La edicion electronica de revistas cientificas: puntos de vista de un editor

Barcelona31 agosto 2002

Frans Lettenström

Director, Strategic Partnerships

Elsevier Science

Overview

1. Simplified history

2. Production/edition

3. Peer Review

4. Distribution

5. Price Models

Scientific Publishing

• Original reports of data/theory

• Assert priority

• The two first scientific journals (1665)– Philosophical Transactions (London)– Journal des Savants (Paris)

Scientific Journals

• Acceleration around 1760

• Since then: doubling every 15 years

Journals about journals

• Index and abstract journals (1714)

• ”Current contents” journals

• Also doubling every 15 years (since 1835)

The Convergence

• internet (1969) = Vint Cerf @ ARPA – Advanced Research Project Agency

• www (1989) = Tim Berners-Lee @ CERN– European Laboratory of Particle Physics

“...anything being connected to anything...”

Production/editionElectronic improvements

• Computers used for production• HTML came from the print world (SGML)

• Submit manuscripts in e-form (many formats)

• Web-based manuscript review

The peer review system

• Publisher• Editor• Referee• Author

The Peer Review Process

• Scientific Journal– Commercial Company (Elsevier Science, etc...)– University Press (Oxford Univ Press, etc...)– Learned Society (The Royal Society, etc...)

Publisher

Arranges– Printing

– Distribution

– Sales

– Advertising

– Subscriptions

– Fees

– Copyright

– Profit

Negotiates (with Editor)–Coverage

–Size

–Costs

–Expenses

–Procedures

Editor• Determines/implements

– Scientific policy– Scope– Coverage– Assessment procedures

• Corresponds with authors, referees, printers, publishers to

– Implement agreed policy– Publish papers in agreed field– Maintain scientific standard– Ensure paper assessment– Print papers appropiatlely (layout etc)

Referees/reviewers

• Accepted practice world-wide

• World-wide peer review

• Usually anonymous

• Assess suitability of paper for publication in Journal of X

Criteria

• Sufficient new/interesting material for space required?

» Correct?

» Clear context?

» Clearly developed?

» Enough information to repeat the work?

» Reasonable claims?

» Is related work acknowledged?

» Is it too brief or too long or repetitive?

» Too much references to other work?

» Too much well-known ideas repeated?

» Standard notation/terminology?

» Appropiate figures, tables, plates?

» Some material in appendix or with editor?

Action of referee• Comment on above for editor (and author?)

• Recommend action to editor» Accept

» Accept after minor revision

» Accept after major revision + further refereeing

» Recommend author to submit to other journal

» Reject

• Give definite suggestions to author for modification

• Give author list of minor points (typing errors etc)

• Give editor definite advice on which points are essential in revision

• Reply within reasonable time!

Action of editor

• Remind referees to send reports

• Apologise to authors for delays

• Send paper to further referees if two few or conflicting reports

• Write to author with interpretation of referee’s comments, decision for author, work required, advise for submission elsewhere...

• Write to referees with thanks, explanation of action if several conflicting recommendations

• Send to author paper for him/her to referee

Actions for authors

• Decide on journal before to start writing

• This affects/is dictated by• Main thrust of paper (subject, how theoretical,...)

• Layout of paper (length, illustrations,...)

• Desired readership (better contribution to science elsewhere in – less prestigious – journal,...)

• Speed and cost of publication

• Response expected from editor/referees

Electronic improvements

• Web-based report form for referees

Often said...

• The system of peer review is like parliamentary democracy, it has imperfections, but it has no viable alternative yet...

Scientific publishing

• Conference proceedings• Preprints (”working papers”)• Research monographs• Peer reviewed (archival) journals • Review journals• Reference Works / Handbooks

Distribution changes (1)

• Scanning printed version (print arrives first)

• Electronic production (e comes first)

• Publish articles “before issue is allocated”• Elsevier’s “Articles in Press”

• Springer’s “Online First”

• Alerting services

Distribution changes (2)

Add-Ons:

• Computer code

• Raw data, very large data sets

• 3D animations, VRML, video, sound

• Personalization: fonts, footnotes, author name order, citation formats, and other display and download options

Distribution changes (3)

• Linking: Crossref (157 publ), DOI• References (both ways: “cited by”)

• Bibliographic databases (both ways)

• Digital Major Reference Works

• Interaction possible: readers can influence, evolving articles, (…content before authorship, result before glory…)

E-print archives

• Los Alamos (now in Cornell U)• in physics, mathematics, astronomy...

• Medicine• PubMedCentral, Netprints

• Psychology (Southampton U)• CogPrints

• Paul Ginsparg (Messiah)• Stevan Harnad (John the Baptist)

E-print quality assessment

• Comments added to papers

• After a certain time moved ”up”• By number of citations or other method

• Or: addendum gives indirect quality• metadata of paper when published in peer reviewed

journal and

• changes introduced (compared to original E-print)

More on innovative e-journals

• www. public. iastate. edu/~CYBERSTACKS/EJI.htm

• www. public. iastate. edu/~CYBERSTACKS/M-Bed.htm

(see for example Internet J of Chemistry)

Gracias

• f . lettenstrom @ elsevier . com