Open Access and Public-Good Curatorship

We are sometimes approached by authors who query the necessity of the publication process, which involves several steps to explore originality, integrity, and reliability of research presented for publication. Because the work we do as a publisher operates in the background with editors examining manuscripts, reviewers applying their subject expertise to assess quality of a submission, etc., the author may believe that we could and should expedite their work from initial submission to final publication. However, fast publication does not exist where quality, rigour, and impact are goals. Why do we bother with the various steps leading (hopefully!) to publication? Stepping out from behind the curtain to elucidate our processes offers an opportunity to consider how the work we do has importance as a public-good contribution and how our journal acts as a public-good curator.