Fostering Innovation in Teaching via an Innovation in Publishing

Abstract

Change can be manifested via evolutionary steps, or revolutionary leaps. Although higher education might benefit from rapid adaptation, it effectively blocks it by encouraging and rewarding only 'safe' and incremental thinking. For example, journals generally limit themselves to manuscripts that present a successful idea, an appropriate protocol for delivery, and a careful assessment of the impact of that approach. This may be inherently flawed. That is, by publishing only those papers that demonstrate positive results, people are rewarded/encouraged to try only “safe” experiments, that is, ones that build only incrementally and are likely to be successful. In the academy, people are often hired and promoted based on their research productivity. And, since a metric of that productivity is their volume of published work, we de facto encourage people to be “safe” in their choices, and perhaps also selecting against people who are inclined to invest themselves in truly innovative, high-risk, and potentially transformative projects. Publishing only “successful” protocols has another, perhaps more problematic, implication. That is, by not publishing well-researched projects that yield statistically insignificant or negative results, we may be allowing numerous people to try the same thing—after all, nowhere in the literature would they find evidence that the approach does not work. In addition, it is expected that including a wider range of manuscripts may allow for comparison of successful and unsuccessful attempts with similar techniques, which may allow for a better understanding of which parameters are critical. The discipline-based education research (DBER) journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education (BAMBEd; www.BAMBEd.org), for which Dr. Ortiz serves as Editor-in-Chief, has recognized this inherent limitation. BAMBEd's Editorial Board recently announced that manuscripts that demonstrate “negative” or inconclusive results will be considered for publication. BAMBEd has not and will not lower its standards for peer review and publication. We will continue to expect all manuscripts to be well thought out, provide meaningful insights, be carefully written, and include a thorough assessment. The only difference is that we now also allow for manuscripts to demonstrate that a pedagogical method is not proven effective. We believe that BAMBEd, as we declare ourselves open to publishing manuscripts that include well-designed and carefully assessed research that show positive and neutral or negative outcomes, is setting itself as an example of the value we place in creative and innovative thinking. There is no doubt that BAMBEd will continue to be an innovative leader in discipline-based research and academic publishing.