E-PUBLISHING IN SCIENCE - 2ND ICSU-UNESCO CONFERENCE

Paris, February 26 (No.2001-26) - As science publishers move from paper to digital publishing, concerns about quality control, access and archiving dominated debates at the second International Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science, jointly organized by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and UNESCO at Organization Headquarters (February 19 to 23).

Opening the meeting which brought together 175 scientists, science publishing professionals, librarians and other stakeholders from all over the world, Sir Roger Elliott of ICSU Press, who chaired the Conference, spoke of a crisis in science publishing: “There has been a vast increase in the amount of publication […] Small, specialised communities have found it convenient to have their own specialized journals. […] The reduced circulation, and hence higher costs of individual titles, has […] reduced the availability of much scientific material and fallen particularly heavily on scientists working in poorer countries.”

ICSU President Hiroyuki Yoshikawa warned that while “one trend is driving the availability of data and information upwards at a pace hardly imaginable […], the other trend, however, is much less visible and more worrisome and threatening to the scientific community. It concerns the development of special limitations, restrictions, negotiated agreements and cost recovery policies that are making it more difficult for some scientists to gain access to data and information than others”.

Observing that great changes in electronic communication technology have occurred in the five years that have elapsed since the first ICSU/UNESCO Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science (Paris 1996), Gisbert Glaser, UNESCO’s interim Assistant Director-General for Science, emphasized the enduring concern to create the conditions for “full and universal access to information in the public domain without hindrance or discrimination, while creativity and investment in scientific information can be rewarded.”

While recognizing that traditional paper publishing is endangered by spiralling costs and declining subscriptions, most speakers considered that major publishers, whether commercial or learned societies, were now successful in publishing their journals in both paper and electronic formats. There was general agreement that electronic publishing represented significant progress, mainly because it offers the end-user direct computer access to contents and because of the multi-media possibilities of moving pictures and sound, essential for successful communication in many cases where they had become important instruments of research.

Other notable advantages in electronic publishing include the alert systems which notify researchers of the publication of material that concerns them. This is particularly valuable in view of the huge increase in publications (+207% from 1986 to 1999, according to David Shulenburger, Provost of the University of Kansas, USA). Moreover, electronic journal aggregates, specialist indexing and search tools all help facilitate the processing of the millions of articles on science, technology and medicine that are published yearly.

Ana Maria Cetto, of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, sounded a dissident note arguing that “electronic technologies are not always having the impact announced […].” She spoke of “cyber-hype” and maintained that e-publishing should be used to complement, rather than replace, paper publishing. Ms Cetto denounced the fact that 90% of Internet users live in industrialized countries and the “persistent fallacy of thinking that the information and communication technologies are narrowing the gap between info-rich and info-poor”.

Ethical issues were also the subject of recurrent concern: the authenticity of articles and data posted on the Net; the tracking of versions of articles, notably distinguishing those that have been subjected to peer refereeing from those that have not; ensuring that new copyright protection conferred on databases does not encroach on the right of free access to raw data; protecting the privacy of the users of database and on-line services.

Another subject of recurrent concern was the long-term archiving of electronic data. The need to preserve the appropriate hard and software technology required to access archived material was brought to the fore. Sinikka Koskiala, Director of Libraries, Helsinki University (Finland), also raised the question of resource authenticity, harder to establish with digital material than with printed books or manuscripts.

Richard Smith, Editor of the British Medical Journal, stressed the importance of protecting patient privacy now that photographs and case studies are circulating on the Internet and seen by many thousands of people, as opposed to the not so distant past when nobody knew or cared about the contents of specialised journals. He warned of a serious backlash that bring draconian legal restrictions on scientific research, unless all concerned ensured that science publishing was seen to be transparent and respectful of patients’ rights and sensitivities.

The Conference participants adopted a series of recommendations reflecting these concerns. They called for improved electronic infrastructure, notably for developing countries; encouraging differential pricing in relation to the ability to pay; and maintaining the principles of copyright. They also called for quality to be assured through peer review; attention to ethical considerations and action to ensure that scientific journals are available in developing countries. They recommended that experimentation should be undertaken to improve the peer review process and steps to provide full publication history and version identification of articles.

Also during the Conference, Pieter Bolman, President and CEO of the US-based publishing giant, Academic Press, announced that IDEAL, its on-line resource library for research in science, technology and medicine will be offered at a sharply reduced rate to low income countries. IDEAL now offers nearly 200,000 articles.

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For more information: http://www.unesco.org/science/ and at http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/~icsuinfo/ where the full text of the Conference Proceedings and Recommendations is to be posted shortly.