Most authors have only recently grappled with e-books and the potential for online delivery of their text. Academic journals have been delivering digital content from online platforms since 1996. Most such journals are still available as print-on-paper because of continuing demand from some subscribers but the e-version now dominates, especially in STM (science, technology, medicine).
Authors submit their articles over the internet, peer review is organized over the internet, there is even a system that checks for any duplication (and thus possible plagiarism) over the internet called CrossCheck, and editorial decisions are made more quickly by a networked team of editors operating across the world. If the article is accepted the author can track progress through production and check page proofs over the internet, and after publication can monitor the impact of the article as measured by citations, usage data, and blogs.
The first peer-reviewed journal was founded by the Royal Society in 1665. Its core functions were described in correspondence by the Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, as: registration, quality assurance (peer review), dissemination, and archiving in perpetuity. These functions have remained much the same although it could be argued that there is now a fifth: providing citation data which are used as a measure of the quality/impact of the article and thus the status of the publication, and by inference the status of the author and even their institution. The average number of citations received per paper published in that journal during the two preceding years – the Impact Factor – is accepted as an indication of the status of a journal.
NOP/Elsevier conducted a survey earlier this year on which publishing objectives are most important to authors. “To disseminate results and further knowledge” came first, “to further my career prospects” second, and “to secure funding for future research” third, with “to establish precedence and protect intellectual property” last. Well aware of authors’ objectives, publishers have used the internet to speed up the peer review process and make articles accessible at an earlier stage; some will even provide access to the accepted version before copy editing, while many will provide “early view” to the published version before it has been compiled into an issue or published in print. And as Impact Factor attracts authors, editors are striving to drive this up by encouraging much-cited authors to submit their work.
As the worldwide investment in research has risen so has the journal publishing industry. The size of the research community has increased steadily by around 3-4% per annum; the number of articles published each year has likewise grown by 3-4%, over the last three centuries with some minor fluctuations. Currently there are around 2,000 publishers producing around 23,000 journals. Each year, around 5,000 new editors are taken on and around 400-500 new journals launched. The system involves around 125,000 editors and 350,000 editorial board members, processing around 3.75-4 million referees’ reports.
The industry has invested more than £1.5 billion in electronic platforms – probably £2 billion in total when associated activities like developing tracking and editorial systems are taken into account. The investment continues as publishing systems continue to be enhanced. The successful transition to a digital system has come at some cost but it has vastly improved access and discoverability for the academic community. According to a study by the Royal Society (The Scientific Century, 2010) the UK – with only 1% of the world’s population and 3% of global funding for research – produced 7.9% of published papers; these scored 11.8% of the world’s citations with 14.4% of the world’s most cited papers.
An important element in scholarly communication is the learned society. Some self-publish, and indeed are major players, while many partner with commercial publishers or university presses providing the subject knowledge and editorial policy and organization. These arrangements usually give the societies and thus the community that supports the journal, income which is then used by the society to subsidize meetings and other services provided by the society.
In the early 1990s journal publishing was caught in an upward price spiral. Inflation, investment in technology and rising submissions, and compensation for cancelled subscriptions, were forcing prices up – leading to further cancellations. A typical British university might have subscribed to around 5,000 titles. Then online delivery platforms were launched enabling publishers to license access across their whole list at little extra cost. By 2008 a British university would typically have access to around 15,000 titles, and through digital licensing the cost per view or download has steadily dropped. Through various philanthropic schemes, developing countries can access journals over the internet at little or no charge.
Two new publishing models emerged under the general heading of Open Access (OA). The main origins of OA were the view that as the author gets the career benefit from publication s/he should pay rather than the readers/librarians; and the view that as the taxpayer had usually paid for the research, the research community, and indeed the public in general, should be entitled to access the published outcome. (Unfortunately some research funders do not appreciate that although the taxpayers may have paid for the underlying research, they have not paid for the publication of that research). In addition, users of the internet expect wherever possible to access information without charge.
Model 1 (the ‘Gold Road’) is based on the author paying for the value added by the publisher. There are, however, concerns that it creates a barrier to authorship, and payment from the author rather than the reader could lead to lower standards, but this model has enabled publishers to launch new titles at a lower investment as they don’t have to build up circulation (which can take 5-7 years to cover costs). It is not necessarily a simpler model as Gold Road publishers have to administer and collect payment from potentially a million and more authors rather than 5,000 libraries and universities. Around 2% of articles published appear in Gold Road OA journals with perhaps another 5% offered as delayed OA: free access 6 to 12 months or longer after publication.
The second model is known as the ‘Green Road’. It might be described as “no one pays” and thus is unlikely to be sustainable. The basic idea is that in response to the demand for public access, research funders mandate grantees to post articles for free access, on publication or after an embargo period. There are two obvious problems with this policy. Making available copies for free access will undermine the economic base of the publication. If much of the contents of a journal, albeit in an inferior version, can be found over the internet within, say, six months of publication why should a library continue to subscribe? In addition, once the publisher taken the article through a process of selection and improvement supported by peer review, it has a copyright interest in the final version. Not sufficiently widespread yet to undermine paid circulations, the Green Road could become a serious problem: we could land up with several versions of an article available on repositories with no proper stewardship, and libraries will be more inclined to cancel subscriptions.
The current situation may seem unclear. As for the future, e-science (the use of distributed networked resources to store, share, and analyze immense data sets) and global investment in research are generating what has been described as a deluge of data. Journals act as the main gateway to these data and yet are only growing at 3-4% per annum. New data sharing systems may evolve which could lead to new forms of scholarly communication ranging from social networking to powerful data infrastructures based on international standards that complement journals which will continue with their role as outlined by Henry Oldenburg. The role of journals in providing metrics for quality and impact) will also evolve as funders seek more feedback on research output from the huge global investment in research. For authors the old adage “publish or perish” will become “publish and be measured – or perish”.
This article originally appeared in the December 2010 issue of The Author, and is reprinted here with their kind permission.
