我在The Book People Mailing List上看到一個帖子，談到了發表論文的問題。下面我就把它翻譯出來。我對這個帖子想法很多，以後會再專門寫一篇文章，談談我對國內學術體制的感想。
先是Allen Kleiman提問：
有一件事，我想知道：在那些主要的科研機構評選終身教職的過程中，哪些開放式期刊會被接受？哪些期刊會被認為代表了高質量的學術成果？One thing I would like to know is which open access journals are accepted by major institutions as credit for tenure and which journals are considered as representations of good work in evaluating grant proposals.
Ben Crowell回答：
就我所知，沒有哪所學校規定評選終身教職的參考期刊目錄。當然，公認的做法是你發表論文的期刊必須得到同行的認可，有一些期刊被公認是權威期刊。
I'm not aware of any schools that have specific lists of journals that are acceptable for building a case for tenure. Of course it's the norm that you publish in a peer-reviewed journal, and some journals are considered more prestigious than others.
但是，我想開放式學術期刊同這個問題沒有多少相關性。通常，人們不會只把論文發表在像PLOS或arxiv.org這樣的免費線上系統上。下面是通行的做法：
But I think that has very little relevance here. People generally don't publish a paper solely via a free online system such as PLOS or arxiv.org. Generally what they do is the following:
- 在網上張貼預印本。
- 向傳統期刊提交正式論文。
- 當傳統期刊接受你的論文的時候，通常匿名評審會要求做出修改，有些是小改，有些是大改。作者完成修改，在網上張貼修改後的版本，同時將其提交給出版商。
- 論文正式公開發表。接著，它會出現在圖書館和訂戶那裡，本領域的專家已經知道了結果，在網上已經讀過論文了。- Post a preprint on the online system.
- Submit the paper to a traditional journal.
- Typically when the paper is accepted by the traditional journal, the referees request changes, which may be major or minor. The authors make those changes, and post a revised version of the paper on the online system at the same time they send it to the publisher.
- The paper appears in print. By the time it arrives in libraries and mailboxes, specialists in the field already know about the result, and have read the paper online.這種做法已經在物理學界採用了幾十年了。生命科學也正在採用這種做法。Arxiv沒有傳統的匿名評審，但這個關係不大，因為這個系統並不打算替代傳統的期刊。
The physicists have been doing this for decades now via arxiv.org. The life sciences are playing catch-up. Arxiv doesn't do traditional peer reviewing, but that doesn't matter, because it's not meant to substitute for traditional peer reviewing.
有一些優秀的研究人員會不採用傳統的做法，只把論文放上arxiv.org，這也是事實。我想這通常發生在一些快速變化的理論領域，而且那些論文只有一個作者，且這個作者已經獲得了終身教職。這樣做的人應該非常少，也許將來也是一直如此。
It is true that a few respected researchers bypass the traditional system completely and simply post their papers on arxiv.org. Typically I think this happens in fast-moving theoretical fields, for papers that have only one author, who already has tenure. The number of people doing this, however, is very small, and probably always will be.
（完）
UPDATE（2007.2.7）
Allen Kleiman今天回信了，他說在他所在的紐約城市大學（the City University of New York），評審終身教職基本上只看在重要的刊物上發表的論文。在那裡，只有評上了終身教職，"一個人才能將他的智慧與全世界分享。這裡的格言是'不發表就是死亡'"（After one gets tenure one can devote himself or herself to sharing with the world one's wisdom. Until then one is reminded of the "publish or perish" maxim）。