Science Journal Publishers Wary of Free Information

Billosaur writes "Nature.com is reporting that the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which includes the companies that publish scientific journals, is becoming concerned with the free-information movement. A meeting was arranged with PR professional Eric Dezenhall to discuss the problem. Dezenhall's firm has worked with the likes of ExxonMobil 'to criticize the environmental group Greenpeace', among other campaigns. The publishers are worried that the free exchange of scientific information may be bad for the bottom line, as it might cause the money from subscriptions to their journals to dry up. Among the recommendations: 'The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as "Public access equals government censorship". He hinted that the publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review, and "paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles.' The AAP is trying to counter messages from groups such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS), an open-access publisher and prominent advocate of free access to information, or the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) PubMed Central."

Comments

Can anyone point out

[s20451]

an example of a prestigious journal published by a for-profit company? My impression is that for-profit journals only exist for the purpose of giving second-tier researchers a place to publish garbage. (All the prestigious journals in my field are published by the non-profit IEEE.)

Re:Can anyone point out

[NorbrookC]

an example of a prestigious journal published by a for-profit company?

Well, you might start here for a start on one publisher. Quite a number of them are the "prestige" journals in their field, and are in those cases at least, stringently peer-reviewed.

What you not know is that these articles are subject to a publication fee. So, it's actually a multi-profit system for them. They get money from the researchers, and they get money from subscriptions.

What this is, is simply a new variation on the theme we've been through with RIAA, MPAA, and others. "OMG!!! Our profits are in danger from this Internet thing! We must DO something!" From a researcher's standpoint, it actually is a better thing if they don't have to deal with the for-profit publishers. They get their work out to the community, and they don't have to pay "reprint charges," etc. It works for other researchers and libraries, since they're not shelling out several hundred dollars each for subscriptions, and the works are easily searchable. So, of course the publishers are panicking! Their gravy train is threatened! It's FUD time!

Shocking!

[eviloverlordx]

The publishers are worried that the free exchange of scientific information may be bad for the bottom line, as it might cause the money from subscriptions to their journals to dry up.

There is already 'free exchange' of scientific information. The publishers already contribute to it. What they're really worried about is that people will publish in other media, especially where they don't have to pay (or not as much). They're just looking out for themselves. Publishers have to pay the bills and put their kids through college, too.

So work with it rather than fight it...

[PFI_Optix]

Subscription-funded scientific journals will simply have to find alternatives to exclusivity of information.

A funded journal would still be the best way to get the relevant information all in one place; the problem with free information is that it can be difficult to sort through for specific information. Take all the information that is freely available, pick out the best of it, do some research of your own, and publish a work that goes above and beyond the free information.

That's what thousands of news organizations and non-science journals do every day.

Re:I'm lost.

[zCyl]

"Public access equals government censorship"

I've been parsing that for a few minutes and it doesn't make sense. How would open access equate to some sort of closed access?

They're trying to insinuate that public access means a thing must be funded by the government, and thus subject to state control. This is a silly false dichotomy of course, but such is the nature of propaganda.

In their faces

[drooling-dog]

I predict that this PR campaign will blow up in their faces, big-time. Their target audience this time isn't the unwashed masses camped in front of the tee-vee; it's people who know how to think (and even do so from time to time). Hilarity will ensue as the big smack-down gains momentum.

Shooting themselves in the foot..

[Vellmont]

Maybe this kind of propoganda campaign might work for the masses (see death tax, global climate change, and Fox News), but I kind of doubt it'll work on the scientific community who by their very nature tend to question. The other nail against them is that from what I've heard, many scientists don't like the high fees they have to pay for publishing in journals, so there's not exactly a friendly trusting relationship between the two.

Instead of trying to trick people into thinking that free access to information is somehow "bad", maybe they should be emphasizing the things they do provide? I'm not expert on the scientific journals, but I thought one of the things they provided was seperating out the complete junk from legit research. A filter of sorts. Do they currently offer help in editing scientific papers? If not, maybe they should? The question the industry should be asking itself is "What do we provide beyond actually printing and sending out paper?" Previously they've been able to take advantage of controlling distribution, since printing and distribution of information was relatively difficult. Now it's obviously trivial and extremely inexpensive.

It seems to me that free access to scientific information is a reality. Both the people who create the information (the scientists) and the people who read it (mostly scientists) want it to be freely available. Trying to fight it rather than adapt to it is a path towards bankruptcy.

Re:Peer review means little.

[TheRaven64]

I think the real problem is that peer review happens before publication, not after. In an ideal world, you would publish everything. Feynman said that if you only publish your successes then you are cheating the research community, and I agree. I have learned a great deal by looking at failed research and seeing that they came close to the right answer, but couldn't see it because they were too close to the problem.

You can't really judge research when it is done; this is why people tend to receive Nobel Prizes for research they did decades earlier. Your peers are also your competitors, and it's not in their interests to promote good research that produces different conclusions to their own. No paper, no matter how wrong it appears to its reviewers, should ever be denied publication now that publication online costs nothing. Instead, the journals should add value by highlighting the papers that represent the current views of the research community, and also those that were important in forming these views.

Paying your dues

[benhocking]

It's an amazing thing really -- putting all your work out there for review (essentially before AND after publication), for the simple satisfaction that you have made a contribution to the knowledgebase.

OK, let's be honest here. The reason we do it is not merely for that "simple satisfaction" (although there is some of that). If you're possibly going to be looking for a job in the near future, you need to be published - often and recently. If you're trying to get tenure, you need to be published. If you've got tenure, then, well, you don't need to be published, but it certainly helps your bargaining position if you're looking for pay increases, etc.

Still, it's a racket.