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

I'm lost.

[grub]

"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?

Re:I'm lost.

[TheRaven64]

If you're publishing in a journal which doesn't pay you to publish in it, then you're getting your money from elsewhere, which often means government grants. Are there any peer-reviewed journals that pay authors? I have had things in peer-reviewd journals, and things published in non-academic publications. Anything published in the second category, I have been paid for. Anything published in a peer-reviewed academic journal or conference, however, I have only been paid in reputation for, and in some cases authors are charged for having their work published (sometimes indirectly; conferences will only publish your work in their proceedings if you turn up to present it, and pay the conference fees).

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.

Pay attention!

[Shabazz Rabbinowitz]

I don't know anything about that, but I do understand that we've always been at war with Eurasia.

Open Access helps and wont kill journals

[gsn]

Complete rubbish. Physics has had preprint servers like arxiv for 15 years now, and the American Physical Society (APS) found NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that subscriptions were drying up because of arxiv. APS publishes a large number of journals at that. I can find things much easier through arxiv but if I'm going to cite something then its going to be peer reviewed. APS actually felt that preprint servers helped so setup one with Brookhaven, and link to a number of their own webpage. Their attrition rate has remained very constant over the same time period and probably has more to do with shrinking funds. The preprint servers help us. Our group put out a couple of papers recently and we got some constructive feedback from people reading the preprints of astro-ph - and some of the points mentioned the referee didn't catch. Its a stronger paper as a result. The preprint servers are also frequently much easier to search for current literature than the journals sites. They have their problems - theres a good number of completely crazy papers on them and its sort of annoying to sift through them - look for submitted to/accepted for publication in the comment field. In short they are great for easy information access and the journals are great for enforcing quality control. The public access to information is an added bonus. Yes, open access to scientific journals AND data should be mandatory. The journals won't die because they do still provide a valuable service in peer-review.

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.

Re:Oh yes,

[posterlogo]

Absolutely not.

There is no monetary payment whatsover. The costs associated with publishing are typically paid for by advertising, and some journals with lower circulations may charge page costs as well. The authors never get payed royalties or anything for journal articles. 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. If your conclusions are erroneous, the community will figure it out eventually, and if your contributions are right on, you will be remembered as someone who had a positive impact on the field (you may even get rewarded). Scientists in academia are generally not the richest people in the world.

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.