Just learnt about a new science journal whose standard format is video.
Incidentally, the journal’s name is Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE).
The reason why I didn’t know about this journal is of course that it’s not in my research field, indeed, it is far away, even stellarly (it is featuring mostly medical, chemical and physical research in a video format, and they write biology but I guess it is more like a molecular biochem thing –I haven’t browsed deep yet).
Interesting.
They seek to set a brand new publication standard (even if videos are part of publications since some time now, though I’ve never came to read a paper with videos in annexes.
Among the journal’s aims:
- Rapid Knowledge Transfer
- Addressing Complexity
- Lifting the Laboratory Time Sink
- Integrating Time
- Be a Part of a New Movement in Science Publishing
Sure they provide a new way to expose science, and it really looks like like they succeeded because they already have substancial amount of videos. But does the format really translate into either goals? Not if the scientist is not already a video geek I guess. And how would one give a thorough communication of evidence? We need access to analyses and estimate data quality and the like (does this format ease detailing stats enough?). How does it work this way? Unsure whether the video format would fit Ecology and Evolution studies. Oh yeah, go and browse, the videos are mounted as sections were you can make it fit the space, hopefully in substance… I can’t say more, as I actually don’t have access to this journal.
Hi Seaside,
I actually work for JoVE and I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. JoVE will actually be launching an environment section of the journal in the coming months, which may be relevant to you. Feel free to send me an e-mail (neal.moawed@jove.com) if you’d like access to the journal or if you’d like any more information.
One thing I’d like to note: the majority of our videos are recorded by our videographer network, not the scientists themselves. We understand that many scientists don’t have the time/savvy/ equipment to produce high quality videos to accompany their scholarly text, so we provide the option to let us record the videos and many labs take advantage of this.
I’d probably need some time to see what happens with video-publications that would parallele the kind of work I’m doing. It’s an amazing way to publish, and the only like this I know so far (are there any competitor yet?). Clearly many people are convinced already, I admit I’m still a bit reluctant to the idea per se, but that’s probably because the exercise in conciseness looks drastic enough that it looks quite difficult to get at.