Electronic journals always seem to get a good beating in academia. Especially in areas like computer science… which is ironic considering the one field that spawned the “net”, is very unwilling to view electronic journals as being equal to printed ones. *Maybe* they aren’t equal. Maybe, just maybe, electronic journals could actually be better. For a number of reasons. Firstly, many electronic journals are provided for free. Research is partially the “advancement of knowledge” which is driven by “driven by the researcher’s curiosity, interest, or hunch”. So, research is suppose to be somewhat exploratory. The insight you gain, ideally should be shared with others, so they too can benefit from this knowledge and further their research.

Alas, the number of papers I have read over the last 10 years which make no sense is astonishing. They sound alright, and the results are, well shall we say, somewhat convincing… but, and let’s face it you knew that was coming… when you go to “recreate” algorithm it doesn’t work. You try 101 different things in order to fix it, but to no avail. It just simply does not work the way it should. You may email the author to ask a question, and if you get a response, they often can’t find the original code. It could be that something was left out of the paper. It could be that the special parameters were just never explained, or even given for the examples shown. It makes you wonder if the algorithm ever really worked.

Some researchers publish their code, or make it available. I have a feeling, not all journals like this… some like proofs much better. I certainly don’t. Programming relies on discrete representations of problems. The problem with all of this is that if you are designing a technique and want to compare it against other technique to gauge it’s accuracy, this is almost impossible. Often the data they use is not publically available, or the algorithm is “proprietary”. Sometimes, I’m sure they don’t want their algorithm compared… it may just show the flaws that exist.

So what does all this have to do with electronic journals? Well consider this. A good electronic journal would allow you to submit the data, and the code associated with the work. It would then be archived for anyone to use. It would be accessible to many, and in most cases the author would still maintain copyright over the information. The growing trend towards electronic journals will continue, and the sooner academics realize that paper journals are not the “be all and end all”, the better. The electronic journals will also allow for comment from readers, allowing researchers to improve upon their work, and maybe make new collaborations. Constructive, open critisism is good. This is real peer review.
And if you don’t want to share, don’t bother publishing the algorithm. But then if that happened it wouldn’t be a vortex of nonsense would it?