Journal requires peer-reviewed Wikipedia entry to publish

[n2doc]

By John Timmer | Published: December 19, 2008 - 12:05PM CT
It's easy to find the latest in scientific publications by going to a search engine, such as PubMed, that specializes in the relevant literature. But, if you're looking for something else—unpublished data, relevant software, a comprehensive database—you're likely to turn to a general search engine. These, more often than not, will return a Wikipedia page within the top 10 hits. In increasing numbers, scientists are reasoning that, if people are going to look at the Wikipedia page anyway, the scientific community should probably ensure that the information there is good. In the latest manifestation of this trend, the journal RNA Biology is requiring that authors of a specific type of paper submit a Wikipedia entry for peer review, as well.

This isn't the first effort involved in trying to improve the quality and breadth of biological information available through Wikipedia, but it appears to be the first time that entries in the online encyclopedia are being made a precondition of the research career's be-all and end-all: peer-reviewed publications.


RNA biology is a young journal, having published its first edition in 2004. Its focus is pretty broad—RNA does everything from arranging the production of proteins using DNA as an information source to controlling the silencing of entire chromosomes; there's a strong consensus that the origin of life proceeded through an RNA world stage. Although RNA is a big topic, RNA biology appears to be a small, specialist journal; a hint of its impact can be inferred from the fact that the journal chose to announce its new policy through a new story hosted at Nature.

Nevertheless, the journal appears to have a progressive open access policy; it will handle getting the papers it publishes into the appropriate repositories a year after publication, and authors can pay a reasonable fee ($750, $500 for those from institutions with a subscription) to make their papers open access immediately upon publication.

more:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081219-journal-requires-peer-reviewed-wikipedia-entry-to-publish.html