Scientific publishing

The pressure is building, things are coming to a head. There have been rumblings for years, but the time is coming for a decision one way or the other. I’m talking science so the decision will not happen quickly but it will have to be made. There will be much debate and more than one tussle between rivals. I do hope that it is kept above the level that was looked at by Science magazine I think that this is a horrible and particularly political or corporate model to follow. What is he talking about you might ask? I’m talking about the way that science is disseminated.

There is a bit of a stauch brewing over Open Access Science. There has been in recent years an emergence of open access journals such as Public Library of Science and Biomed Central that have become quite successful. These open access journals operate on a different principal to more traditional journals such as Science, Nature or The New England Journal of Medicine. You wouldn’t really call it a war but there are definitely some grumpy people on both sides of the divide trying to hold on to their patch, their turf.

So let's say you're a publisher of a traditional subscription based journal. You charge subscribers hundreds of dollars a year to get the latest studies about oncology or podiatry or whatever field of research your journal happens to specialize in. The money rolls in, the journals roll out, and everything is good.

Then along come a tide of open-access journals that let everyone read research for free. Do you join the trend for the good of humanity? Hell no you try and get rid of the competition. Or that is the path that the people at Science seem to have gone down.

Traditionally you have to subscribe to a journal to read the articles that are printed in that journal. This has been the case to offset the cost of printing the journal and sending it to the reader. The journal can then take submissions of new articles and print the next issue. This was an excellent business model when there were a few relatively well off people pursuing science as a hobby. However now that scientific research has become a career for quite a number of people there are some problems. One of the problems is the ever increasing number of journals and the prohibitive cost of subscribing to them all. This leads to a common problem for scientists trying to produce more research; you cannot access a certain paper that would be an excellent reference for your study.

Then there is the problem that it’s not economic for people who are not currently in research to subscribe to and read these journals. People then end up getting there science information from The Media who distort the finding or put an incorrect spin on the Science to pursue there own ends. Most people wouldn’t choose to read these journals anyway but they may go to a specific journal article if they were to read something referencing it. On the whole at the moment these articles cannot be accessed by anyone without an expensive subscription.

I believe that scientific studies should be accessible by all. To make it fair then for Subscription journals there could be a time after which the article would become open access. For example the bill that has been proposed in America has allows for article to become freely available after 6 months. Most places with journal subscriptions would continue to subscribe because they need the latest results and findings. While some places that are not very well funded would wait the six months to get the same information. This raises other issues of equity but they can be dealt with as time goes by. The time limit could be played with, maybe six months is a bit short and it could be stretched out to a year. But that is more fine tuning rather that declaring for or against an intent.

Below are some links to further information on this whole debate.

Cheers L.

Nature Article - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html on PR campaign

Guardian piece on Peer Review –

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,2161680,00.html

Article on open access journals Wired News –

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/10/71886

US federal Policy being developed for Public Access of Publicly funded research –

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2695:

Congress finds that--

(1) the Federal Government funds basic and applied research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries that result from the research, if shared and effectively disseminated, will advance science and improve the lives and welfare of people of the United States and around the world; and

(2) the Internet makes it possible for this information to be promptly available to every scientist, physician, educator, and citizen at home, in school, or in a library.

(b) Content- Each Federal research public access policy shall provide for--

(1) submission to the Federal agency of an electronic version of the author's final manuscript of original research papers that have been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and result from research supported, in whole or in part, from funding by the Federal Government;

(2) the incorporation of all changes resulting from the peer review publication process in the manuscript described under paragraph (1);

(3) the replacement of the final manuscript with the final published version if--

(A) the publisher consents to the replacement; and

(B) the goals of the Federal agency for functionality and interoperability are retained;

(4) free online public access to such final peer-reviewed manuscripts or published versions as soon as practicable, but not later than 6 months after publication in peer-reviewed journals;

(5) production of an online bibliography of all research papers that are publicly accessible under the policy, with each entry linking to the corresponding free online full text; and

(6) long-term preservation of, and free public access to, published research findings--

(A) in a stable digital repository maintained by the Federal agency; or

(B) if consistent with the purposes of the Federal agency, in any repository meeting conditions determined favorable by the Federal agency, including free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.

Prism - http://www.prismcoalition.org/about.htm

Open Access Launches Journal Wars –

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/news/2007/03/72704?currentPage=1

-According to tax records, the Public Library of Science had a deficit of $975,000 in 2005 and spent $5.47 million. Its total revenue was $4.49 million.

By contrast, The New England Journal of Medicine made $44 million in 2005, $30 million from advertising and $14 million from subscriptions, according to Advertising Age. And its rival, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, clocked in with $39 million in revenue, $33.2 million from advertising and $5.8 million from subscriptions.

How much damage could open access cause? Even if federal legislation passes, the journals could still sell subscriptions -- many scientists don't want to wait six months before seeing the latest finding.

Indeed, "for big journals, it's probably not a terrible risk," Banks said. "For someone like The New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA, I don't think many people are going to cancel their subscriptions because they're freely available after six months."

But more obscure journals published less than once a week, Banks said, could find themselves losing subscriptions. "That's the basis of the publishers' worries."