The Tincture of Time - Should Journals Return to Slower Publishing Practices? - The Scholarly Kitchen

"The rise of preprints, now endorsed by the NIH, has created a new pressure valve for rapid publication outside of journals. With this emerging venue for interim publication coming into place, do journals need to be so quick to publish?

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Perhaps, instead, the strategic differentiator for journals isn’t unpredictable schedules, rapid publication, and error-prone publishing of scientific reports. With preprint servers supporting rapid, preliminary publication in an environment that is actually more supportive of amendments/corrections, speed, and unpredictability, perhaps journals should rethink shouldering the load of and courting the risks of rapid publication. More importantly, there are indications that coordinating with your audience, taking more time to fact-check and edit, and returning to a higher level of quality may be the smart move.

Journals don’t have to perform every publishing trick anymore. Maybe it’s time to return to doing what they do best — vetting information carefully, validating claims as best they can, and ensuring novelty, quality, relevance, and importance around what they choose to publish."