The gradual revolution in academic publishing

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The gradual revolution in academic publishing

• Bas Savenije
• Utrecht University Library

IuK Ulm, 11 March 2002
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If I were you I would not start from here.

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History of the scientific journal

• Start 1665.
• Journal des Sçavans Philosophical Transactions.
• Background
• increasing number of researchers,
• systematic, empirical scientific methods,
• need to know the results of colleagues,
• disadvantages of the book.
• Goals
• to improve the communication among scolars
  something in between books and letters.
• to create a public record of original
  contributions to knowledge.

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Evolution of the scientific journal

• Growing emphasis on quality assessment.
• Growing importance of branding.
• Present situation peer review and quality
  assessment are the central aspects.
• The journals essential role is to enable
  managers to judge the quality of individual
  scientists.

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The present situation

• The present system of scientific journals has a
  number of problems
• the system is sluggish
• there is doubt about the systems reliability
• the system is (becoming) unaffordable.

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Consequences

• The present scientific journal is an obstacle
  for communication among scolars and, thus, denies
  its original raison dêtre.
• This situation is unsatisfactory for the
  academic community which now takes initiatives to
  keep the process of scholarly communication
  within its own hands.

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Some general remarks

• It is impossible to predict what the future of
  academic publishing will look like.
• It is rather short-sighted to declare a standard
  for what the future should look like.
• One should facilitate a new order in scientific
  information processes and should not be afraid
  for a certain degree of chaos.
• Commercial publishers are very reluctant to
  co-operate towards fundamental changes.

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The role of the university library

• Distinctive tasks of the publisher are
• distribution and
• quality certification.
• Within the academic community, a university
  library is a natural candidate to provide the
  support needed for these processes, using the
  existing staff competences and IT infrastructure.

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Objectives of library engagement

• Increase access to scholarly information.
• Influence the economics of publishing.
• Insure longevity of digital resources.
• Assist scholars in the dissemination of their
  results.

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Present trends

• Incremental changes print ? electronic
• by publishers themselves,
• co-publishing (HighWire),
• new e-journals (academic community).
• Innovations changing the model, emphasis on
  communication
• archives,
• publication sites,
• portals.

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Archives

• Institutional archives
• Preserving and disclosing the scientific output
  of the institution (research institute,
  university).
• Subject archives
• Preserving and disclosing publications in one
  discipline.
• Open Archive Initiative
• Interoperability standards to increase
  accessibility and impact.
• Public Library of Science

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Subject Archives free access

• Los Alamos arXiv (physics mathematics)
• http//arXiv/org/ started in 1991.
• Unrefereed author self-archiving.
• 150.000 articles in 2000 13 million downloads.
• Cogprints (Cognitive sciences)
• http//cogprints.soton.ac.uk
• Still rather small collection.

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Institutional Archives

• CERN Document Server (DCS) (physics)
• http//cds.cer.ch
• Different types of documents 430.000 bibliogr.
  records, 170.000 full texts.
• Free registration.
• University Publications from Uppsala
• http//www.ub.uu.se/upu/engindex.html
• Different types of documents, incl. reprints.
• Free access.

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Publication sites

• Publication of preprints
• Peer review after publication
• Public peer review judgement?
• Discussions about quality judgements?

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Publication sites examples

• Electronic Transactions on Artificial
  Intelligence (ETAI)
• Linköping University Electronic Press
• http//www.ida.liu.se/ext/ep/ej/etai/
• The Journal of Design Research (JDR)
• Delft University Press
• http//www.roquade.nl/frame.pl?projects

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Portals

• Gateway to as much publications as possible on
  one discipline.
• Searchable.
• Preferably free access.
• Additional services?

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Portals examples

• PhysNet
• stable and distributed information service for
  physics with the collaboration of many societies
  and physics organisations. http//www.eps.org/Phys
  Net/physnet.html
• Mpress
• searchable index for a number of mathematics
  preprint servers.
• http//MathNet.preprints.org/

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The future trend 1

• A gradual revolution
• Print journals.
• Full text e-versions of print journals.
• E-journals.
• Multimedia.
• Dropping the concept of issues.
• Publication sites.
• Peer review after publication.
• Disussion.
• Additional services.
• Portals.
• Virtual communities.

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The future trend 2

• The increasing importance of Archives
• Personal archives.
• Institutional archives.
• Aggregated by discipline.
• Peer review organised by research communities.
• Additional services.
• Made accessible by portals.
• Virtual communities.
• New quality measures, relating not to the brand
  but to the quality of the work itself.
• Resulting in a global mapping of science.

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Supporting services

• Providing tools, instruments, infrastructure, and
  support to enable scientists, editorial boards,
  institutions to become publishers themselves.
• Facilitating new publishing models.
• Facilitating a gradual transition from rather
  traditional to innovative models.
• General as well as modular.
• Examples
• Roquade
• GAP (German Academic Publishers)

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FIGARO ?

• Federated
• Infrastructure
• GAP and
• Roquade

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FIGARO

• Result
• Infrastructure for electronic publishing.
• Organisation for the management and use of this
  infrastructure.
• Not a publisher, in the traditional sense of the
  word, but assistance to scientists, research
  groups, institutes to become publishers
  themselves.
• Also co-publishing.

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FIGARO participants

• University of Utrecht (co-ordinator).
• Core consortium members Universities of Delft,
  Hamburg, Oldenburg, Firenze Daidalos.
• Content providers
• Academic Leuven, Lund, Delft, Firenze.
• SMEs DiG (Poland), Lemma (Netherlands).
• Dissemination SPARC.
• 1,4 million euro provided by EC.

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Publishing services
technical and organisational infrastructure
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Main features of FIGARO

• Variety of options from classical to vanguard.
• Get-at-able infrastructure enabling academics and
  academic organisations to become publishers.
• Decentralised structure.
• Non-profit fair prices for publication and
  subscription.

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Work packages

• Building the infrastructure.
• User involvement.
• Building the network organisation.
• Project management and dissemination.

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Business model features

• Back office infrastructure.
• Front offices (intermediate) to users.
• Content providers keep their own brand.
• Maximum flexibility adaptiveness to user
  demands.
• Network organisation.

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The future an essential dilemma

• It is rather easy to construct a completely new
  economical model for academic publishing, in
  accordance with the interests of the academic
  community.
• Its is rather difficult to imagine how the
  present economical model may evolve into this new
  model.

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• When everything is under control, you are going
  too slowly.
• Mario Andretti.

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For more information

• www.roquade.nl
• www.signal-hill.org