, Conference on numbers, encouraging evaluation com- Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and mittees to complement mere publication Humanities, Berlin, 2003 (http://www.zim.mpg.de/ openaccess-berlin/Schutz-QualityAssessment.pdf). counts by looking into interactively 7. Luce, R. Scientific communication (and publishing): discussed papers, and the weighting of new roles at the dawn of the era of eScience, statistical evaluation parameters (e.g. Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, Berlin, 2003 (http://www. citation or download frequencies) by zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/Rick_Luce_211003.pdf). quality assurance factors (no peer review 8. van de Sompel, H. Yesterday's thoughts on (the day < closed peer review < interactive peer after) tomorrow’s scholarly communication system, review and public discussion). Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, Berlin, 2003 (http://www. Acknowledgements zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/Herbert_van_der_ Sompel_ 201003.pdf). The author thanks the numerous colleagues who have contributed to the design and realization of the interactive Ulrich Pöschl scientific journal concept and ACP,inparticularM.G. Technical University of Munich Weller,P.J.Crutzen,A.K.Richter,T.Koop,K.S. Institute of Hydrochemistry Carslaw,R.Sander,W.T.Sturges,theover70otherACP board members, the authors, referees and scientists Marchioninistrasse 17 participating in the interactive public discussion, and the D-81377 Munich, Germany core of the editorial and production office K. Gänger, Email: [email protected] B. Mueller, and N. Deisel. The funding of ACP by the Copernicus Society, the European Geophysical Society (EGS), and the European Geosciences Union (EGU), as

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