don c. wiley 1944-2001 software usage cluster, treeview, scanalyze 10,300 registered users, at least...

Don C. Wiley1944-2001

Software Usage

Cluster, TreeView, ScanAlyze

10,300 registered users, at least 4,000 active users

Cluster/TreeView paper cited over 800 times, and software used in >1200 publications

Who Should Own The Scientific Literature?

Every year, the US government spends more than 40 billion dollars of public funds to support basic scientific research, and many billions more are added by state and local governments and by numerous private foundations

The goal of this tremendous investment in basic research is to improve health, economic productivity, and the quality of life – both material and intellectual – of citizens of this country and the world

The product of this research – what this $50,000,000,000 buys us - is a treasury of knowledge - new discoveries and new understanding of our bodies and the world around us, and new ways to improve our health and to prevent and treat diseases

The primary repository of this knowledge is the published, peer reviewed scientific literature - the only permanent, public record of our ideas, results and conclusions and those of our colleagues and predecessors

Who owns the scientific literature and why do they own it?

Who should own the scientific literature?

How the current system inhibits current and future scientific progress.

How the scientific community can and should change the rules under which scientific literature is published.

Who owns the scientific literature?

The answer is simple:

Journals do

The more important question is why do journals own the scientific literature. Who benefits and who is hurt from this ownership? What does it facilitate and what does it prevent?

Why do journals own the scientific literature?

The current scientific publishing system evolved when the only effective way for a scientist to communicate their latest ideas and results with their colleagues was to write a paper and have printed copies of this paper shipped around the world


Since most of the costs involved in distributing printed copies of scientific manuscripts scale with the number of copies, it made economic sense for the journals to charge on a per-copy basis (e.g. by subscriptions)

It also made sense for scientists to encourage this process by granting particular journals the exclusive right to distribute a particular work by assigning copyright to the journal


While this system was not perfectly fair – only individuals and institutions that could afford journal subscription fees had access to the literature

However, given the economic and logistical difficulties of distribution, it was the only practical solution, and it served science very well for most of the last century


In recent years, control of many journals transferred from the scientists who founded them to commercial publisher, who also launched entire stables of their own journals

Many of these commercial publishers exploited their captive audience – primarily libraries under pressure from their patrons to subscribe to all journals, no matter how obscure – to ratchet up subscription charges to the point where over $5 billion is spent annually on STM journals

Scientific journals in the digital age

Over the last five years electronic publication has moved from a boutique curiosity to the primary manner in which scientific manuscripts are published and distributed

Scientific journals in the digital age

This transformation is far more than just a matter of convenience – the availability of large portions of the scientific literature in digital form has a tremendous potential to make the literature far more accessible and useful:

Imagine all the things you could do with a “GenBank” of the scientific literature

PubMed Central

In fact, a literature GenBank does exits: PubMed Central

NCBI/NLM free, full-text archive of the peer-reviewed biomedical literature

Articles stored in XMLFull-text searchRetrieve PDFs

PubMed Central

XML versions of most recently published scientific articles exist, and yet only a tiny fraction are being deposited in PMC and similar archives?

The answer is that journals operate on an economic model that requires strict controls on access, and PMC and other forms of open access are antithetical to this business model

GenBank and the importance of open access

The open access and unrestricted use of DNA sequence information, regardless of where it was published and with no obligation to the publisher, was absolutely essential in making possible the creative work of tens of thousands of scientists who have made that information immeasurably more useful than it would have been if had been treated in the way that most published scientific information is treated


The transformation of the life sciences by DNA sequences and genomics was absolutely dependent upon free and open access and unrestricted use of published DNA sequences - upon the ability to copy and use and transform and redistribute the information without any restrictions imposed by publishers


How much of the scientific progress of the past decade would have been sacrificed if the publishers had treated DNA sequences as they do all other published information?

What if the publication of DNA sequences operated under the

same rules as scientific papers?

Many publishers undoubtedly wish they had claimed copyrights on the sequences they published. They would have been a lot richer now, and science (not to mention the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for whom the public sequences, and the tools and discoveries that have sprung from them, are the critical resource) would have been a lot poorer.

What if the publication of DNA sequences operated under the

same rules as scientific papers?

Now consider the possibility that we may be sacrificing at least this much progress, and probably much more, by allowing publishers to prevent any similar creative use of all other published information – a much larger and richer body of information than the sequences in GenBank.

Publishers currently own the scientific literature, but who SHOULD own the scientific

literature?

Who SHOULD own the scientific literature?

Who should own the published works of scientists and scholars, who publish their works to make them available to the world, and expect no payment in return?

Who should own the only permanent record of work that is almost entirely funded by public and private institutions seeking to better the world and add to our common knowledge?


Any way you look at it, whether from the standpoint of the public interest, the intentions of the scientists either as authors or users of the published information, or from the standpoint of economic efficiency and fairness, the answer is the same... NOBODY should own the published works.

The freely published record of scientific ideas and discoveries is one of humanity’s greatest creations – it’s a public good that belongs in the public domain


Scientists as AUTHORS want to publish their work in such a way that it will have the greatest likelihood of being seen and appreciated by its intended audience.


That includes not only colleagues at wealthy institutions who can spend millions of dollars a year to subscribe to the latest journals, but also colleagues in Addis Ababa or Chiapas that can’t afford site licenses or subscriptions to many journals, as well as private citizens – high school students with an interest in science, or cancer patients - who can’t afford subscriptions and have no ready access to a research library that does.

Authors WANT to give their work away to the world.

An Aside

It is tempting to see this debate over the scientific literature as part of a larger battle over copyright and the ownership of intellectual property

An Aside

However, the debates over Napster and DVDs and the like involve a tension between the interests of the producer and those of the consumer – a tension that does not exist in the scientific literature where both the producers and the consumers want free and unfettered access to the scientific literature

An Aside

Scientists neither receive, nor expect, financial benefit from the publication of their research. They, and the institutions that backed their research, want as many people as possible to know about what they have done.


Scientists and the public as USERS of the published information want to get the information they need, as easily and efficiently and cheaply as possible, and they want NO restrictions on how they can use it.


They want to be able to incorporate the published information into their own databases (as they currently do with DNA sequences), to explore new ways to integrate the contents of published works with information from disparate sources, to reorganize it, to annotate it, to map connections between pieces of information in disparate works published in different journals, and to transform it into something that goes far beyond an electronic version of journal volumes on a library shelf.


The public that sponsors most of the published research wants the work to be published in such a way as to maximize its benefit to society

In addition, many citizens who are not professional scientists, and who have no ready access to a research library, nor subscription access to online journals, would like to, and SHOULD be able to read the primary literature for themselves


As citizens, we support primary research to the tune more than of 50 billion dollars a year in the US alone. The only direct product of that work that we can ever hope to see is the publication that describes the ideas and discoveries that come from it. I am sure that if the public were to realize that in order to read the results of the research that their tax dollars have already paid for, they would have to pay (again) extravagant fees to publishers, they would be outraged.

If people were to read in the newspaper that after spending hundreds of billions of their tax dollars in the past decade on basic research, all the recorded knowledge that their money paid for is now the private property of a few publishers, there might be a little trouble.


US Government position is embodied in Section 105 of US Copyright Law:

Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government


“The basic premise of section 105 of the bill is … that works produced for the U.S. Government by its officers and employees should not be subject to copyright….”

“The effect of section 105 is intended to place all works of the United States Government, published or unpublished, in the public domain”.


A more difficult and far-reaching problem is whether the definition should be broadened to prohibit copyright in works prepared under U.S. Government contract or grant. As the bill is written, the Government agency concerned could determine in each case whether to allow an independent contractor or grantee, to secure copyright in works prepared in whole or in part with the use of Government funds. The argument that has been made against allowing copyright in this situation is that the public should not be required to pay a ``double subsidy,'' and that it is inconsistent to prohibit copyright in works by Government employees while permitting private copyrights in a growing body of works created by persons who are paid with Government funds.

Those arguing in favor of potential copyright protection have stressed the importance of copyright as an incentive to creation and dissemination in this situation, and the basically different policy considerations, applicable to works written by Government employees and those applicable to works prepared by private organizations with the use of Federal funds.


Copyright law aside, no one can reasonably argue that science or the public interest is better served by limiting access to the information voluntarily published in scientific and scholarly journals, or restricting the ways it can be used

Have the journals earned the right to control how the

literature is used?


Its really not a question of whether private ownership and control of this information is a good thing, just whether it is a NECESSARY EVIL, or whether there is a sensible economic model for scientific publication in the public domain

Economics of Digital Publishing

The standard business model for scientific and scholarly publishing hasn’t changed in a hundred years, yet none of the premises of that business model remain valid today, as digital documents and electronic distribution have completely transformed the economics of distribution of information


The costs involved in electronic publishing are almost entirely in the preparation of the original edited electronic document – the original is as expensive to produce as ever, but the costs to produce and distribute each additional copy are now infinitesimal.


A business model that charges readers for each copy of a work is economically irrational and inefficient, and perversely thwarts that goals of authors, readers and the funders of the work by charging a high price for copies that cost nothing to produce or distribute, thereby artificially creating a barrier to the distribution of information


Only the publishers’ business model keeps our treasury of scientific knowledge trapped in a sad, bleak, little one-dimensional world---- the profound limits on the ways that the information could be organized and accessed that were an unavoidable consequence of the physical format of paper publication are gone.


The information in a scientific work in digital form is no longer limited to the static, one dimensional organization of words on paper and journals on shelves – it can live in a much higher dimensional space. A business model that constrains the information to that one-dimensional world, by forcing users to access information paper by paper, journal by journal, publisher by publisher is perverse in that it artificially maintains in electronic form the archaic “volumes on a shelf” organization of the paper library


Is there a practical alternative business model that is better adapted to using the potential of electronic media and distribution to serve science and the public?

A Better Way to Pay for Publication – Publishing as a

Service

The institutions and organizations that sponsor scientific research should pay the full costs of preparation of original work in publishable form, as an integral part of their mission to promote the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge and ideas. These payments would cover the costs of curating peer review, editing and transformation to a suitable digital format for publication (e.g. XML + PDF). This cost, current less that $1000 per published article and falling rapidly, represents about 1% of the investment in the research itself.

A Better Way to Pay for Publication

Copyright could be held either by author or publisher, but an irrevocable and essentially unrestricted license to copy, distribute, transform or otherwise use the work is granted to the public domain. A faithful digital copy of each work would be placed in a network of public literature archives (e.g. PMC) and also made freely available at a public site for FTP or web downloading

A Publishing License

PUBLIC LIBRARY OF SCIENCE OPEN ACCESS LICENSE VERSION 1.0 AUGUST 1, 2001 Please direct comments to [email protected] This document is in the Public Domain, and may be reproduced and redistributed for any purpose. I. PREAMBLE The purpose of this Public Library of Science Open Access License (referred to here as "the License") is to facilitate the free and unrestricted worldwide distribution of scientific and medical research reports. The License is meant to ensure that the information contained in any work to which the License applies will be placed into, and will remain in, the public domain. Works to which the License applies may be reproduced, distributed, and used for any purpose without restriction, subject only to the condition that any reproduction or redistribution of copies of the work must itself be subject to this License. [See "Terms and Conditions," below] II. HOW TO USE THIS LICENSE At a minimum, any author(s) wishing to distribute their work(s) under the terms of this License must include the following notice ("the Notice") in all copies of the work under their control: Copyright [Insert Year] [Insert Name/Contact Information of Author(s)]. This work, entitled "[Insert title of Work]," is distributed under the terms of the Public Library of Science Open Access License, a copy of which [is attached] [can be found at http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org]. In addition, authors are encouraged to supply citation information (e.g. "This work was originally published as [insert citation]") and archival information (e.g., "This work is permanently archived at [insert URL]") within this notice as well. III. DELAYED EFFECTIVENESS Authors may delay the effectiveness of the License as applied to their work(s) in order, for example, to provide a journal publisher with an initial "window" during which the publisher (and the publisher alone) may reproduce and redistribute the work. Because such exclusivity is inconsistent with the terms of the License, the License cannot become effective until after the expiration of any such exclusive term. In any such case, the Notice should be modified to read as follows [additional term in italics]: Copyright [Insert Year] [Insert Name/Contact Information of Author(s)]. As of [expiration of the term of the exclusive right granted by the author], this work, entitled "[Insert title of Work]," is distributed under the terms of the Public Library of Science Open Access License, a copy of which [is attached] [can be found at http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org]. IV. TERMS AND CONDITIONS This License applies to any work ("the Work") to which a notice is affixed stating that it is released under the terms of the Public Library of Science Open Access License ("the Notice"). Permission is hereby irrevocably granted to reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise make the Work available in any medium, provided that all copies of the Work (or any significant portion of the Work) (a) shall include the Notice or its substantial equivalent, (b) shall be itself distributed under this License, and (c) shall include proper attribution of authorship of the Work. The aggregation of the Work with other works which are not based on the Work - such as but not limited to inclusion in a publication, database, broadcast, compilation, or other media - does not bring the other works in the scope of the License, nor does such aggregation void the terms of the License for the Work.

mailto:[email protected]


Any publisher or distributor may then charge for access to a digital copy of the published work, providing added value to warrant the price. Since the original copy will be freely available, there will be an opportunity for new ventures to develop ways to enhance the value of the freely-available information, and competition in the free market will decide whether, and which enhancements are worth paying for


Any publisher will be free to produce and charge for printed copies of any of the freely available articles. If scientists still value printed versions of some journals, as I think they do, there will be a viable market for printed journals even if the content can be obtained for free in digital form

How do we get there?

Attempt No. 1: Build it and they will come

PMC has been open for over two years, and journals are not exactly knocking at their door to be let in


Attempt No. 2: Offer a carrot

Let the publishers know that this is important to us, and that we will support journals that follow the proper path

PLoS Open LetterWe support the establishment of an online public library that would provide the full contents of the published record of research and scholarly discourse in medicine and the life sciences in a freely accessible, fully searchable, interlinked form. Establishment of this public library would vastly increase the accessibility and utility of the scientific literature, enhance scientific productivity, and catalyze integration of the disparate communities of knowledge and ideas in biomedical sciences.

We recognize that the publishers of our scientific journals have a legitimate right to a fair financial return for their role in scientific communication. We believe, however, that the permanent, archival record of scientific research and ideas should neither be owned nor controlled by publishers, but should belong to the public, and should be freely available through an international online public library.

To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September, 2001, we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally subscribe to, only those scholarly and scientific journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free distribution rights to any and all original research reports that they have published, through PubMed Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months of their initial publication date.


Attempt No. 3: Forget about existing journals and do it ourselves

What Can You Do To Help?

Speak up. Tell you colleagues that you believe in open access publication.

Direct your publishing, editing, reviewing, and personal subscriptions to open access journals.

Help us start new open access journals or start some yourself.

PLoS Journals

Estimated Launch in June 2002

Initially only two journals publishing best science.

PLoS Natural SciencesPLoS Medicine

As submissions grow, we will spawn new journals where appropriate. Initially only two journals publishing best science.

PLoS Journals

We are looking for:

Additional editorsReviewersSoftware developers Money

And most importantly Papers

www.publiclibraryofscience.org

[email protected]

http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/

don c. wiley 1944-2001 software usage cluster, treeview, scanalyze 10,300 registered users, at least...

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