Hardin Scholarly Communication News

A Newsletter for the Health Sciences Campus at the University of Iowa

June 27, 2006
Issue 3.06

Hardin Scholarly Communication News brings together a variety of topics that affect the current system of scholarly communication, with emphasis on new developments, open access and alternative publishing models in the health sciences. This newsletter aims to reflect the interests of its readers so please forward comments, suggestions and entries to include to karen-fischer@uiowa.edu. Subscribers will also receive our newsletter News@Hardin.

Table of Contents

U of Iowa grad student resolution on scholarly publishing
What does Reed Elsevier lobby for?
PLoS raises its processing fees
Call for an OA database on resistance to antimalaria drugs
Science journals artfully try to boost their rankings
Nature peer review trial and debate
New ALPSP survey of online subscription journals
New free database on drugs and lactation
Are scholarly publishers ready for the future?
Profile of Harold Varmus
PLoS Medicine editorial on impact factors
Nine interviews on open access
Elsevier offers OA hybrid journals
Cancer-patient advocacy group joins Alliance for Taxpayer Access
Nature article on PLoS finances
Comments on Declan Butler’s story on PLoS
More on Nature’s coverage of PLoS’ finances
BioOne announces journal preservation agreement with Portico
PLoS to launch PLoS ONE, an OA database
The CURES Act and FRPAA
Librarians educating faculty about OA issues
Four more BioMed Central journal accepted for impact factor tracking
New hybrid OA journal on nanotechnology
Forthcoming OA journal on medical education

The University of Iowa’s Graduate Student Senate unanimously passed a
resolution on scholarly publishing on March 22, 2006. This may possibly be a
first for research universities. Here is the text of the resolution:

WHEREAS the University of Iowa’s longstanding commitment to the free and open
publication, presentation and discussion of research advances the interests of
the scholarly community, and the public, and

WHEREAS the costs of scholarly journals are continually rising at rates greater
than the rate of inflation and higher than the rate of University budget
increases, and

WHEREAS graduate students depend on these resources for their research, and

WHEREAS a lasting solution to this problem requires not only interim measures
but also a long range plan, and

WHEREAS publication in open access journals and repositories is an increasingly
effective option for scholarly communication, and

WHEREAS the activities of these publishers directly depend upon the continued
participation of scholars acting as editors, reviewers, and authors,

The University of Iowa Graduate Student Senate:

1. Supports the University of Iowa Faculty Senate in their resolution of
November 29, 2005, on Scholarly Publishing.

2. Encourages graduate students to become familiar with the pricing and
business practices of journals and journal publishers in their specialty.

3. Recognizes that graduate students, as they move along in their career, can
exert a positive influence on the direction of scholarly publishing through the
choices they make in the submission of papers, the commitment of time to
refereeing activities, and participation in editorial work.

4. Encourages the University to support new models for scholarly publishing,
including open access journals and archives, disciplinary and institutional
repositories and other approaches that enhance the broad dissemination of
knowledge while preserving peer review and excellence in scholarship.

5. Recognizes that graduate students can retain intellectual property rights,
in order to allow them greater freedom to disseminate their work and thereby
maximize the impact of their scholarship.

6. Encourages higher education to support these changes through the promotion
and tenure system and other reward mechanisms, and by providing incentives and
support for those advancing alternative models.

The resolution refers to and supports a UI faculty resolution on scholarly
publishing that was recently passed and can be viewed at:

http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Efacsen/Agenda/Senate05-06/11-29-05/2-LibrariesResolution.htm

The Center for Public Integrity, using figures based on Senate Office of Public Records filings, breaks down Reed Elsevier’s annual spending on lobbying as follows (in millions):

* 1998 / $.40
* 1999 / $.96 (+140%)
* 2000 / $1.90 (+97.9%)
* 2001 / $1.96 (+3.2%)
* 2002 / $2.12 (+8.2%)
* 2003 / $2.36 (+11.3%)
* 2004 / $2.82 (+19.5%)

Information for all of 2005 has now been posted to the Senate Office of Public Records site:

* 2005 / $3.18 (+12.8%)

If these figures are correct, Reed Elsevier’s annual spending on U.S. lobbying activities increased 695% from 1998 to 2005.

To view the details of Elsevier’s lobbying efforts, go to William Walsh’s blog at Georgia State University, Issues in Scholarly Communication:

http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/index.asp?view=details&ID=9945&typeID=62

Starting next month, PLoS will raise its article processing fees for the first time. From the announcement:

To provide OA, PLoS journals use a business model in which our expenses - including those of peer review, of journal production, and of online hosting and archiving - are recovered in part through a publication fee to the authors or research sponsors for each article they publish. Now, with 3 years of operational experience to draw on, it is time for PLoS to adjust this model so that our publication fees reflect more closely the costs of publication. From 1st July 2006, the publication fee for our flagship journals PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine will be $2500; for our community journals PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, and PLoS Pathogens it will be $2000. PLoS Clinical Trials is priced at $2500.

The new prices compare favorably with the fees that authors often pay to publish their work in traditional journals (between $1000-$3000 for color charges, excess pages, reprints etc). And, in such journals, distribution is not unlimited as it is for PLoS, but is restricted to subscribers and those whose institutions have paid license fees….

A “no questions asked” fee waiver exists for authors who do not have funds to cover publication fees. In addition, editors and reviewers have no access to authors’ payment information, and hence inability to pay will not influence the decision to publish a paper. These policies ensure that the fee is never a barrier to publication.

Visit PLoS FAQ

Open Access News, 6/15/06

Carol Hopkins Sibley and Pascal Ringwald, A database of antimalarial drug resistance, Malaria Journal, June 15, 2006.

Abstract (provisional): A large investment is required to develop, license and deploy a new antimalarial drug. Too often, that investment has been rapidly devalued by the selection of parasite populations resistant to the drug action. To understand the mechanisms of selection, we need detailed information on the patterns of drug use in a variety of environments, and the geographic and temporal patterns of resistance that result. Currently, there is no publically accessible central database that contains information on the levels of resistance to antimalaria drugs. This paper outlines the resources that are available, and the steps that might be taken to create a dynamic, open access database that would include current and historical data on clinical efficacy, in vitro responses and molecular markers related to drug resistance in P. falciparum and P. vivax. The goal is to include historical and current data on resistance to commonly used drugs like chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and on the many combinations that are now being tested in different settings. The database will be accessible to all on the Web. The information in such a database will inform optimal utilization of current drugs and sustain the longest possible therapeutic life of newly introduced drugs and combinations. The database will protect the valuable investment represented by the development and deployment of novel therapies for malaria.

Open Access News, 6/16/06

Sharon Begley. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Jun 5, 2006. pg. B.1

Document URL:

http://proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1048504891&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=29945&RQT=309&VN ame=PQD

Abstract (Document Summary)

Richard Wootton, editor of JTT, says that he believes it’s true that his journal cites its competitor less frequently than Dr. [Rashid Bashshur]’s journal cites JTT, “but it doesn’t seem to me that there is a sinister explanation.” Dr. Wootton adds that “when we edit a paper . . . we sometimes ask authors to ensure that the relevant literature is cited.” But “I can state unequivocally that we do not attempt to manipulate the JTT’s impact factor. For a start, I wouldn’t know how to.”

“If you look at journals that have a high impact factor, they tend to be trendy,” says immunologist David Woodland of the nonprofit Trudeau Institute, of Saranac Lake, N.Y., and the incoming editor of Viral Immunology. He recalls one journal that accepted immunology papers only if they focused on the development of thymus cells, a once-hot topic. “It’s hard to get into them if you’re ahead of the curve.”

Journals’ “questionable” steps to raise their impact factors “affect the public,” Ms. [Liebert] says. “Ultimately, funding is allocated to scientists and topics perceived to be of the greatest importance. If impact factor is being manipulated, then scientists and studies that seem important will be funded perhaps at the expense of those that seem less important.”

Nature is undertaking a trial of a particular type of open peer review. In this trial, authors whose submissions to Nature are sent for peer review will also be offered the opportunity to participate in an open peer review process. The trial is optional for authors; it will continue in parallel with Nature’s usual procedures, and does not affect the likelihood of eventual publication of the submitted work. At the same time as the trial, Nature is running a web debate on peer review, to which we welcome comments from readers.

http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/index.html

ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) has published a new report by John Cox and Laura Cox, Scholarly Publishing Practice Academic journal publishers’ policies and practices in online publishing. Second Survey, 2005, June 2, 2006. This is the 2005 update of a survey the Coxes did for ALPSP in 2003. The new report is available for purchase, but the press release and executive summary are OA. From the executive summary:

Authors’ rights: in 2003 83 per cent of publishers required authors to transfer copyright in their articles to the publisher. This figure is now 61 per cent, with 21 per cent initially requesting copyright transfer but accepting a licence to publish should this be declined. In respect of the rights of authors to use their own work, the following pattern emerges:

• Over 90 per cent of large publishers allow articles to be posted prior to peer review and publication; only just over 30 per cent of small publishers do so.
• Large publishers are more likely to allow articles to be posted after acceptance than small publishers: 90 per cent vs. 40 per cent. Commercial publishers are more likely to accept the practice than not-for profit publishers.
• 75 per cent of large publishers, but just under 50 per cent of small publishers, allow authors to post published articles websites or institutional repositories. A significant number require the author to post a PDF of the publisher’s version.
• Publishers are more inclined to allow posting published articles to the author’s own website than to an institutional repository; subject-based repositories are the least popular.
• One-third of large, 20 per cent of medium-sized and 16 per cent of small publishers apply an embargo to such posting until a specified period after publication has elapsed.
• 52 per cent of publishers require links from the posted version to the publisher’s version on its site; 21 per cent provide toll-free access when such links are used.
• Few publishers disallow the reuse of authors’ material within the academic institution or in the author’s own publications, subject to proper acknowledgement of the journal and publisher.

Conclusion: The market for online journals is still in a process of development and experiment; it is only ten years old. Publishers are still grappling with the implications of migrating from a print to an online publishing environment. For the foreseeable future, publishers’ journals will be available in both modes. Nevertheless, there are some important indicators:

• 90 per cent of journals are now available online, compared with 75 per cent in 2003.
• Although online pricing is still largely tied to the print price, but new pricing models linked to institutional classification, size or usage are emerging.
• Publishers are offering options such as pay-per-view or subject bundles, and more functionality such as reference linking. Smaller publishers are participating via their online journal hosting services and by contributing journals to multi-publisher bundles that provide reference linking and pay-per-view facilities.
• A fifth of publishers are experimenting with open access journals in some form. \
• Access to journal back volumes is becoming an integral part of the online product.
• All categories of publishers are now extending usage rights in order to be more ‘library friendly’.
• Although the majority of publishers still require journal authors to assign copyright, the proportion willing to accept a licence to publish has grown significantly in the past two years. Moreover, generally the author is not generally restricted from using the work for personal or institutional purposes.

Open Access News, 6/2/2006

The US National Library of Medicine has launched LactMed, an OA database on drugs that are safe and unsafe for lactating women and their breastfed infants.

Kate Wittenberg, Beyond Google: What Next for Publishing? Chronicle of Higher Education, June 16, 2006 (accessible only U of Iowa affiliates and to other subscribers). Wittenberg is director of EPIC, the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia University. Excerpt:

While we [publishers] have been busy attending conferences, workshops, and seminars on every possible aspect of scholarly communication, information technology, digital libraries, and e-publishing, students have been quietly revolutionizing the discovery and use of information….If “digital natives” are the next audience for our scholarly resources, shouldn’t we be thinking about new ways to organize, store, and deliver our content?…As publishers, we are going to have to adapt quickly and creatively if we wish to remain true to our missions as information professionals and yet be relevant to users. Are we ready? Until now we have not only controlled the development of content, but also its discovery and delivery. We can call copyright foul when the books or articles or teaching tools we publish are used in ways we haven’t anticipated, and continue business as usual….Or we can think creatively about what comes next for publishing. Until now we have spent most of our energies in rear-guard actions: fighting Google over copyright infringement in its plans to digitize library books, for example. It’s time to think “beyond Google.”

Open Access News 6/12/06