Scientific Communication is Changing and Scientists Should Lead the Way

Abstract

A response to 21 commentaries of Nosek & Bar-Anan - Scientific Utopia I: Opening Scientific Communication. We make four points: (1) the potential for things to go wrong is not a justification to do nothing; (2) some changes, particularly open access, appear to be inevitable; (3) when authors control publishing, articles will get better, not worse; and (4) despite the substantial cumulative changes, if our proposal were adopted in whole, those that wished to produce and consume their science like they do today could retain most of those practices. However, faced with the alternatives, we believe that they would not choose to do so. We close with practical suggestions that individual scientists can do to embody the value of openness in scientific communication.

Keywords: scientific communication, open access, publishing, scientific practices, peer review