Scientific sinkhole: The pernicious price of formatting


Autoři: Allana G. LeBlanc aff001;  Joel D. Barnes aff001;  Travis J. Saunders aff002;  Mark S. Tremblay aff001;  Jean-Philippe Chaput aff001
Působiště autorů: Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group, CHEO Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada aff001;  Department of Applied Human Sciences, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada aff002
Vyšlo v časopise: PLoS ONE 14(9)
Kategorie: Research Article
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223116

Souhrn

Objective

To conduct a time-cost analysis of formatting in scientific publishing.

Design

International, cross-sectional study (one-time survey).

Setting

Internet-based self-report survey, live between September 2018 and January 2019.

Participants

Anyone working in research, science, or academia and who submitted at least one peer-reviewed manuscript for consideration for publication in 2017. Completed surveys were available for 372 participants from 41 countries (60% of respondents were from Canada).

Main outcome measure

Time (hours) and cost (wage per hour x time) associated with formatting a research paper for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Results

The median annual income category was US$61,000–80,999, and the median number of publications formatted per year was four. Manuscripts required a median of two attempts before they were accepted for publication. The median formatting time was 14 hours per manuscript, or 52 hours per person, per year. This resulted in a median calculated cost of US$477 per manuscript or US$1,908 per person, per year.

Conclusions

To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the cost of manuscript formatting in scientific publishing. Our results suggest that scientific formatting represents a loss of 52 hours, costing the equivalent of US$1,908 per researcher per year. These results identify the hidden and pernicious price associated with scientific publishing and provide evidence to advocate for the elimination of strict formatting guidelines, at least prior to acceptance.

Klíčová slova:

Internet – Peer review – Professions – Salaries – Scientific publishing – Scientists – Social media – Surveys


Zdroje

1. Swoger B. The (mostly true) origins of the scientific journal. Scientific America. July 27, 2012. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/the-mostly-true-origins-of-the-scientific-journal/?redirect=1 (Accessed May 23, 2019).

2. Chapman C, Swade T. Rejection of a rejection: a novel approach to overcoming barriers to publication. BMJ. 2015; 351:h6326. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h6326 26666424

3. Budd J. Reformatting wastes public funds. Nature. 2017; 543:40.

4. Guo Q. Journals, agree on manuscript format. Nature. 2016; 540: 525.

5. Moore JP. Journals, do your own formatting. Nature. 2017; 542: 31.

6. Elsevier. Your paper, Your way. Elsevier. https://www.elsevier.com/authors/journal-authors/your-paper-your-way (Accessed May 30, 2019).

7. Khan A, Montenegro-Montero A, Mathelier A. Put science first and formatting later. EMBO Rep. 2018;19(5).

8. Richard A. Academic publishing: time wasted in formatting and resubmission. Stranded. September 11, 2017. https://www.arunrichard.com/blog//academic-publishing-time-wasted-in-formatting-and-resubmission (Accessed February 27, 2019).


Článek vyšel v časopise

PLOS One


2019 Číslo 9
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