Post on 25-Dec-2015
bmj.com: new initiatives
Tony Delamothe
web editor
bmj.com
http://bmj.com/misc/talks
tdelamothe@bmj.com
Where I stand
1995
2000
?
?Traditional paper journal Traditional electronic
journal
The paradigm breaks down
Early lessons
• The gap between idea and robust implementation on the web is as long or longer than elsewhere
• Listen to your customers
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
Walden, Thoreau
New solutions for old frustrations
• Letters to the editor
• Papers
• The distance between us
• Peer review
The mystery of decision making at the centre
tdelamothe@bmj.com
Yes, ifNo
unsolicited solicited
?
Moving from black box to jellyfish
tdelamothe@bmj.com
Yes, ifNo
unsolicited solicited
?
• Global voices on the AIDS catastrophe• War 2002• Evaluating the quality of health information on the internet• The limits of medicine and the medicalisation of human
experience• Road traffic crashes• Neurodegenerative diseases• Doctors' well being• What is a good doctor and how can we make one• Managing chronic diseases • Doctor-patient communication and relationships• What doesn't work and how to show it
Theme issues chosen by readers
tdelamothe@bmj.com
Transferring power
This is meant to be a cautionary tale. I choose to read it the
other way.
“Perhaps the chief lesson of the whole story [is] the capacity of the internet to transfer absolute power to the consumer….
“For years now, companies have been complaining quietly of their loss of influence over their customers. It may be, of course, that as the internet matures, they will be able to reassert themselves. If not, the tech frenzy could turn out not so much to have exaggerated the internet's promise as to have missed the danger it poses.” FT’s review of Dot.com: the greatest story ever sold
New solutions for old frustrations
• Letters to the editor
• Papers
• The distance between us
• Peer review
Peer review and our dance of the seven veils
• Revelation of reviewer’s identity to a co-reviewer
• Revelation of reviewer’s identity to the author (led to signed reviewer’s opinion from 1999)
• Revelation of reviewer’s signed opinion to the entire world
Peer review: who needs it?
The eprint server
free, full text, fast
vs
slow, expensive, and peer reviewed
Exploiting new possibilities
• Organization/discovery of material
• Alerts (including email a friend)
• Tracking behavior
• New material/new platforms
Table of Contents and Customised @lerts
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
05/07
/98
07/02
/98
08/20
/98
10/15
/98
12/03
/98
01/28
/99
04/01
/99
05/20
/99
07/08
/99
08/26
/99
10/14
/99
12/02
/99
1/27
/100
3/16
/100
5/4/1
00
6/22
/100
8/10
/100
10/12
/100
12/7/
100
2/1/1
01
3/15
/101
5/3/1
01
6/21
/101
8/9/1
01
9/27
/101
11/15
/101
Date alerts run
Nu
mb
er
of
@le
rts
se
nt
ou
t
TOC
Customised
Editor's Choice
Press Release
Email a friend
Tracking behavior
• Email a friend
• Hit parade
• Annual online questionnaire (see About us on bmj.com)
Exploiting new possibilities
• Organization/discovery of material
• Alerts (including email a friend)
• Tracking behavior
• New material/new platforms
With increasing divergence, which is “the” journal?
paper
electronic
Complementarity
Remember, paper currently beats electronic for:• readability• portability• durability• cost
Conclusion: we should exploit the best of both media
“Despite the availability of the electronic journal, I want to keep receiving the paper
journal” (BMA members, 2001)
Stronglyagree
Agree Neitheragreenordisagree
Disagree Stronglydisagree
Papersurvey
59 31 4 5 1
Websurvey
42 35 12 8 3
Free: the upsides
• Readership
• Manuscript submissions
• Impact factor
• Site traffic
• Influence
Readership: nearly doubled in 4 years
paper (120 000) electronic (116 000)
Overlap
16 000
Manuscript submissions
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Non-UK submissions
Free: the upsides
• Readership
• Manuscript submissions
• Impact factor
• Site traffic
• Influence
• NEJM 9411
• BMJ 13040
• Lancet 30 538
• Annals 133 507
• JAMA 830 647
Average traffic ratingSource http://www.alexa.com
Free: the downside(?)
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
BMJ
Institutional subscriptions(% of August 1997)
Looking ahead
1995
2000
?
?
the forms may change but the aims of scientific publication remain the same
What were scientific journals for?
• The permanent record
• The glue to keep a community together
• “Communication”
• To make money?
The purpose of journals: looking ahead
Paper is brief and beautiful and I love it, but it’s a wholly inadequate medium to conduct the conversations that humanity has to have. What were journals created for in the first place? To enable knowledge creation by conversation, except that every exchange took six months. What we need is much more proficient knowledge creation.
- Bela Hartnavy, 1996
Understanding what’s happened to journals using the model of automation
• Electrification
• Enhancement
• Evolution
– Valerie Florance, 1996
New paradigm for problem solving: tapping into the collective intelligence made possible by the internet
“The power of bringing together the right minds around a subject in an on-line dialogue, well facilitated, well deliberated, I think has enormous potential to help us get through issues that we’ve never solved before.
You see this embodied in the open source model for software creation. But that same model could apply to policy issues, social issues, educational issues.”
- Mario Morino (transcript at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/onceandfutureweb/database/secc/case3.html