-- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 -----Original Message----- From: E. L. Collins [mailto:el.collins_at_verizon.net] Sent: Thu 7/17/2003 6:31 PM To: E. L. Collins Subject: The Implications of IT for Scientific Journal Publishing: A Literature Review The National Science Foundation Division of Science Resources Statistics has posted "The Implications of Information Technology for Scientific Journal Publishing: A Literature Review" (NSF 03-323) by Amy Friedlander and R=C3=A4ndi S. Bessette at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf03323/htmstart.htm Paper copies may be requested at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/ (scroll down to "Need paper copies?"). Eileen L. Collins, Ph.D.; Fellow, Center for Women and Work, Rutgers University; and Director and Analyst, Science and Technology Studies; 1301 20th St., NW, Suite 502; Washington, DC 20036-6002; 202-887-0964; el.collins_at_verizon.net e-mail: christo_at_yorku.ca phone: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164 fax: 416-736-5814 http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MODERATOR'S NOTE: This NSF report is already quite dated. No references since 2001, and no apparent cognizance of the OAI, BOAI, or PLoS. I have not read it in detail, but closely enough to espy that it misinterprets my own writing (latest reference cited is 1999 -- none of the 22 papers since; mentions only the author page-charge "model" and not the self-archiving initiative, conflating it, as usual, with self-publication). On peer review they write: "[Harnad] argues that, while peer review is necessary for quality control and certification, robust digital communications technologies and archiving (along the model established by the Los Alamos preprint server) eliminate the need for publishers." Careful readers of this Forum will by now know that that is not and never was my "model." The sequence is: (1) Continue publishing, as always, in peer reviewed journals. (2) Supplement the journals' toll-access version of your articles, for users at those whose institutions can afford to pay the tolls, with your own open-access version, self-archived in your own institutional (OAI-compliant) eprint archive, for those users whose institutions cannot affors to pay the tolls. (3) *If and when* journal publishers' toll-access revenues and hence institutions toll-access expenditures should ever shrink to the point where they no longer cover the essential peer-review service costs, publishers can downsize to become peer-review service-providers only, offloading archiving and distribution onto the institutional eprint archives, with the peer-review service paid out of the annual institutional windfall toll-savings. http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html#B1 What this means is that peer-reviewed research journal publication in the online era reduces to peer-review service provision and certification. What is eventually eliminated (or rather offloaded) in the online, open-access era, is the publishers' inessential products and services (paper, online archiving and distribution), but not the publishers! Peer-reviewed research publication becomes (one cannot repeat often enough) peer-review provision and certification. Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.orgReceived on Fri Jul 18 2003 - 16:43:28 BST
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