Wikiversity talk:Publishing original research

Types of papers
In original research material, there is a distinction to be made between original research and original hypotheses. Papers of the former sort normally include research results and conclusions, whereas papers of the latter kind include only an original hypothesis and optionally suggestions for how to test it. Since there is a great deal more creative thinking going on than experimentation, naturally, I would expect a great many more papers that present only new hypotheses without any testing. This just fine by me. I would like to see a great deal more collaboration in the refinement of original hypotheses.

Wikeversity should and does allow papers of both sorts, and both types should be available for peer review. Peer review of an original hypothesis paper can include, for example, critical discussion of 1) how well the paper establishes connections between the new hypothesis and previous research and established consensus; 2) how well the derivation of the new idea is explained and justified, 3) the strength of the suggestions made for testing (verification or falification) of the new hypothesis; and 4) any suggested improvements to the proposed testing. This can be extremely valuable in the development of valid tests and avoiding expensive experimental design errors.

Since both types of papers are important, I think we need a method to flag which type of paper is being submitted.

A journal to support research?
The discussion below has been copy pasted from the discussion behind Original research as suggested by Jtneill

I'm wondering if anyone has the experience or ideas on how we might create a journal in Wikiversity to support formally peer reviewed work? I wrote up my own ideas on how I think a journal should look these days. Key points were:


 * 1) Anyone can submit and article, and that article is listed on the journal website, and anyone can review the article. There is a formal review process required to achieve featured article status however.
 * 2) The submission, review and communication around that process is openly documented.
 * 3) Once submitted, an article is archived and the link is to that version, but all articles are able to be edited, copied, adapted and otherwise reused beyond that.
 * 4) The primary data used in the formation of an article is also openly available as above, however methods of protecting privacy of subjects would need to devised, and if possible not in such a way so as to render the data inaccessible.

I think a journal inside Wikiversity would strengthen the process and policy of research in WV, and maybe even someday become a recognised journal with "impact factor"... --Leighblackall 21:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see no reason why WV shouldn't be looking to host journals, conference proceedings, and recorded presentations (within scope). Maybe this could be pursued further via Publishing original research? If you think so, this thread could be moved to the talk page there. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Some old ideas along these lines: Wiki Journal and Portal:Wiki Scholar --JWSchmidt 23:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So four questions JWS and JTN:
 * Can and how could the WV Journal be a place to publish, review and feature papers from any field? Should we have one journal with multiple topic streams; no streams just a random display based on what comes at the time (I like this way to start); multiple journals from the schools?
 * Can we use this MediaWiki or should we consider using an open journal system to front-of-house the journal from the WV Kitchen?
 * Will the WV community accept publishing on any and all subjects so long as they meet academic standards? Or are they limiting research to wiki related topics (eg, the Wiki Scholar portal you pointed to JWS seems to want to limit essays to wiki related topics?)
 * WP has a newspaper like publishing arm (JTN - what was the link again?) should we aim for something like that?
 * --Leighblackall 06:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Quick note: the WP newspaper is here. I like the idea of a journal, but I think we should aim for a bigger one in size, rather than a scattered sum of small journals. For this some limitation of scope is needed. But the web2.0, elearning and OERs seem a pretty wide topic also, and it is in line with WV scope. --Gbaor 09:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Those are good questions. "a place to publish, review" <-- I think that this moves us into new ground for Wikiversity where we need some kind of formal review process. "on any and all subjects" <-- I think it is fundamental to formal review that there be a community of experienced researchers/reviewers for the subject areas. If we do not have anyone with some expertise in a subject, can we perform a serious review of original work in that subject area? "Wiki Scholar portal" <-- please take all the old ideas as "trial balloons", I'm willing to work to develop a Wikiversity publishing experiment in any format. I have no pre-conceived idea of what will be possible...I just want to explore the possibilities. Some members of the Wikiversity community have from time-to-time discussed the idea of having something like a "community blog", and for a long time I thought that would be our first "off wiki" publishing experiment...it just never happened. I thought that was a nearly trivial goal, but we still failed to reach it! --JWSchmidt 13:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Some thoughts: Maybe something like Research journal using w:Wikipedia:Signpost as a starting model. Submissions can in theory be in any academic field. To be peer-reviewed, the reviewers and review process will need to be at the same level as expected in respected academic journals. It seems to me the commercial journals have got pretty lazy but smart with reviews - they rely less on a standing panel and more on direct approaching specific experts for one-off reviews. The content of an overarching journal could then be transcluded later on into discipline-specific journals. A lot in journal publishing depends on the editorial team. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 14:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would put any journal project on a page in the main namespace where participants can work on the project. Since this is new ground for the Wikiversity, there should also be a corresponding "about" page in the "Wikiversity:" namespace. --JWSchmidt 17:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)