are academic journals becoming obsolete? ted bergstrom university of california, santa barbara
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Are academic journals Are academic journals becoming obsolete? becoming obsolete?
Ted BergstromUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
Traditional Role of libraryTraditional Role of library
• The obvious way for scholars to share printed journals was to have their university library subscribe to them and store them.
• But are libraries needed for electronic journals?
Electronic Site licensesElectronic Site licenses
• Libraries buy site licenses for electronic access.
• Supply workstations at library.
• Also buy permission for faculty and students to access from office or home.
What is library’s role?What is library’s role?
• Most users of electronic journals do not go to the library.
• It is feasible and easy for users to subscribe directly with publisher.
• Libraries have become revenue collectors for publishers.
• Is this beneficial for academic community?
Are site licenses beneficial?Are site licenses beneficial?
• For nonprofit society journals, site licenses give publisher revenue to recover the cost of production, yet allow access to individuals for free.
• This is an efficient arrangement--better than charging individuals for access, since marginal cost of serving a reader is zero.
But not always.But not always.
• Site licenses allow profit-maximizing publishers to closely estimate willingness to pay and extract extremely high profits from academic sector.
• See Bergstrom and Bergstrom, PNAS, Jan 2004
http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/mypapers.html
Publishers’ traditional rolePublishers’ traditional role
• Publishers have provided:– Referee’s comments, quality control,
classification by interest.– Copy editing and typesetting.– Bundling articles into groups.– Subscription management.– Printing and distribution.
Publishers’ old business modelPublishers’ old business model
• Combine the functions of certification, classification and distribution.
• Collect revenue from users supported by a monopoly on distribution of articles that have been submitted for certification.
• This model was sustainable with paper-only journals. Distribution was difficult and costly. This shaped industry.
New institutions for new New institutions for new technology?technology?
• With electronic access and computerized type setting, distribution is much less costly.
• Author can typeset own article in TeX or Word, and post it on own website or a public archive.
• Separation of classification and certification from distribution is now possible.
Functions of traditional refereesFunctions of traditional referees
• Checking the work for mistakes.
• Read carefully and suggest improvements.
• Determine whether paper is important and useful. (A much more ambiguous process.)
• Certify quality of work to non-specialists who determine author’s promotion and salary.
What motivates referees?What motivates referees?
• Referees are paid little or nothing.
• Obligation to their field.
• Desire to influence direction of work.
• Cultivate good will of editors so that they are more likely to be published.
Certification ModelsCertification Models
• Traditional refereeing without publishing.– Authors submit papers to editorial board.– Editorial board sends papers to referees.– Editorial board lists recommended papers and provides
links to paper on archive site.
• Who pays the costs? – Note that costs can be small.– Author fees
• For submission• For publication
– Voluntary university subscriptions
Non-traditional CertificationNon-traditional Certification
• Non-exclusive publication• Article could be recommended and linked by a
publication with no requirement that it not be published or recommended elsewhere.
• New models of refereeing. Interested readers could comment after publication. Author could respond. This needn’t be refereed, since storage costs are very low.
• Indexes of citation and downloading.
Professional societiesProfessional societies
• Professional societies are likely to remain important.
• Coordinating device for recognizing high quality scholarship.
• Currently publish the top journals in most fields.• Annual meetings and social functions complement
publishing.• Can expect some support from universities to
cover costs.
University PressesUniversity Presses
• University Presses publish some journals to advertise their university. Usually run as non-profit or with small loss.
• A helpful coordinating device and source of funds.
• Also allows for healthy decentralization.
Journals of the future?Journals of the future?
• Low cost society and university press journals with traditional refereeing process.
• Non-traditional “certification” journals without publishing.
• A few high-end journals with high costs, staffs of editors and promotional people.– Science, Nature, PLOS journals, some flagship society
journals.
• Traditional commercial journals?
Things to strive forThings to strive for
• Promote open internet access to scientific papers.
• Encourage evaluation and quality standards without discouraging innovation.
• Avoid intellectual monopolies and cliques.
Suggestions for Chinese Suggestions for Chinese scientific publishingscientific publishing
• Support open access archives for scientific work.
• Insist that government supported research be posted in these archives.
Further suggestionsFurther suggestions
• Encourage independent scientific societies and university presses.– More than one per discipline, to prevent
monopoly and cliques
• Encourage innovative “journal substitutes” with alternative forms of evaluation and certification.
Look for new Look for new solutions to solutions to match new match new technology.technology.
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