FOREWORD
Now in its second issue, Exchanges: the
Warwick Research Journal
is adding to a number of online publishing initiatives that have
responded to
changes in attitude and opinion in the academic world.
As the founding editor of a
new open access life science journal, eLife,
I had a number of goals in mind. First
and foremost was to accelerate the discovery process with an open
access
journal managed by contributing scholars for the benefit of the public
and the
academic community. We have established
an open review system where active scholars confer to reach decisions
about the
merits of the work under consideration.
We do so to speed the review process and to break the pattern of
endless
review and revision that characterizes the most selective journals. We strive to enhance the reviewing experience
for all scholars but in particular to encourage early career life
scientists
who seek to establish their research programs.
With the advent of electronic
communication, the old restrictions imposed by a print model of
publication are
rapidly fading away. Young scholars
rarely if ever refer to print journals, and yet decisions that are made
in the
most selective publications continue to be based on the length of a
print
run. This legacy will surely fade away
as the multimedia advantages of online publication become obvious to
scholars
in all disciplines. Furthermore, the
open access model of publication will continue to challenge the
subscription
basis of commercial publishers who must now adapt to the expectations
of
scholars and public funding agencies to make the results of research
work fully
accessible to readers within and outside the academy.
Many of my colleagues at the
University of California and on the editorial board of eLife
share my view that scholarship should be evaluated on the
merits of the published work and not on the basis of the perceived
impact, or
worse yet the “impact factor” of the journal in which the
work is
published. We welcome the launch of Exchanges, and encourage scholars in the
disciplines represented in the journal to embrace the forum provided by
an
online, open access venue for outstanding research.
Randy Schekman
Editor-in-Chief,
eLife
Department of
Molecular and Cell Biology
Howard Hughes Medical
Institute
University
of California, Berkeley