The deconstructed journal — a new model for academic publishing

Abstract

The limitations of existing proposed and operational publishing models intended to replace the academic journal are briefly reviewed. Three ‘insights’ are described, the first is into the ‘means/end’ confusion of much current net‐based publishing activity, the second is that it is the purpose, not the form, that is the important aspect of the traditional academic journal model, and the third is that satisfactory net‐based publishing models need not contain a central publisher. From this new viewpoint is developed the Deconstructed Journal (DJ) model which it is suggested is a better model for network based academic publishing. It also solves some of the problems of the current model. Although the main focus of the DJ model is the replacement of the STM journal it has implications for all areas of academic journal publishing.

The journal as an overlay on preprint databases

“…Traditional journals still have some role in communication, providing archival material and interlinking, but they no longer form the primary communication medium at either the formal or public levels. The journal in this sense becomes actually quite similar to the Independent Evaluator Organizations proposed for John Smith's D-Journal, 4 with the focused role of performing peer review. Review papers also take on a more prominent role in providing guidance to the literature for those not familiar enough to deal with the raw preprint literature, so the purpose of both traditional and review journals becomes more clearly to 'overlay' what already exists, as opposed to communicating new original content.…”

Journals and repositories: an evolving relationship?

“…Nevertheless, either the journal or repository may then expose the paper to additional post-publication quality measures, such as citation analyses or interactive open peer discussion. Something like this model has been described by John Smith 13 and Arthur Smith. 14 It is, as yet, the least mature of the models in terms of actual implementations, and perhaps the furthest from the conventional publishing model.…”

Can open access repositories and peer-reviewed journals coexist?

“…Unlike Scenario 1, in this scenario, the key scholarly communication functions of registration, certification, dissemination and archiving are removed from journals entirely and are performed in other ways associated with repositories. The possibilities of such a scenario have been discussed by Raym Crow 7 and Jean-Claude Guédon 8 but go back to earlier discussions by John Smith 9 and others. The most profound change here is that quality control is carried out outside the remit of journals.…”