Supply of Scholarly Communication

The academic reward system is structured to encourage the production of ideas. It does this by rewarding the production and dissemination of "good" ideas- ideas that are widely read and acknowledged.

Scholarly publications are produced by researchers as part of their jobs. At

most universities and research organizations, publication counts significantly toward salary and job security (e.g., tenure). All publications are not created equally: competition for space in top-ranked journals is intense.

The demand for space in those journals is intense because they are highly visible and widely read. Publication in a topflight journal is an important measure of visibility. In some fields, citation data have become an important observable proxy for "impact." Citations are a way of proving that the articles that you publish are, in fact, read.