Wikiversity:Journal of the future

For background, see this original post (in German) and these commentaries (in English). For discussion, see Talk page or here.

Core criteria

Need some more profiling to reduce overlap, and brushing to improve flow.

1. Dynamics: Research is a process. The scientific journal of the future provides a platform for continuous and rapid publishing of workflows and other information pertaining to a research project, and for updating any such content by its original authors or collaboratively by relevant communities. Eventually, all scientific records should have a public version history or a public justification for not having one.
2. Scope: Data come in many different formats. The scientific journal of the future interoperates with databases and ontologies by way of open standards and concentrates on the contextualization of knowledge newly acquired through research, without limiting its scope in terms of topic or methodology.
3. Access: Free access to scientific knowledge, and permissions to re-use and re-purpose it, are an invaluable source for research, innovation and education. The scientific journal of the future provides legally and technically barrier-free access to its contents, along with options for re-use and re-purposing that are stated clearly for both humans and machines.
4. Replicability: Open access to all relevant core elements of a publication facilitates the verification and subsequent re-use of published content. The scientific journal of the future requires the publication of detailed methodologies — including all data and code — that form the basis of any research project.
5. Review: The critical, transparent and impartial examination of information submitted by the professional community enhances the quality of publications. The scientific journal of the future supports post-publication peer review, and qualified reviews of submitted content shall always be made public.
6. Presentation: Digitization opens up new opportunities to provide content, such as through semantic and multimedia enrichment. The scientific journal of the future adheres to open Web standards and creates a framework in which the technological possibilities of digital media can be exploited by authors, readers and machines alike, and content remains continuously linkable.
7. Transparency: Disclosure of conflicts of interest creates transparency. The scientific journal of the future promotes transparency by requiring its editorial board, the editors and the authors to disclose both existing and potential conflicts of interest with respect to a publication and to make explicit their contributions to any publication.
8. Sustainability: Resources are limited. Ecological considerations are reflected in the design and production of the scientific journal of the future.
9. Flexibility: Innovation is stifled by inflexible rules. Exceptions to the above rules are possible if justified in public.

See also

• WikiJournal user group - a set of peer-reviewed, academic journals similar to this initial concept
  • WikiJournal of Medicine - The flagship publication of the WikiJournal User Group
  • WikiJournal of Science
  • WikiJournal of Humanities

Related resources

• Mietchen, Pampel & Heller: Criteria for the Journal of the Future. beyondthejournal.net, 2011
• Reinventing academic publishing online
• What Do I Want from the Publisher of the Future?
• Rethinking the Functions of a Journal
• Data publishing and scientific journals: the future of the scientific paper in a world of shared data
• The Future of Science - 2008 blog post by Michael Nielsen (2011 comment, focusing on the wiki aspects)
• The Five Stars of Online Journal Articles – an article evaluation framework
• Elsevier's Article of the Future