{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pbio.3000117","title":"Reliable novelty: New should not trump true","abstract":"Although a case can be made for rewarding scientists for risky, novel science rather than for incremental, reliable science, novelty without reliability ceases to be science. The currently available evidence suggests that the most prestigious journals are no better at detecting unreliable science than other journals. In fact, some of the most convincing studies show a negative correlation, with the most prestigious journals publishing the least reliable science. With the credibility of science increasingly under siege, how much longer can we afford to reward novelty at the expense of reliability? Here, I argue for replacing the legacy journals with a modern information infrastructure that is governed by scholars. This infrastructure would allow renewed focus on scientific reliability, with improved sort, filter, and discovery functionalities, at massive cost savings. If these savings were invested in additional infrastructure for research data and scientific code and/or software, scientific reliability would receive additional support, and funding woes-for, e.g., biological databases-would be a concern of the past.","journal":"PLOS Biology","year":2019,"id":5977,"datarank":0.515098080672772,"base_score":3.4339872044851463,"endowment":3.4339872044851463,"self_citation_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":30,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0403,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2019-02-12","fair_score":12.5,"fair_percentile":0.15391380826737028,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":36275,"name":"Björn Brembs","orcid":"0000-0001-7824-7650","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":70,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":20.0,"fair_a":30.0,"fair_i":0.0,"fair_r":0.0,"fair_zscore":-2.9589,"fair_rationale":{"fair_score":12.5,"has_llm":true,"dimensions":{"F":{"name":"Findable","score":20.0,"criteria":[{"key":"f_has_doi","label":"Has a persistent DOI","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"DOI present","rationale":null},{"key":"f_repository_presence","label":"Indexed in repositories / literature DBs","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"datacite=0, pmcid=False, pmid=False","rationale":null},{"key":"f_persistent_ids","label":"Resolvable scholarly identifiers (OpenAlex)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no OpenAlex id","rationale":null},{"key":"f_metadata_richness","label":"Rich, machine-readable metadata","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper does not mention any metadata, machine-readability, or structured description of its content or underlying data."}]},"A":{"name":"Accessible","score":30.0,"criteria":[{"key":"a_open_access","label":"Open Access / files deposited","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"Open Access","rationale":null},{"key":"a_retrievable","label":"Free full text retrievable","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"0 OA location(s)","rationale":null},{"key":"a_access_protocol","label":"Clear data/code access protocol","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper provides no protocol or statement for accessing data or code; it is an opinion piece without data or code."}]},"I":{"name":"Interoperable","score":0.0,"criteria":[{"key":"i_linked_data","label":"Linked datasets / DataCite relations","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"linked_datasets=0, datacite=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standard_ids","label":"References data via standard accessions","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"accessions=0, trials=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standards","label":"Standard formats, vocabularies & identifiers","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"No standard formats, vocabularies, or identifiers are referenced or used in the paper."}]},"R":{"name":"Reusable","score":0.0,"criteria":[{"key":"r_license","label":"Clear, open reuse license","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no license","rationale":null},{"key":"r_downloads","label":"Demonstrated reuse (downloads)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"downloads=0","rationale":null},{"key":"r_version","label":"Versioned / maintained","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no version chain","rationale":null},{"key":"r_dataset","label":"Classified as a data resource","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"not a dataset","rationale":null},{"key":"r_reusability","label":"Data-availability statement, license & reproducibility","kind":"llm","weight":2.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper contains no data-availability statement, license, or reproducibility information."}]}},"suggestions":["If the paper includes any data or code, provide a data-availability statement and a persistent identifier like a DOI.","Deposit any supplementary materials in a FAIR-aligned repository with machine-readable metadata.","Add a license (e.g., CC-BY) to the paper to clarify reuse permissions.","Use standardized ontologies or taxonomies in the text (e.g., for research concepts) to improve interoperability.","If arguments rely on external studies, cite them with stable identifiers and link to their data/code."],"model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","agent_version":"fair_agent_v1","fulltext_source":"abstract_only"},"fair_model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","fair_agent_version":"fair_agent_v1","fair_fulltext_source":"abstract_only","fair_has_llm":true,"fair_computed_at":"2026-06-14T20:31:03.354255Z","clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}