It's an interesting idea! I've been trying to think how this might work for chemistry research. There could be some technical issues to address about experimental data and how it is made available, but I'm sure that could be solved.
Chemistry has had more barriers to open science initiatives. Big traditional publishers are/were dominant. The primary ways to search the chemical literature were controlled by a few of those publishers. Prestige publishing determines your career opportunities. I've seen so many organic chemists who are obsessed with publishing in the big name journals even to their detriment. Better to let something go unpublished for a year if there's a chance, however small, of getting into JACS, for example. Oh, and the standard chemical drawing software is exorbitantly expensive now because its developer knows they can charge whatever they want. Things seem to be slowly changing, but there are some pretty conservative voices in the field. Even the American Chemical Society has open access journals in some form now.
Interesting to know about chemistry. I realise that there is also ChemRxiv which I didn't mention (the arrogance of a biologist!), but I suppose it is much smaller than the other -Rxivs.
The software thing is an issue that I suppose is separate to the publishing platform--although it would be super nice to have as much integrated on the platform. Even things like collating figures with Adobe Illustrator or running stats and plotting graphs with GraphPad Prism are super expensive these days. I guess if you can publish papers exactly as you wish on your own Substack Scholar, then you could even just hand-draw stuff and scan in the images like back in the old days, without having to conform to the formatting of journals.
For Substack to bother investing in plugins or add-ons to make a seamless interface for publishing, there'd need to be substantial adoption of the platform in the first place. I think/hope that the personal prestige incentive structure of Substack Scholar would be enough to get to this point. At that stage, further UI/UX enhancements would only further bolster the incentive to publish with Substack Scholar.
ChemRxiv seems to be growing, and occasionally I have seen some bigger names publishing something there. It will probably take time to change perceptions about what could be published there.
In theory you can just draw chemical structures and export them as a JPEG or something. The gold standard (ChemDraw) integrates with MS Office, which is how many people use it for publishing or presenting. Anything beyond that would require the developers to do some work, and they have a reputation for doing little. That's one of the problems with having a monopoly in a specific field. It took years for ChemDraw to even support HD displays, for example. I can remember the days when I had to manually change my laptop's resolution just to see the menus and buttons...otherwise they were too small! There are other programs, of course, but they are either more difficult to use or have even less resources behind them.
I think there are people who would be willing to use a "SubStack Scholar" if it were available. Perhaps there just need to be enough people leading by example?
Sounds like it would be ripe for disruption by a new chemical drawing software startup?! Perhaps ChemDraw has some strong IP or something, or perhaps it’s just conservatism/traditionalism that keeps people locked into ChemDraw.
I can definitely see myself “leading by example” once I start my own lab. But I’m insignificant. Getting some real leaders of fields to buy in to it would be very persuasive I think. Substack Scholar could target specific big institutes or specific big scientists, say.
"Persuading funding bodies to accept Substack Scholar articles on researchers’ CVs as valid pieces of work is crucial" - I'm curious if you have any thoughts about what it might take to achieve this.
Easier said than done. How does one create legitimacy?
I think bioRχiv's legitimacy just comes from its widespread use, and perhaps its ties to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Substack Scholar can't do the latter, so widespread adoption pre-institutional legitimacy would be key. I think the gradient from science communication to actual secondary research (like reviews or meta-analyses with DOIs) will help and then at some point you reach escape velocity.
Some specific things that could help:
- Substack pieces have to be citeable. That means they have to be able to be added by referencing software. DOIs probably solve this or help it. If my Mendeley web browser plug-in can add a Substack Scholar article with its DOI, then I can add it easily as a reference in a traditional journal publication. Then academics reading a Nature paper, say, will see Substack Scholar in the reference list and they'll start to subconsciously consider it a legitimate academic forum.
- Hybrid database integration. Given the NIH wants research on PMC and HHMI wants it on BioRχiv, early adopters of Substack Scholar could upload their Substack PDF to bioRχiv or PMC too. Better still, if bioRχiv can have a link to the substack article itself (as it does for when preprints get published in journals). Then scientists can post a preprint and a Substack Scholar article at the same time and direct their readers to the Substack one preferentially, where they can interact more than with a preprint. I think authors could do this themselves for bioRχiv. I'm not sure how to get a Substack Scholar article indexed on PMC though.
- in keeping with the social media / influencer mindset, target some specific high profile scientists/academics. For example, can you get the Arc Institute to put their next big paper on Substack Scholar (instead of or in addition to bioRχiv)? Targeting specific heavy hitters in a wide range of fields might be a great way to go. Akin to brands reaching out to celebrities for brand deals.
There are probably some other things that can be done. I suppose it depends on how well the DOI / Google Scholar integration goes and how much initial adoption happens. It's an exciting time for sure!
This is a brilliant article, Adam. I wish I'd read it 18 months ago and saved myself the hundreds of hours it took to reach the same conclusions.
Knowledge is the engine of human progress, yet the systems that produce it are broken. I share your belief that the time is right for change and that Substack has a role to play. I can hardly conceive of anything more worthwhile.
It's an interesting idea! I've been trying to think how this might work for chemistry research. There could be some technical issues to address about experimental data and how it is made available, but I'm sure that could be solved.
Chemistry has had more barriers to open science initiatives. Big traditional publishers are/were dominant. The primary ways to search the chemical literature were controlled by a few of those publishers. Prestige publishing determines your career opportunities. I've seen so many organic chemists who are obsessed with publishing in the big name journals even to their detriment. Better to let something go unpublished for a year if there's a chance, however small, of getting into JACS, for example. Oh, and the standard chemical drawing software is exorbitantly expensive now because its developer knows they can charge whatever they want. Things seem to be slowly changing, but there are some pretty conservative voices in the field. Even the American Chemical Society has open access journals in some form now.
Interesting to know about chemistry. I realise that there is also ChemRxiv which I didn't mention (the arrogance of a biologist!), but I suppose it is much smaller than the other -Rxivs.
The software thing is an issue that I suppose is separate to the publishing platform--although it would be super nice to have as much integrated on the platform. Even things like collating figures with Adobe Illustrator or running stats and plotting graphs with GraphPad Prism are super expensive these days. I guess if you can publish papers exactly as you wish on your own Substack Scholar, then you could even just hand-draw stuff and scan in the images like back in the old days, without having to conform to the formatting of journals.
For Substack to bother investing in plugins or add-ons to make a seamless interface for publishing, there'd need to be substantial adoption of the platform in the first place. I think/hope that the personal prestige incentive structure of Substack Scholar would be enough to get to this point. At that stage, further UI/UX enhancements would only further bolster the incentive to publish with Substack Scholar.
ChemRxiv seems to be growing, and occasionally I have seen some bigger names publishing something there. It will probably take time to change perceptions about what could be published there.
In theory you can just draw chemical structures and export them as a JPEG or something. The gold standard (ChemDraw) integrates with MS Office, which is how many people use it for publishing or presenting. Anything beyond that would require the developers to do some work, and they have a reputation for doing little. That's one of the problems with having a monopoly in a specific field. It took years for ChemDraw to even support HD displays, for example. I can remember the days when I had to manually change my laptop's resolution just to see the menus and buttons...otherwise they were too small! There are other programs, of course, but they are either more difficult to use or have even less resources behind them.
I think there are people who would be willing to use a "SubStack Scholar" if it were available. Perhaps there just need to be enough people leading by example?
Sounds like it would be ripe for disruption by a new chemical drawing software startup?! Perhaps ChemDraw has some strong IP or something, or perhaps it’s just conservatism/traditionalism that keeps people locked into ChemDraw.
I can definitely see myself “leading by example” once I start my own lab. But I’m insignificant. Getting some real leaders of fields to buy in to it would be very persuasive I think. Substack Scholar could target specific big institutes or specific big scientists, say.
"Persuading funding bodies to accept Substack Scholar articles on researchers’ CVs as valid pieces of work is crucial" - I'm curious if you have any thoughts about what it might take to achieve this.
Easier said than done. How does one create legitimacy?
I think bioRχiv's legitimacy just comes from its widespread use, and perhaps its ties to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Substack Scholar can't do the latter, so widespread adoption pre-institutional legitimacy would be key. I think the gradient from science communication to actual secondary research (like reviews or meta-analyses with DOIs) will help and then at some point you reach escape velocity.
Some specific things that could help:
- Substack pieces have to be citeable. That means they have to be able to be added by referencing software. DOIs probably solve this or help it. If my Mendeley web browser plug-in can add a Substack Scholar article with its DOI, then I can add it easily as a reference in a traditional journal publication. Then academics reading a Nature paper, say, will see Substack Scholar in the reference list and they'll start to subconsciously consider it a legitimate academic forum.
- Hybrid database integration. Given the NIH wants research on PMC and HHMI wants it on BioRχiv, early adopters of Substack Scholar could upload their Substack PDF to bioRχiv or PMC too. Better still, if bioRχiv can have a link to the substack article itself (as it does for when preprints get published in journals). Then scientists can post a preprint and a Substack Scholar article at the same time and direct their readers to the Substack one preferentially, where they can interact more than with a preprint. I think authors could do this themselves for bioRχiv. I'm not sure how to get a Substack Scholar article indexed on PMC though.
- in keeping with the social media / influencer mindset, target some specific high profile scientists/academics. For example, can you get the Arc Institute to put their next big paper on Substack Scholar (instead of or in addition to bioRχiv)? Targeting specific heavy hitters in a wide range of fields might be a great way to go. Akin to brands reaching out to celebrities for brand deals.
There are probably some other things that can be done. I suppose it depends on how well the DOI / Google Scholar integration goes and how much initial adoption happens. It's an exciting time for sure!
This is all very helpful - thank you Adam 🙏
This is a brilliant article, Adam. I wish I'd read it 18 months ago and saved myself the hundreds of hours it took to reach the same conclusions.
Knowledge is the engine of human progress, yet the systems that produce it are broken. I share your belief that the time is right for change and that Substack has a role to play. I can hardly conceive of anything more worthwhile.
Thanks Dayne!