Philica: an important online journal.

Philica is an online journal, for the publishing of research papers. It is also, I believe, a very important step forward in academic publishing. I shall explain.

Academic publishing has long suffered from a number of problems. Indeed, some of them are listed on the Philica website and are quoted below:

"Unnecessarily lengthy review periods
Papers rejected for trivial reasons
Reviewers not reading work properly owing to time pressures
Publication blocked because a reviewer is working on something similar
Reviewers reacting unprofessionally to criticism of their work
Tendency for reviewers to be established authors, with subsequent bias against novel ideas and methodologies
Good reviews, followed by, “However, I’m not sure it is right for this journal — why not submit to X instead?” "

In short there are an abundance of reasons why a paper might not be published, or might be delayed, that have nothing to do with the quality of the work. The whole process is so slow that it can take YEARS for an academic paper to finally be published after it has been sent to a journal for evaluation. The result is that the whole scientific and academic enterprise is slowed down and made inefficient. Philica, however, provides a solution.

As long as a researcher has an affiliation to an academic institution (meaning they work with one), or other research institution such as a government or industrial body, then a writer may upload their article onto Philica IMMEDIATELY. This establishes priority at once and allows the researcher to communicate their work at once, speeding up intellectual progress. The peer review process occurs online and in the open, as articles are reviewed over time, by other professional researchers.

Philica has several important advantages, therefore, over traditional publishing. One big one is that there is no blockade on ideas which the Old Guard might try to stall, because they challenge the status quo. Thus, Philica provides an outlet for work with a difference, that could make a difference.

Philica is an open access journal. The work is available online to be read by all. This is in strong contrast to traditional journals, which have limited circulation and cost a fortune in subscription charges. Philica, however, is free to all authors - and readers. The work uploaded is hosted permanently. However, they have running costs and do need financial support, which comes from donations. So, if you feel that freeing up academic publishing is an important thing to do...please visit http://www.philica.com/ and make any donation that you feel able to. Even a small one will be a help. You would be furthering intellectual progress should you support Philica.

I should point out that I have no personal involvement in Philica. I just thought I would write a blog post to try to help an admirable enterprise. It was founded by two British psychologists, Dr. Nigel Holt and Dr. Ian Walker. So, all credit for this innovation in publishing, should go to them!

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