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(doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0012.102) The internet has made possible the cost-effective dissemination of scientific journals in the form of electronic versions, usually in parallel with the printed versions. At the same time the electronic medium also makes possible totally new open access distribution models. Although more than 2000 new open access journals have been founded in the last 15 years, the uptake of open access has been rather slow, with currently around 5% of all peer-reviewed articles published in open access journals. Established journals and publishers have not had strong enough incentives to change their business models, and the commercial risks in doing so have been high. Two scenarios for how scholarly publishers could change their operating model to open access are presented and discussed: the first is based on an instantaneous change and the second on a gradual change. Fairlie D. Debating open access and arXiv. Physics World 2009;22(1):20. Letter suggesting that the enormous numbers of papers posted on arXiv indicates that too many papers are being published and that there is at present little motive for authors to publish their material in peer reviewed journals; arXiv should be regarded as more like a daily newspaper, not a place for final publication. Fry J, Schroeder R, den Besten M. Open science in e-science: contingency or policy? Journal of Documentation 2009;65(1):6–32. (doi:10.1108/00220410910926103) Discusses the question of “openness” in e-Science. The study is based on 12 interviews with principal investigators, project managers, and developers involved in UK e-Science projects, together with supporting documentary evidence from project web sites. Although there is a widely shared ethos of openness in everyday research practice, there are many uncertainties and yet-to-be resolved issues, despite strong policy imperatives towards openly shared resources. Jefferson T, De Fiore L. BMJ pico: a window into the future? BMJ 2009;338:b392. (doi:10.1136/bmj.b392) Pico is a test publication format (sort of extended abstract) proposed by BMJ and reducing the length of printed research papers while retaining the full electronic version. This allows them to accept and publish more articles. One of the foreseeable effects of pico and the publishing of more research would be to decrease the BMJ’s impact factor by increasing the denominator. This may or may not be compensated by an increase in readership, circulation, and citation (the impact factor numerator). Nielsen MA. The future of science: building a better collective memory. APS News 2008;17(10):8. Discusses the relative failure of science to improve the long-term memory and short-term use of the internet to enhance science communication beyond that of using conventional journals. Most attempts to create comment sites where scientists can share their opinions of scientific papers have failed, while the open scientific culture is struggling to succeed; top-down efforts such as open access may be boosted by the National Institutes of Health insisting that every paper they have supported with grants must eventually be made open access, while bottom-up attempts such as the physics preprint arXiv and the particle physics SIPRES-HIV are producing a small but genuine cultural change. The problem of collaboration with initially unknown collaborators is discussed; what is needed is a collaboration market that would ensure ethical behaviour by participants. Prentice J. Debating open access and arXiv. Physics World 2009;22(1):20. Letter pointing out that transferring the cost of publishing to the author may make whether to publish a management decision rather than a scientific one. Ramlagan N. APS copyright revision expands author rights. APS News 2009;18(2):8. A recently revised copyright transfer form for APS journal articles allows authors to make and hold copyright for “derivative works” that contain at least 10% new material and not more than 50% of the published article. Otherwise the author must obtain explicit permission from APS. Articles’ ideas and material can be reused in conference proceedings and classroom lectures, but the posting of full articles on open content encyclopedia projects like Wikipedia or Quantiki presents a copyright issue. APS gives authors the right to post and update a paper on their (or their employer’s) website and on free e-print servers such as arXiv. Authors are entitled to provide full copies of their paper, for research purposes, to a colleague or third party as long as a fee is not charged. Third parties can use copies for teaching, but incorporation into course notes for more than one semester requires permission from APS. Taylor RI. Licence to publish better than copyright transfer. APS News 2008;17(10):4. Letter advocating the policy of the author’s employers, a commercial organization that never transfers copyright but only deals with journals prepared to accept a Licence to Publish agreement, which allows the publisher to print the article in their own format and to distribute electronically, while retaining the copyright on the content allowing future use of the text, pictures, etc. Wiley S. No to negative data: why I believe findings that disprove a hypothesis are largely not worth publishing. Scientist 2008;22(4):39. Some scientists have become so concerned about negative data that they have created journals dedicated to publishing negative results. Negative results don’t seem to advance science, therefore they are not worth publishing. Science is a set of ideas that can be supported by observations. A negative result does not support any specific idea, but only tells you what isn’t right. Negative results can be biased and misleading in their own way, and they are often the result of experimental errors, rather than true findings. © Copyright 2009 by European Association of Science Editors Top of Page |
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