Wouldn't it be good if in addition to publishing journal articles in various medical journals that researchers also had to submit their data in a standardized way in order to be loaded into a database? This way, across medical journals, any outcomes from new procedures or technology would be available for comparison to other new techniques and current gold standards. Standardizing data submission would be difficult but possible and the outcome information could be linked to hospital cost data for further comparison. This would also combine information from various journals into one place for the research and medical community. Links to journals for article could be included in the database.
I agree
No opinion
I disagree
Add your comment
I think this should be applied to any research in the biological and social sciences. Tracking down information is archaic in comparison with other systems that have standard formatting on the internet. Unfortunately, the sharing of information might lead to a reduction in the subscription numbers of prestigious research journals. However, there might be a way to overcome this hurdle by not posting the information until a number of months after the publication has been run.
Recently E.O. Wilson challenged the scientific community to create a single Encyclopedia of Life, where all information of each species on the planet so far identified is represented with a network of links. It is possible that in a few years we could find all information of each category, instead of simple general information.
What about proprietary data ?
^ BelmontWhat do you mean? If you want to lay claim to sensitive data, then don't publish it. Having access to a wealth of information is vital to research and development—it doesn't happen without it.
^ CassandraCould you expand on what you feel needs to be standardized? I thought that scientific journals already conformed to a good degree of structure.