Freely accessible electronic publishing: Achievements,
strategy, prospects
What should be done by us?
(us = Universities, Libraries,
Researchers,...)
Raf Dekeyser
K.U.Leuven
21-10-2002
FU/US - Ethical Forum
Scientific (scholarly) communication
• Def.: Set of processes through which the outcome of
(academic) research is distributed and archived for the
benefit of present and future researchers.
• Essential ingredients and aims:
– publication of (new) scientific information
– quality control (QC) (e.g.: peer review)
• If we look for improvements: which parties have an interest
in its efficient performance?
– the readers (qualified information and easy access)
– the authors (distribution and academic recognition)
– the institutions (staff evaluation)
– the global community and its requirement for more and
better scientifically validated information.
The journal crisis
•
•
•
•
SCI brought quality hierarchy
of journals, allowing for
uncontrolled price increases;
mergers and package deals
endanger smaller publishers
and may distort the ``impact
parameter´´ system
Academic community realizes
that they write and review the
articles for free
Academic community has
good mastering of digital
technology, does not need
intermediaries
BUT: Bringing change is
difficult, due to the obsession
with ``impact parameters´´
Reactions to the problems
• 1995: ``Subversive proposal´´ by Stevan Harnad. Authors
should claim the right to publish their articles on the
Internet. Self-archiving is possible now! It frees the
scientific publications from the access limitations imposed
by the publishers.
• 1998: ``To publish and perish´´ (ARL & AAU): analysis of
journal crisis + recommendations:
– Change academic evaluation procedures (too
quantitative and dependent on journals!)
– Invest in electronic forms of scientific publication (+ role
of societies for evaluation?)
– Make libraries more price conscious
– Try to get a grip on copyright
• Recent follow-up: same conclusions for the humanities!
New Initiatives:
Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition (SPARC)
• (Also: Public Library of Science & Budapest Open Access
Initiative)
• Started by ARL; aim: to make scientific journals affordable
for average university library
• Alternative journals: support for editorial committees that
look for more satisfactory solutions
– Organic Chemistry Letters (Tetrahedron Lett.)
– Theory and Practice of Logic Programming
• Programs ``Create Change´´, ``Declaring Independence´´,
``Gaining Independence´´: creation of helpful documents
for awareness raising among editors, authors, readers,…
• Help in setting up SPARC Europe under umbrella of LIBER
• 2002: Position paper on Institutional Repositories
SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING & ACADEMIC RESOURCES COALITION
An initiative of the Association of Research Libraries
Igniting Change in
Scholarly
Communication
http://www.arl.org/sparc/index.html
SPARC Titles Are Less Expensive
Established Title
Title
Topology & Its
Applications
Journal of Crystal
Growth
Evolutionary Ecology
Price
$2,672
$9,220
$467
(price reduced in 2001)
Topology
$1,303
Organic
Geochemistry
Sensors & Actuators,
A& B
Machine Learning
$2,513
Plant Ecology
(formerly Vegetatio)
Tetrahedron Letters
Chemical Physics
Letters
Jnl of Logic &
Algebraic
Programming
$2,861
$5,313
$1,050
$9,624
$10,264
$747
$46,034
Title
Algebraic and
Geometric Topology
Crystal Growth &
Design
Evolutionary Ecology
Research
Geometry &
Topology
Geochemical
Transactions
IEEE Sensors
Journal
Jnl of Machine
Learning Research
Jnl of Vegetation
Science
Organic Letters
PhysChemComm
Theory & Practice of
Logic Programming
Price
Free
Savings
Oppty
$2,672
$1,781
$7,439
$340
$127
Free
$1,303
$100
$2,413
$395
$4,918
Free
$1,050
$450
$2,411
$2,609
$100
$7,015
$10,164
$300
$447
$6,075
$39,959
Alternatives Are Taking the Lead
2000 ISI Journal Citation Reports
“Organic Chemistry”
(journals with 100+ articles)
Rank Journal
1
2
14
Impact
J. Organic Chemistry (ACS)
Organic Letters (ACS)
3.367
Tetrahedron Letters
2.558
SPARC: THE SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING &
ACADEMIC RESOURCES COALITION
Igniting SPARC
In Europe:
An Initiative to Create Change
In Scholarly Communication
Financial Backing
Membership structure
(Proposed by Working Group)
•
•
•
Large research
libraries/organizations:
£1,000/1,600 Euros
Smaller, specialist research
libraries /organizations :
£500/800 Euros
National or pan-European
organizations: £10,000/16,000
Euros
These initial 2-year
commitments of support
are helping make
SPARC Europe a
reality:
• CURL
• JISC
• UKB/IWI
• SPARC
http://www.sparceurope.org/
Towards a new method for scholarly
communication
•
•
•
Need for a good library-driven alternative, to prevent
monopolies and to result in more competitive price setting.
Suggested alternative, with 3 essential ingredients (cfr. text
by P.Ginsparg, data-information-knowledge layers):
1. network of (institutional or subject-oriented) repositories,
e.g. under library control (care for archiving!)
2. access system for metadata (possibility for unique
access point with powerful searching and efficient
linking)
3. quality control system and other services
2. is available (OAI)
1. is in progress (but we need to work hard on it)
(In Belgian universities: initiative for digital theses network
is a first step towards a full e-print archive network!)
3. is the hardest part (embryonic)
Quality Control
•
•
Why is it necessary?
– It is part of the process through which our global
validated knowledge database is constructed
– Important for academic recognition of authors, and
therefore for success of the communication system.
– Guarantee of quality for the reader, who is confused by
information overkill.
– Evaluation method for academic authorities.
– It improves the quality of the publications
Peer review organisation is the main cost
– Organisation: estimated at € 300-500 per article.
– Payment by author (or his institute) most reasonable
source of revenue (e.g.: AES, BioMed Central)
– Payment by subscription is an acceptable alternative
• Arguments to charge QC to the author:
– it is the author who gets the intellectual reward for the
refereed publication
– covering the bill should make the author more aware of
the publication cost
– the dissemination of scholarly work should be
considered to be an essential part of the process of
publicly funded research
– on a global level, free access leads to a much fairer
dissemination of scientific knowledge
• How should it be organised?
– Existing editorial boards may take charge
– Learned societies (the ‘roots’ of the journals!) could take
their responsibility for peer review
– Library organizations (LIBER, SPARC) should take
actions for increasing awareness and acceptance in
academic community
– Management tools (software) are becoming available
(e.g. through Roquade)
New QC possibilities for e-prints
• E-print before publication: no information delay! (QC can be
added in a later stage)
• Separate organisation for peer review and for distribution:
virtual overlay journals on the basis of links to one or more
archives.
• Required: Extension of OAMHP for QC metadata (would be
very helpful for overlay journals!).
• Many web-based improvements of old system.
• Interactive peer review, e.g.: Journal of Interactive Media in
Education (JIME): reviewers are known to author,
conversational process, reviews and reader comments
linked to final publication…
• Obtain new (automated) metrics for QC (counting of
citations, downloads,…).
Questions asked by Forum Organisers (1)
• Is it really possible for scientific publishing to do away with the
intermediation of large profit-seeking organizations?
• Are there not some unpleasant, possibly even disastrous side-effects to be
expected, which would soon take us back to the status quo or worse?
• What can be learned from existing experiments?
• And from an economic analysis of their generalization?
• Information technology offers enormous possibilities for
better and cheaper communication; this does not mean that
we should try to kill the publishers: we should pay them for
their added value (but not more!)
• The present access barriers are disastrous for those who
cannot pay
• We should not be afraid of some temporary chaos: it may
lead to an improved state (cfr. steel making!)
• Long term archiving (often seen as a problem) is better
guaranteed by the libraries than by the publishers
Questions asked by Forum Organisers (1)
• Is it really possible for scientific publishing to do away with the
intermediation of large profit-seeking organizations?
• Are there not some unpleasant, possibly even disastrous side-effects to be
expected, which would soon take us back to the status quo or worse?
• What can be learned from existing experiments?
• And from an economic analysis of their generalization?
• Existing experiments show that alternatives are possible
and affordable, that they work and that they are getting
increasing worldwide credibility
• Intermediate experiments should be encouraged as
important steps towards a final solution
• Libraries should take the lead (information responsibility!),
but they should involve the whole academic community
• Future model may be uncertain, but it will be online and
with open access
Questions asked by Forum Organisers (2)
• Is it the duty of academic libraries to start boycotting high-price journals?
• Do scientists have a duty to stop publishing in… conventional journals?
• Must education and research ministries and other relevant bodies be
encouraged to redirect their resources?
• Libraries should continue to provide the necessary scientific
information to students and researchers, but they should
spend their scarce money wisely and critically (e.g., be aware
of the dangers of publisher mergers and journal bundling,
make cost analysis like € per page or € per accessed paper!)
• Simultaneously, libraries should encourage OA initiatives or
take the lead; they should demonstrate to their constituency
and to the authorities the (long-term) advantages of OA
• Scientists (especially the young ones) should not jeopardize
their future; let them publish in good journals, but at the same
time post their publications in an Open Access archive (many
publishers allow this – avoid the others!)
Questions asked by Forum Organisers (2)
• Is it the duty of academic libraries to start boycotting high-price journals?
• Do scientists have a duty to stop publishing in… conventional journals?
• Must education and research ministries and other relevant bodies be
encouraged to redirect their resources?
• Scientists should consider refusing to referee for the journals
that are perceived as too expensive; editorial boards should
use their influence (or threaten to resign…, cfr. SPARC
examples)
• When more peer-reviewed open access journals become
available, top researchers should feel responsible for helping
them achieve good impact ratings (through publishing and
through editorial tasks)
• Resources for information provision should be allocated to
the libraries, who have the duty to offer an optimal service at a
minimal cost
• Scientific assessment committees and funding agencies
should accept these OA publications and encourage new
models, out of concern for an optimal spending of the
research money (ESF has already taken a supportive attitude!)
Conclusion
• Modern ICT offers possibilities to solve the journal crisis,
but we have to overcome the threshold of inertia
• We should not be afraid of experimental models: one of
them may bring us the solution
• There is still a long way to go, on two fronts:
– the development of a new system, especially for QC
– awareness raising in the academic world
• In the meantime, libraries should continue to give
researchers access to the relevant scientific information,
but with a critical attitude to what is offered
• All involved stakeholders (universities, societies and
commercial publishers) are invited to join the concerned
libraries in their search for a fair-priced system for scientific
communication