![]() Other merits of supplementary materials notwithstanding, low access rates indicate they do not impact the way the general readership views scientific material.Īnother notable approach to modernise scientific communication can be found in the direct embedding of data into the portable document format (PDF). While variation of this rate across additional journals should be expected, an increase in supplementary access by a factor of 1000 would still render these materials unseen by the majority of readers. A recent study which measured access to research articles and supplements across three journals (JAMA, JIM, JPED) found median views and downloads of supplements was below 0.04% that of articles 20. Unfortunately, these supplemental materials are rarely viewed by readers. Of the many efforts that have been made to reconcile modern scientific materials with scientific communication, perhaps the most prominent is the use of supplementary materials to provide online digital media alongside principal articles. ![]() In the worst situations a representative image can even be misleading, as an author can purposely avoid reporting problematic sections of their dataset and select only the areas that support their hypothesis. The selection of the representative image as well as the degree to which it properly represents the larger dataset can be highly subjective 19 and vary between authors and readers. While this technique is widely accepted, it routinely fails to report the vast majority of data and introduces several considerable complications. For example, using a small printable subset of a larger dataset as a ‘representative’ image is a common publication practice across many disciplines. These depictions are often utilized solely for publication as more comprehensive digital representations can be employed throughout the course of scientific research.Įven types of information that can be well-depicted through static imagery are often highly constrained by the limited amount of data that can be feasibly included within an article. As a few cursory examples, three dimensional models are routinely presented from a single angle, time series data as a few snapshots, and volumetric anatomical scans as individual slices. Inadequate representations of scientific data caused by the natural limitations of printable media are prevalent across the scientific community. Many efforts have attempted to address this discrepancy 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, however none have yet had the impact necessary to displace the practice of simplifying nearly all forms of data into 2D text and static figures for publication 1, 2, 3, 4. The stagnation of the scientific article has led to a growing gap between the digital methods employed by modern research and the centuries old standards we use to communicate scientific information. Scientific publication is now conducted largely online and distributed digitally, however the fundamental structure of the research article remains a simple document comprised of text and printable figures 1, 2, 3, 4.
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