Market Leadership by Scientific Online Community
and Open Access
Andreas-M. Selignow at London, Online Information
3rd October 2009
Market leadership? • The journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) has
become within 7 years after founding a market leader 1. In quality: impact factor 2. In growing rate
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
ACP
JGR
Atmos Envir
Table 1: impact factors Source: JCR
Papers per year
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
ACP
Atmos Envir
JGR-Atmos
Table 2: Amount of papers/year. Source: JCR and AGU statistics
The story behind: Fruits of the the serials crisis
• Impossibility of buying journals for many libraries • Anger and outrage about high revenues of scientific
publishers among scientists and politicians • Idea of Open Access, but no publisher willing to
implement it • Problem: High costs, no way to refinance than grants like
the humanities. • Solution: Publishing by internet, not only used for
distribution and upcoming web based peer review, but also for production
Success from crisis
• 2001 the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) was founded as an Open Access Journal by EGS, now EGU (European Geosciences Union www.egu.eu)
• 2009 it is one of the three leading journals in this area, has about 600 papers per year
• ACP page production is growing about 25 % every year and its impact factor reached 4.9
• The main competitors: – AGU’s Journal of Geophysical Research / D: Atmospheric : about
1000 papers/year (growing ∼ 15 %), impact factor 3.1 (constant) – Elsevier’s Atmospheric Environment. About 800 papers/yr
(stagnating), impact factor 2.9 (constant)
Success factors 1. the early adoption of open access: everybody can cite =>
maximizing impact factor 2. a most lean production: service charges < 50 % of ø 3. elaborated public peer review workflow /discussion journal
boosts quality 4. automated editor (and referee) choice for large publications
(> 60 editors) 5. integration of institutional sponsors for open access
publishing (MPG, CNRS INSU, DFG, VW, Univ. Göttingen) 6. early web 2.0 community building 7. sophisticated alert services 8. integrated meeting management system
Lean Publishing System
Publishing Online and/or print Subscription via shop Archive
Production
Upload final version Typesetting Accounting
Survey
technical Peer Review Public Discussion Chief-Editor o.k.
Online Submission
Registration Upload
Publication costs
• Traditional paid journals: Nothing – except colored pages etc.
• Springer Open Choice: 3000 $ (2000 €) • de Gruyter: 1750 € • ACP: ø 700–1000 €
• depending on length and MS preparation (70–150 € per page, up to grade of adoption of stylesheet)
• Often sponsored
• See a list of most publishers on http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/PaidOA.html
Elaborated “public” peer review
Submission Access Review
Public Discussion
Final Publication
Submission Peer Review Publication
Traditional peer review
Public peer review
Details on http://www.copernicussystems.net/en/peer-review-und-publishing/public-peer-review/
Public Peer Review
• After quick access review the article is publicly discussed in a forum, also referee reviews are public
• Advantages: – All “traditional” quality enhancements – transparency via public documented decisions (“Discussion
journal”, all comments are paginated) – less problems with plagiarism, intrigues and scientific fraud – maximum quality of reviews – low rejection rates (10-20% vs. 30-70%) – Gaining influence on editor’s decision by comments is motivating
and provides empathy with the journal. The commentor’s affords matter!
Automated editor choice • Editors are in a (4-)dimensional grid • E-Mail to all editors of subject area chosen by author • Automatic reminders and widening of subject area • Advantage: (nearly) no capacity management; editors feel
more respected because they are not assigned but asked
COSIS.net
• Communitiy of 40,000 active Geoscientists
• Now opened to all sciences and humanities
• Services for – networking – peer review – conference management – management of
associations
COSIS.net: enterprise software for scientific associations / eScience platform
user Journals • Online Submission • Online XML Editor • Public Peer Review • Production • Publication • Metadata-Push • Accounting
Meetings • Skeleton • Call for Programme • Call for Papers • Room Planning • Registration • indiv. Programme • Abstracts-CD • Realization • Accounting
Association • Member Administration
• Elections • PR • Website • Newsletter • Statistics • Awards
Communication • Social Networking • Forums, Groups • Address books • Search • Alert-Service • RSS • Job Portal
shop
Sophisticated alert services
• Daily email alerts only about fields of interest • Advantages: consumable portions, “noise” reduction
Conference management as success factor for journals
• Conferences produce proceedings, mostly as special issues, i.e. more articles
• Financial contributes / cross-subsidization • Conferences are widening contacts for fresh referees
(session programme => appropriate colleagues), over 10,000 participants per conference
• Constitute and strenghen network • Updated profiles / addresses once a year
Conclusions
• Open access journals can reach or outrange traditional “A-journals”.
• Lean production costs and better quality lead to success: in quality and quantity – and in economics (> 500,000 $ turnover of one journal). Open Access is a prospering business model.
• A web community supports the promotion of the papers, provides new authors and reviewers, spends ideas for lean workflows, and – most important – strengthens empathy with the product.
More information
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_peer_review • http://atmos-chem-phys.net (public relations) • http://www.cosis.net (register for free) • http://www.copernicussystems.net (COSIS.net system provider) • http://www.egu.eu (publications) • Ulrich Pöschl and Thomas Koop: Interactive open access publishing and
collaborative peer review for improved scientific communication and quality assurance. Information Services & Use 28 (2008) 105–107, DOI 10.3233/ISU-2008-0567, IOS Press (and many more by Ulrich Poeschl – initiator and chief executive editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics)
• Data basis for charts: Thomsonreuters’ Journal Citation Report 2002-2008 (JCP), journal statistics from www.agu.org, and from www.atmos-chem-phys.net
Thanks for your attention!
Note: COSIS.net is available for all publishers, scientific associations and institutions, professional conference
organizers
Further information on www.copernicussystems.net Ask Andreas at [email protected]
