A discussion at FriendFeed evolved in part into a question about the role of automatic web-based tools to replace the hierarchy of the journal publishing system.
Bill Hooker wrote: ’it’s time to do away entirely with the whole concept of “high-end” journals. Journal-level metrics (impact factor, rejection rates, perceived prestige) simply do not work as a way to rank and evaluate projects, ideas or scientists. Let peer review do what it can do, weed out the obvious crap, and let search and database software and the research community do the rest.’
Ian Mulvany replied: ‘I agree that assessment of value is poorly serviced by current metrics, but disagree that it will be possible to get rid of high-end journals in one form or another. IMHO there are two sides to new publishing models, one that allows data to be shared, mashed up and read by computers. Another that helps people to focus their attention. Content-rich, time-poor is the driving dynamic for the existence of exclusivity in a knowledge marketplace. Automatic tools for doing this may be on the way’.