Otto Kinne, Editor, Marine Ecology Progress Series, August 4, 1999
EDITORIAL
Electronic publishing in science: changes and risks
Otto Kinne
Ecology Institute, Germany
The Internet has revolutionized data transfer and use. It makes a host of
world-wide information quickly available in offices or homes-at finger tip
control. The concept of the graphical component of the Internet, the World
Wide Web, was first envisioned and then developed in the early 90s by Tim
Berners-Lee. His ideas advanced to practicable reality when the US
Government began to finance the Internet. Since 1994 the Net has been
guided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)1. Directed by Berners-Lee,
the W3C works out recommendations, not rules. Nevertheless, the Consortium
commands great authority, and large firms such as Microsoft and Netscape
accept its recommendations as guidelines for developing their products. The
growing powers of Berners-Lee have recently incited opposition. The credo
is: 'no kings!' While some firms have ended their cooperation with the W3C,
most Internet supporters want the Consortium to continue organizing Net
structure and data flow-but to abstain from attempts at regulating or
governing the Internet. In essence, then, the Internet is a giant with a
powerful body but without a head.
The Internet is growing explosively and is affecting many aspects of the
human world. At present we can neither fully assess the extent of the
resulting changes nor their consequences. With respect to science, three
things are certain, however: (1) There will be no principal changes in the
ways knowledge is created, quality-controlled and utilized by researchers.
(2) There will be significant changes in the ways scientists communicate
with each other, in which research results are presented, and in which
knowlege is analyzed, disseminated, and digested. (3) There will be risks
that endanger science as we know it today.
The principles governing the processes of creating, testing and utilizing
scientific knowledge have ancient roots and a long history. Principles and
history mirror the capacities and ways of our brains to investigate and
understand the world in and around us. While need for improvement persists,
the essentials have stood the test of time and allow only limited scope for
change. In contrast, the scope is large for inventing and applying new
technologies that improve the presentation and analysis of knowledge and
that provide better access to it. It is here that electronic technologies
can significantly change the scientific scene.
In a keynote lecture delivered at the Fifth International Conference of
Scientific Editors I described and analyzed the scholarly scientific
process (Kinne 1988). It comprises production, quality control,
dissemination and consumption of knowledge, and it is represented by
authors, editors, referees, publishers and users. New knowledge is obtained
by applying universally accepted formalized procedures. It is evaluated,
quality-improved, published, compared to and tested against existing
information, and used for further search for truth and/or practical
application. My lecture focussed on the performances of the 5 components,
their potentially diverging interests, and on possibilities of controlling
and reducing interest conflicts. In this editorial I consider the impact on
science of new ways of publishing, primarily with a view on ecology and
biology.
Reliable, quality-controlled scholarly scientific information, presented in
papers published in academic journals, is the substrate and prerequisite
for orderly communication among scientists, for advancement in science, and
for planning and organizing the future of humanity. Hardly any scientist is
likely to contradict this statement. If most of us agree, where is the
problem? It has to do with the rapidly growing mass of new knowledge, the
insufficient speed and the increasing cost of publishing it, as well as
with its accessibility, retrievability and storage in libraries,
laboratories or on the desks of scientists. Strangely, the increasing cost
of producing the scientific knowledge (more scientists, more universities,
additional research facilities, new equipment, etc.) provoke less criticism
than the increasing cost of publishing the endproduct of it all: the
manuscript.
Critiques have made out the black sheep: science publishers. They are
accused of hanging on too firmly to traditional print-on-paper techniques,
of being too slow and ineffective in making knowledge available, and of
charging overrated prices. New methods of publication are practised and new
means of digesting the gigantic information soup. Not only the black sheep
have been identified, also the medicine for curing the traditional
publication system: electronic publishing.
CHANGES
Electronic publishing brings us a host of changes. It increases the speed
of communicating, disseminating and digesting knowledge. It provides new
means of searching for, finding and analyzing specific information. It
reduces the need for additional shelf capacities in libraries. Yes,
electronic publishing can not only trim the publication process, it can
also make it cheaper. All this is good for science and may increase the
competition between publishers-a desirable feature for correcting overrated
publication costs. 'A shake-out of the entire scholarly publishing industry
seems inevitable' (Butler 1999, p. 195).
Let us consider some of these points, especially speed and cost, in more
detail.
(1) Speed
How much can electronic publishing increase the speed of publication? The
time span between manuscript (ms) receipt and acceptance is determined by
the length of the review process. In Marine Ecology Progress Series
(MEPS) we send received mss to 4 or more (up to 6) reviewers. The reviewed
ms is returned to the authors, together with copies of the reviewers'
reports (without revealing their names). Unless the ms is rejected at this
stage, we invite the authors to consider, accomodate or convincingly refute
the reviewer's comments and criticisms. Usually it takes the authors weeks
or months to revise their work. The revision is again examined by reviewers
(not necessarily the same ones). Depending on their recommendations, about
60% of the revisions are sent again to the authors for additional quality
improvements. Sometimes this process must be repeated. As much as possible
we communicate with the authors by e-mail or fax. When the editor finally
accepts a ms, it is copy-edited (our copy editors are professionals; the
high quality of their work is widely acknowledged), typeset (also done by
carefully trained in-house personnel) and the result returned to the
authors for examination. There is no way of reducing the time span between
ms receipt and acceptance without losses in quality.
Quality, however, is the heart of the scientific process and of the success
of MEPS-the reason that this journal ranks world-wide as the Number 1 in
its field, and that most marine ecologists consider it their first choice
as publication outlet. Even if a ms is rejected at a later stage of the
review process, the authors benefit from the comments and criticisms of
MEPS reviewers; they can improve their work accordingly and thus increase
the chances of acceptance by another journal.
It usually takes the authors weeks to return their proofs. These are
print-readied within a few days. Printing and binding take on average only
1 or 2 weeks: this is the time span that could be saved if MEPS went
electronic-plus mailing time. MEPS plans to eventually have an electronic
double. This would not pose technical problems but we prefer to examine the
situation carefully before making a decision. In questionaires sent out in
1998 to about 100 top performers in marine ecology, of 79 returners only 2
considered such a step urgent. Please consider the present situation: the
titles of selected papers appear in MEPS' Internet pages (under
'forthcoming papers') as soon as the ms is accepted; abstracts (with
searchable texts) are published on the Net the day the paper versions
appear. Anyone interested can request a copy of the full paper at a
relatively low cost by mail, fax, or e-mail-in the latter two cases often a
matter of hours.
To speed up review procedures, some colleagues have called for direct
contacts between authors and reviewers; they favor an 'open review
process'. Obviously, they are aware neither of the resulting conflict
potential nor of the difficulties in finding good, reliable reviewers-the
cream of quality control-willing to put their own work aside in order to
help others, sometimes even competitors. Reviewers deserve a big pat on the
shoulder. Whether or not to reveal their names to authors must be left to
their discretion. Personally, I cannot see benefits for science in opening
up the review process, except in rather special cases in which direct
contacts between author and reviewer are considered necessary by both.
Most scientists seem to be concerned about the growing mass and
questionable quality of information rather than about the speed at which
new information reaches them. Do we overestimate the significance of speed?
The limits of information consumption are set by human, not technological,
capacities. Some enthusiasts sit all day and part of the night in front of
their computer, but scientists who want to survive professionally must
spend most of their time doing research!
I have asked many colleagues where they do their literature reading. Most
of them answered 'in bed'. But who wants to go to bed with a computer?
Books and journals were pronounced dying decades ago. They are still very
much alive and I am confident they will stay that way. There is a place and
a need for both: print-on-paper and electronic publishing.
(2) Cost
Electronic publishing eliminates the costs of printing, binding and
posting. But it will never be free-as advertised by some e-publication
pioneers.
Who knows what access to and use of the Internet will cost 5 or 10 years
from now, especially if privatization proceeds? Who can expect that the
work of editors and referees will continue to be had for 'free'? In fact,
it has never been free. It has been paid for by sources outside the
publishing process: mostly by their employers. Will this continue? Several
universities and research institutions are not very happy about this
practise, even though they recognize that appointment of their staff to
editor or reviewer of a renowned journal documents professional distinction
and that part of such distinction extends to the home institution.
As I see it, editors and reviewers will increasingly demand some sort of
compensation from the publisher, the more so, should they be asked to
perform outside their normal working hours. At MEPS we go some way towards
compensation: We publish the names of our staff reviewers, who process per
person and month on average 1 or 2 mss, and make free copies available to
them. At 15 volumes per year this amounts to an annual sales value plus
postage of some DM5000 (US$2728) per person, i.e. about DM500000 ($ 272776)
for the ca 100 editorial staff. In order to estimate the total annual costs
for personnel, the salaries of our technical staff must be added: about DM
1 million (ca $ 545554). These expenses are only part of the total fixed
costs. Except for printing, binding and posting the fixed costs remain the
same whether MEPS appears print-on-paper or electronic.
Quality has its price! Nevertheless, in the Journal Price Study (1998)
which surveyes a total of 314 journals, the costs for MEPS range in the mid
field of core biological titles.
Professional copy-editors whose mother tongue is English and who are
sufficiently familiar with the authors' scientific field are indispensable
if a journal is to achieve a high international standing. In addition to
their usual work they assist authors from non-English speaking countries in
spelling, grammar and linguistic formulation. Without such assistance
numerous authors would be excluded from leading publication outlets. Our
MEPS copy-editors spend much of their time in helping these colleagues.
I have heard of on-line operators who plan to cover their costs by cashing
in on authors: $50 to 100 for peer review, some additional $300 to 500 upon
ms acceptance and publication. This is a shift of costs, above all an
undemocratic one. It would make science publication a matter for the rich,
excluding thousands of scientists who cannot raise such funds.
As yet insufficiently tapped possibilities for reducing publication cost
lie in cutting down on wordiness and jargon, by insisting on concise
writing. Large parts of a typical ms repeat known information or dwell on
not immediately relevant facts. University staff, research group leaders,
editors, referees and copy-editors are called upon to improve the
situation. Reductions in publication cost may also be expected due to
technological advances in printing and binding.
To my knowledge, for a typical library, journal subscription costs amount
to only about one third of the total expenses, the major part of the budget
being eaten up by overhead, staff, equipment, storage facilities and
building activities. Where libraries must no longer grow in size, savings
in total expenses become possible. Many scientists agree that electronic
publishing will change the operation patterns of libraries. There even are
experts who question the need for the continued existence of libraries
altogether: 'if you can call up any paper on your screen, and after
deciding that it looks interesting, print it out on the laser printer on
your desktop, will you need a library?' (Odlyzko 1994, unpag.). I do not
believe that libraries will disappear. They will lose some of their
importance as places to go for new information, but in the innumerable
pages they own, libraries command a wealth of ordered published
information. They may also develop new activities. 'Librarians, along with
publishers, have traditionally been entrusted with the responsibility to
make order out of scholarly chaos.' (Stix 1994, p. 76). Equally,
traditional publishers will not disappear, as several promoters of
e-publishing predict. They will make their print-on-paper journals
available also on the Internet. Many of them have done this already, others
are planning to do it. In such cases there may be no loss in scientific
quality. Users may consult the publisher's Internet pages around the clock
and digest screened, solid information in the lab or at home.
Commercial journals can not enjoy cost subsidiation by member fees as can
society journals. Hence the latter are cheaper, certainly to members. Where
such societies have many members, this will also affect impact factors.
Society members usually have their journal within reach, hence they are
likely to quote from it more frequently than from less accessible journals.
Nevertheless, a look at lists of published impact factors reveals that
commercial journals tend to have higher ratings.
Very costly commercial journals face not only increasing criticism but also
counteractive measures. Thus, the US Association of Research Libraries has
decided to support new journals that compete with expensive titles.
Reportedly, with its more than 100 member libraries the Association has
pledged to buy each of them. What if the new journals receive insufficient
numbers of good manuscripts or low impact ratings, or both? And what about
free market rules? Can you really create good, competitive low-cost
journals simply by assuring the operators that, provided they challenge
high-priced journals, you will buy their products? Most libraries live on
tax payers' money. They may be held responsible if they use that money for
purposes other than those it was given for. Is competition for price so
much more important than competion for performance? We must explore better
means for the justified fight against overrated publication costs.
An impressive case of rebellion against overrated publisher prices is 'the
recent decision by Michael Rosenzweig ... to defect, along with the entire
editorial board, from the Wolters Kluwer Journal Evolutionary Ecology
Research. Rosenzweig had become disenchanted with price increases at the
journal which he established 12 years ago.' (Butler 1999, p 197).
RISKS
The scientific process will be damaged where quality submits to quantity,
where speed overrules exactness and performance, where we abandon
time-tested controls. Computers are not only great in producing progress,
they are also great in producing trash.
The scientific process abounds with risks of becoming blurred and
distorted: neglect of copyright, intellectual property, scientific
correctness and honesty; falsification of priority claims; concealed
plagiarism or downright stealing of foreign findings and ideas;
inappropriate application of scientific techniques and statistical methods;
misquotations and misinterpretations of the works of peers; mispellings and
misuse of scientific names and of taxonomic rules. In an overall scenario
of increasing competition for jobs and professional standing, the pressure
to publish and to perform grows, and with it grow numerous temptations.
These offer themselves, more conveniently than anywhere else, in
insufficiently controlled electronic publishing.
E-publishing injects fresh blood into publication processes, but where it
lacks appropriate controls it is also conducive to new diseases-potentially
more dangerous to science than the old ones-unless we observe and treat the
patient with great care! The roles of editors and reviewers in protecting
and guiding the scientific process were never more important than they are
now, in the beginning age of electronic publishing.
'Internet evangelists who view the network as the ultimate equalizer for
dismantling hierarchy' (Stix 1994, p 75) are bound to fail. As witnessed by
human history, equalization attempts have always failed. Why? Because
competitive diversity is the very life blood of nature (and human culture).
Science has relied on hierarchies and it must continue to do that. Top
figures in the hierarchy must help to rescue authors from getting buried in
an avalanche of unscreened information-not least on the Internet.
Hierarchies in science are continously built and rebuilt, both at the
individual level, and at the level of journals (impact factor ratings). In
other fields of human activity too, hierarchies are established and
challenged daily, for example in politics, entertainment and sports. How
about 'equalizing' players in a football game? Internet evangelists do not
promote electronic publishing in science, they undermine and discredit it.
The Internet offers excellent new opportunities for speedy informal
exchanges of information among scientists, for discussing theories and
hypotheses, for presenting brand new ideas to peers, for igniting
creativity and innovation, for collaboration and cooperation, etc. These
wonderful opportunities fertilize, but do not replace, quality-controlled
formal publishing. We should never allow anyone to blur the line between
informal and formal parts of the scientific process.
Examples of speedy low-cost publications are the e-(pre)prints of Paul
Ginsparg, a high-energy theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, New Mexico, USA. His system is tailor-made for high-energy
physics. It quickly became a main highway for communicating research data
in theoretical physics. Ginsparg now serves thousands of users from 60 or
more countries and processes many thousands of messages per day. His
approach marks a major breakthrough in information sharing. Unfortunately,
it fails to address copyright, 'one of the most nettlesome problems in
electronic publication' and gives 'a misleadingly rosy impression' of
electronic publishing benefits (Leslie 1995 unpag). If Ginsparg's system
included quality control, speed would significantly decrease and costs
rise. The real expenses of his system will become apparent only if all
costs are laid open, including those presently paid by the Los Alamos
National Laboratory and those covered by Ginsparg's (and his helpers')
salary. In reality, 'the preprint system' ... 'is expensive, with some
institutions paying as much as $20000 a year to copy and mail preprints';
it is also 'undemocratic, since only those scientists 'in the loop' of
mailing lists receive the preprints' (Leslie 1995 unpag.).
Electronic publishing per se does not automatically affect scientific
quality. This depends first of all on scientific performance and control,
not on publication technologies. The risks begin where quality safeguards
are abandoned or diminished, for example, where authors publish their
papers directly and unscreened, where preprints prevail or continuous
updating of published works. Unrefereed and/or unedited publishing is
supported by some authors in an attempt to increase speed, reduce cost and
facilitate dissemination (also in the hope of circumventing referee
criticism and unpleasant editorial decisions?). Here thrives the murky soup
of blurred information. Continuous updating is a normal process in science.
Its places are not formally published articles (these must remain untouched
for correct assessments of the authors' accomplishments, literature
analysis and documentation), but informal publishings, discussions,
meetings, and-above all-reviews, books or handbooks. The latter three are
works of lasting value, documenting what we know or not know, how science
has developed (been 'updated') and where it might go to in the future.
Is electronic publishing safe? I do not know. But I know that even the
remotest possibility of unauthorized modification of electronically
published data will endanger its creditability, and that the first case of
uncontrolled post-publication change will discredit this new medium as an
alternative to formal print-on-paper publishing. If computer specialists
manage to unlawfully enter the 'holy' electronic spheres of the Pentagon
and crack safety barriers of banks, can we be sure that they will not-for
whatever reason-falsify published scientific data? Science, however, can
function properly only if we can definitely exclude such potential abuse,
as well as any other source of post-publishing distortion, if we can know
exactly what a given author has published where and at what date-and if
his/her writings are protectable, archivable and retrievable over long
stretches of time.
CONCLUSIONS
Electronic publishing increases the speed of information transfer and
decreases the costs of publication. It vastly improves traditional means
for disseminating, exchanging and retrieving information. It facilitates
contacts, discussions and cooperation among scientists, and it may lead to
increased competition among publishers. All this is good for the scientific
process.
Some pros of electronic publishing in science have been overestimated, some
risks underestimated. It will take more time for final judgements. In any
case, electronic publishing is unlikely to change the basic patterns of
established science journals in the near future. It is even more unlikely
to completely replace print-on-paper techniques. There is a need and a
place for both.
If we study the risks with great care, manage to develop and install
adequate safeguards, and if we hold on to time-tested quality controls
electronic publishing can significantly benefit science.
LITERATURE CITED
Butler D (1999) The writing is on the web for science journals in print.
Nature(e-version) 397:195-200
Journal Price Study. Core agricultural and biological journals (1998).
Faculty taskforce, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Albert Mann
Library. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Kinne O (1988) The scientific process-its links, functions and problems.
Naturwissenschaften 75:275-279
Leslie J (1995) Goodbye, Gutenberg. Wired Ventures Ltd. Last modified:
Monday, 30 January 1995, 19:33 PST (unpag.)
Odlyzko AM (1994) Tragic loss or riddance? The impending demise of
traditional scholarly journals. SURFACES Vol. IV 105 Folio 1 (unpag.)
Stix G (1994) The speed of write. Scientific American, December:72-77
August 3, 1999
Barbara Kirsop, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, August 3, 1999
Dear Harold Varmus,
Access to research information in developing countries
We have been following the discussions following the publication of the
proposal for E-biomed (May 5th) and the Addendum (June 20th) with
considerable interest. We wish to add our support to the proposal
(perhaps incorporating some of the suggested
modifications/clarifications made by Harnad and others) and believe that
the present inequitable system for distributing scientific information
will inevitably be changed for the better as a result of the electronic
tools now available to us. One of the major groups to benefit most will
be the scientific communities of the world's poorer countries who are
currently disenfranchised from access to much of the published
scientific research for reasons of cost. Free access to biomedical
information will transform scientific progress in the developing world
and lead to major benefits to society, particularly in the areas of
health and the environment.
The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT) is a UK-registered
charitable trust working to support the electronic publication of
scientific journals published in developing countries (see Nature, 1999,
January 21st, p201 Letter from EPT). The aim is to raise the visibility
of research published in such journals, so facilitating publication by
scientists in these regions and contributing to the closure of the S to
N knowledge gap. The E-biomed proposal will compliment these aims as
well as overcoming the N to S gap.
The only concern we have with the planned system for E-biomed is that it
should be 'internationalized' as much as possible to avert criticisms of
perceived centralization by the US Government. Support from some of the
major international scientific database organisations (such as
EMBL/GENBANK/SWISSPROT/DBGET) is greatly to be welcomed. It would be a
fine thing if peer-reviewed scientific publications are seen in the
future to be a basic public domain information resource, rather than
something that can only be managed successfully by the commercial
sector.
Having begun electronic publishing in 1993 through the Bioline
Publications system, when such work was derided by many, we strongly
advocate the policy of 'just doing it'. Even should E-biomed fail (which
in our opinion is extremely unlikely), we would all benefit from the
experience gained and nothing will be lost: the project can evolve with
experience in its use. With time, scientific societies and publishers
will better understand how it will benefit the biosciences overall and
will gain confidence in its ability to deliver the reviewed research
required by all. We wish to say that we strongly support all efforts to
distribute scientific research information via electronic means and wish
the E-biomed proposal every success.
People have criticised the transfer of electronic publishing technology
to developing countries on the basis that these regions have ITC
infrastructure that is too underdeveloped. Although there is some truth
in this, this problem is now being given priority by donors and the
situation is changing fast. Moreover, there are always a few
organisations with Internet access within a country that can act as
information distributors.
Please add the developing country needs into the equation.
Barbara Kirsop
Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/bioline/
Bioline Publications
http://bioline.bdt.org.br/