From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Internet Distributution to Bypass Paper Journals (Chron
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 11:06:49 -0500
Friday, April 30, 1999
NIH May Use the Internet to Distribute Research Findings
By PAULETTE WALKER CAMPBELL
Washington
The National Institutes of Health is considering a proposal to use the
Internet to disseminate papers generated by biomedical researchers who
have received N.I.H. grants.
Bypassing paper journals could save the agency "millions of dollars,"
the N.I.H.'s director, Harold E. Varmus, told lawmakers at a budget
hearing in March. Researchers spend hundreds of dollars from their
N.I.H. awards on subscriptions to scientific journals, he noted.
The proposal is in the development stage, and few details are available
about what N.I.H. officials have in mind. But the plan may include some
type of peer review, either in the form of a board of scientists or in
cooperation with editors of print journals.
Neither Dr. Varmus nor the authors of the idea under review -- David
Lipman, director of the N.I.H.'s National Center for Biotechnology
Information, and Patrick O. Brown, an associate professor of
biochemistry at Stanford University -- would comment on the proposal.
Regardless, proponents of electronic publishing say such a move is
inevitable. "There is no doubt, in the future we'll see a lot fewer
printed journals, because they are expensive, slow, and wasteful," says
Bruce B. Dan, a former senior editor of The Journal of the American
Medical Association. "Sending atoms of wood pulp through the postal
system is pretty cumbersome compared with sending bits over the Net."
But many editors of scientific journals are worried that the N.I.H.'s
plan could cut into their subscriber bases. Many scientific societies
depend on journal revenue for a significant portion of their operating
budgets.
Some editors argue that posting articles on the Internet before they
have gone through the rigorous screening that occurs at most scientific
journals threatens the practice of peer review.
"Societies spend lots of time and manpower trying to improve science
through peer review," says Edward P. Rekas, director of publications for
the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. "Where is
there room in this for peer review? The hope among many life-science
publishers is that we can cooperate with the N.I.H. on this idea, using
our background in disseminating quality science to help meet their need
to get the science out quicker."
The idea of publishing research articles first over the Internet is
gaining in popularity. Medscape, a medical site on the World-Wide Web,
announced this month that it was starting a peer-reviewed on-line
journal. In March, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition announced the availability of $500,000 in grants for
electronic-publishing projects in science, technology, and medicine.
Physicists have posted papers on line for years through a Web server
maintained at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico. In fact, it
was the creator of that project, Paul Ginsparg, a physicist at Los
Alamos, who urged biologists last year to step up their efforts in
electronic publishing.
Mr. Ginsparg, who is known for his work as a theorist on high-energy
particles, created the archive in 1991, primarily as a way to speed up
the distribution of draft papers among other theoretical physicists. It
has grown to include 30 subdisciplines, with sections for mathematics
and for non-linear sciences, such as evolutionary biology. The site
attracts more than 35,000 visits each day, and many physicists rely on
it -- rather than on print journals -- to exchange information.
The Los Alamos archive does not depend on the traditional peer-review
process in which -- generally -- small groups of scholars evaluate
articles and recommend whether they should be published. Scientists who
post their papers, some in draft form, to the Los Alamos archive instead
typically revise their submissions in response to direct feedback from
readers. Critiques, comments, and revisions are available to be read by
anyone interested enough to look.
According to the journal Science, the N.I.H. Web site would be modeled
loosely on the Los Alamos site. But the agency's effort might also
include some type of peer review -- a board of editors, perhaps. The
N.I.H. also might ask scientific societies for their help in creating a
"universal biology archive," in which scientific journals would provide
approval for papers posted on the site.
One thing is clear, however: Most biologists say a site without peer
review would be unacceptable. And editors of some science journals,
including Science and The New England Journal of Medicine, have said
they will not consider printing articles that have been published on an
e-print server like the Los Alamos site. (See a story from The
Chronicle, July 17, 1998.)
Patricia Hodgson, managing editor of The American Heart Journal, says
that peer review -- despite its flaws -- is a vital part of the
publishing process. The process "is sometimes lengthier than I would
wish," she says. "There are some issues that no two people will agree on
immediately. There is a concern about the potential for reviewer bias.
And having to revise, resubmit, and undergo re-review is a pain. But the
research that survives this process, and is improved by it, is more
useful than research that never undergoes such scrutiny and may be
fatally flawed."
Some journal editors confess that the notion of having an electronic
repository of journal-published papers available on the Internet for
accurate searching and full-text retrieval is attractive. After all,
says Edward J. Huth, founding editor of the Online Journal of Current
Clinical Trials, the chief function of many journals is archival.
"A highly prestigious journal like Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences publishes maybe 5,000 to 6,000 pages a year, for fields from
astronomy to zoology," says Dr. Huth, who for 20 years served as editor
of the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Who actually reads all that?
Probably no one. Few scientists read journals cover to cover."
Dr. Varmus is expected to release details of the proposal before the
next meeting of his Advisory Council, which is scheduled for June 4.
Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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