Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users
to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response
is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual
response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the
browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published
online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed.
Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles.
The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being
wilfully misrepresented as published articles or when it is brought to our
attention that a response spreads misinformation.
From March 2022, the word limit for rapid responses will be 600 words not
including references and author details. We will no longer post responses
that exceed this limit.
The word limit for letters selected from posted responses remains 300 words.
If the scientific community's publishing system is anything like the
general internet, it's only a matter of time before the usefulness and
quantity of freely available information surpasses that of even the most
authoritative publisher - and researchers begin to ignore individual
publications entirely, in favor of free articles.
(See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990725.html for a discussion on
Metcalfe's Law, which states that "the value of a network grows by the
square of the size of the network," and how it works against web sites
that try to isolate themselves from the rest of internet by putting up
barriers like subscription fees.)
In fact, the threshold at which free literature begins to grow
exponentially in relation to paid literature may have already been
crossed. Within 10 years, even respected publishers like BMJ may be
relegated to struggling has-beens, much like their subscription-based
counterparts in the popular media (e.g. Salon.com).
The thing that could speed this process the fastest is an advanced-
search option in PubMed that only returns free, full text articles - and
hides the ones that you can't access, or at least puts them at the end of
the search results. When that's available, it would likely become the
first place many people would search by default, which would in turn raise
the visibility of the free articles, subsequently attracting more articles
by researchers who are drawn by the exposure - and who would migrate even
more quickly to publications that don't charge readers.
In fact, why not bypass the traditional publication system altogether
and offer an option to submit articles directly to PubMed - which could be
tagged as "unreviewed" at first and be subject to an online peer-review
system, kind of like eBay's feedback ratings. Ratings and written reviews
could be shown just like comments are displayed under a blog post, giving
authors of studies access to immediate feedback. A lot of things may be
working against this model taking hold, but all it might take is a single
publisher or organization with the guts to experiment - and enough
credibility to attract an audience big enough to reach critical mass.
Metcalfe's Law
If the scientific community's publishing system is anything like the
general internet, it's only a matter of time before the usefulness and
quantity of freely available information surpasses that of even the most
authoritative publisher - and researchers begin to ignore individual
publications entirely, in favor of free articles.
(See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990725.html for a discussion on
Metcalfe's Law, which states that "the value of a network grows by the
square of the size of the network," and how it works against web sites
that try to isolate themselves from the rest of internet by putting up
barriers like subscription fees.)
In fact, the threshold at which free literature begins to grow
exponentially in relation to paid literature may have already been
crossed. Within 10 years, even respected publishers like BMJ may be
relegated to struggling has-beens, much like their subscription-based
counterparts in the popular media (e.g. Salon.com).
The thing that could speed this process the fastest is an advanced-
search option in PubMed that only returns free, full text articles - and
hides the ones that you can't access, or at least puts them at the end of
the search results. When that's available, it would likely become the
first place many people would search by default, which would in turn raise
the visibility of the free articles, subsequently attracting more articles
by researchers who are drawn by the exposure - and who would migrate even
more quickly to publications that don't charge readers.
In fact, why not bypass the traditional publication system altogether
and offer an option to submit articles directly to PubMed - which could be
tagged as "unreviewed" at first and be subject to an online peer-review
system, kind of like eBay's feedback ratings. Ratings and written reviews
could be shown just like comments are displayed under a blog post, giving
authors of studies access to immediate feedback. A lot of things may be
working against this model taking hold, but all it might take is a single
publisher or organization with the guts to experiment - and enough
credibility to attract an audience big enough to reach critical mass.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests