This is the edited record of an exchange about the latest NIH/PubMed Central proposal with a comrade-at-arms who has asked to remain anonymous but agreed to my quote/commenting this edited transcript of our discussion.
> [it seems that the critical issue is: what are the criteria for an > organization to participate - either for screening or peer-review.] The critical issue with NIH/PubMed Central is WHO can archive WHAT. It has been stipulated that only "organizations" can participate, and it's not clear what this is to mean. Worst-case scenario: Only publishers can archive refereed papers. Best-case scenario: Any "institutionally affiliated" (for example) author can archive refereed papers. For screening of unrefereed papers, the details can be worked out. For what counts as "peer-review," the details can likewise be worked out (and for most of the journal literature it will be pretty straightforward). But the serious question is about REFEREED papers. Let us assume that we have identified which journals count as peer-reviewed. I have just had an article accepted by one of them: Suppose that journal is NOT one of the "participating" publishers that will immediately archive it in the free public archive for me? What then? THIS is the core ambiguity that MUST be resolved clearly and explicitly if NIH/PubMed Central is to fly. The solution is obvious: An author at an accredited institution (or whatever other accrediting criterion NIH/PubMed Central decides on) should be able to archive his OWN refereed papers. If NIH/PubMed Central likes (and can afford it), the archive can (1) check whether that paper is indeed accepted by the journal the author indicates it is accepted by, and NIH can even do (2) an ascii-check to make sure it corresponds verbatim with the accepted text -- but this would be a waste of time and money, especially if the official journal version of the text is not available online, or the journal does not feel like cooperating! To get the archive started it will be enough that the accredited author CLAIMS that that's the journal that accepted it, by self-archiving it and tagging it as such (with journal name, volume, issue, year, etc.) (The Net will quickly unmask papers that authors claim have been accepted for publication by Journal X but have not been; the vast majority of authors are not interested in that kind of fraud, and it would be absurd and self-defeating to design the NIH archive around an a-priori restriction, on the assumption that fraudulent self-archiving of "refereed" papers would pose a major problem from which the archive must be pre-emptively defended -- at the cost of sacrificing that very self-archiving capability on which the archive's success and utility so critically depends!) So much for restrictions on the self-archiving of refereed papers. (When it comes to unrefereed papers, apart from whatever special measures are deemed necessary to protect public health from quackery or fraud, the situation again seems straightforward. Authors from accredited institutions should be allowed to self-archive the papers they are submitting to journals; if NIH finds it useful, Universities, Departments, Societies, Congresses, etc., could screen these submissions, or NIH could use the prior funding criteria mentioned in the new proposal. But on no account should the restrictions on self-archiving of unrefereed material be conflated with the conditions for self-archiving refereed material, otherwise the publishers will simply become the authorizers for the latter, and the archive will be still-born -- with the only "participating" publishers being an arbitrary sample of tiny societies and unimportant journals. The contents of all the high-quality, high-impact journals -- the raison d'etre of the whole initiative -- will be missing from the archive, and it will stay that way, for this asymmetric outcome (low quality for-free, high quality for-fee) will effectively nip in the bud any genuine initiative for the freeing of the refereed literature through public archiving. A Trojan Horse will have become permanently entrenched.) > [until there's an international advisory committee, the criterion is 3 > editorial board members as PIs on grants from major funding agencies] Criterion for WHAT? Editorial Boards already exist for the established journals, and they have nothing to do with any of this (except if they, mirabile dictu, agree to "participate" by giving away their contents online for free: Don't hold your breath!). But what are these boards and committees supposed to be doing? Screening the unrefereed papers? Fine. But what about the REFEREED papers? They've ALREADY been "screened." All that's needed is that they should be ARCHIVED. Who's going to do that (assuming -- and it's a safe assumption -- that the established publishers are not going to agree to give them away for free themselves). The more I think about it, the more I have to say that the very same incoherence I noted on this point in the original proposal is still hovering over this one. Exactly what are these overseers meant to be doing, and particularly in relation to ALREADY REFEREED papers? http://www.nih.gov/welcome/director/ebiomed/com0509.htm#harn45 > [participants have a significant stake in the process and this > will greatly reduce inappropriate content] Why hamstring the archive's CORE function (self-archiving) with all kinds of new screening functions that will only restrain self-archiving, the completely new activity that needs to be ENCOURAGED? Even more important: Why hamstring the archiving of the already-screened (i.e. refereed) material? And the worst possible form of hamstringing would be to allow only the "screeners" themselves (the refereed journals) to archive the latter. Because they won't! And although NIH/PubMed Central plans to open in January 2000, the archive will be virtually barren of refereed material from the established journals (and will, I'm afraid) stay that way for years to come, if it is set it up like this. > [it should not be terribly hard for most scientists to form an editorial > board which can serve as the screening group for self-archiving their > papers] I worry a little about leaving it to their initiative (given that the horses have been led to the waters of self-archiving but have been slow to drink anyway, without their having to take still further initiatives). But let's say that for the self-archiving of unrefereed papers "screening" bodies can be put together. The REAL issue is the self-archiving of REFEREED papers. These have already been "screened" (and a lot more); at most, all they still need is some verification (that they are indeed refereed/accepted, and that they are indeed the verbatim texts). I am not sure there are either the resources or the initiative to do this screening; and I'm fairly sure it's not necessary. For now, self-archiving of refereed papers just needs to be DONE, even if imperfectly. The rest will take care of itself, once the momentum is there. But the momentum is needed, and hamstringing the self-archiving of refereed papers in any way will be extremely counterproductive. First, there is still the horses/water problem; add obstacles and you just make it bigger. Second, there is still the copyright problem (some publishers try to forbid it, and even more authors feel that it's somehow forbidden). So if one adds to that the extra handicap of having to screen the refereed papers too, that amounts to simply raising the goalposts even higher, instead of lowering them! And to put the goalposts in the hands of publishers, whose current interests conflict so profoundly with those of science and scientists and a free refereed literature, is simply to take the goalposts off the field altogether, leaving the archive sitting in committee rooms getting nowhere while the self-archiving era that is upon us fails to be taken advantage of. The question of who can self-archive what, under what conditions, MUST be clarified, and clarified separately for unrefereed and refereed papers. > [Regarding refereed papers, many of the journals that would peer review > an author's ms will oppose the author's posting this in a public > archive. So the archive will require the participation of the journals. > If self-archiving is important to an author, don't you think they'll > take this into account when chosing a journal to submit to?] I couldn't disagree more! Consider the logic of the following: PREMISE: The motivation for the Archive is to make the bioscience and biomedical research literature available online to everyone for free. If journal publishers wanted to make it free online for everyone they could do it on their own! Most already have online archives, so archive availability is not the problem; they simply have no motivation to make it free. This is quite understandable, and I would not expect them to, at this point. But what I am rather confidently counting on is that they will not try to block self-archiving on the part of their authors as it becomes clear that this would be both in direct conflict with the interests of scientific research AND unnecessary (for there are other ways to recover the essential costs without blocking access). But if NIH ITSELF were to capitulate on self-archiving a priori, how can one expect authors to do it? (NIH should be NEUTRAL on journal self-archiving policy and should make the Archive open to authors self-archiving refereed papers. Let the community fight the copyright battle; don't simply capitulate on their behalf a priori!) http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Author.Eprint.Archives/0006.html It would be unrealistic bordering on nonsensical to expect or wait for authors to submit to a journal other than the best one for their paper, selecting instead on the basis of the journal's self-archiving policy. Would I rather submit to the PODUNK ARCHIVES OF PHYSIOLOGY rather than the JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY -- sacrificing the latter's prestige, high quality refereeing, high quality contents and high impact factor -- in favor of a weak journal, just because it had a liberal self-archiving policy? Of course not. So a policy like that would just ensure that the best authors and the best journals would not appear in the NIH/PubMed Central, because the better journals would be the last to agree to free archiving. By biasing the Archive toward the weakest end of the literature ab ovo, NIH would actually retard rather than hasten the day when the real research literature will be free, because that would simply stamp in the status quo and stamp the stigma of a low-end bias onto the medium from the very outset (in the minds of authors, who still scarcely know what is going on). > [publisher reaction to authors "freeing" their content on a public > site] I think publisher reaction should not be a concern of NIH's, any more than it is a concern of LANL,'s NSF's or DOE's. That is between the publishers and the author/reader community, i.e., the scientific community itself. NIH should not take sides. Provide the self-archiving facility and let the biological community decide how to use it, exactly as the physics community did with LANL. http://xxx.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/show_monthly_submissions http://xxx.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/show_weekly_graph > new journals, which participate in PubMed Central, could > start and attract authors This is still the same flaw as in the original proposal: It is being imagined/hoped that the Archive will spawn new journals, with new practices (including free online content) that will supplant the established journals/practices. I can only wish such hopes well, and sincerely hope they come true, because what I regard as the optimal and inevitable outcome for science -- the entire refereed journal literature online, free for all -- would indeed be reached if they did come true. Supplanting the literature through free new journals would free it as surely as self-archiving by authors would. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html But I strongly doubt that they will come true, and I fear that restricting the refereed sector of the archive to new journals (and to "participating" old ones) will simply drag out indefinitely a process that the NIH Archive had hoped to facilitate and accelerate. > [self-archiving would be seen as a direct assault by NIH on the > publishers and would not receive the support of NIH leadership, though > it might evolve eventually] I hope it is true that self-archiving might evolve. It seems to me that if NSF had seen the LANL archive as a "direct assault" by NSF on publishers, and hence unworthy of support, LANL would never have evolved either. Fortunately, the creation of LANL was in the hands of Paul Ginsparg, and he was not deterred by that consideration. http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/pg14Oct94.html Nor should NIH be deterred, of course. In providing an archive where authors can self-archive, as in LANL, they leave it to the authors to do the "assaulting" (if that's what it is -- but in reality I think the only assault comes from the existence of the new medium itself; the rest just has to do with how long it takes scientists to reach the optimal and inevitable outcome that the new medium has made possible for them). > [only a small fraction of journals have the impact that will attract the > best papers. For most papers of most life scientists, journals that > participate in PubMed Central would be very attractive because of > their stability and visibility (over 100,000 different scientists use > it every day)] Again, I can only wish this hope well. But I strongly doubt that the intangible benefits of free online access to all -- benefits that I have to stress are ENORMOUS in reality, but just barely enough to persuade authors IN PRACTISE to self-archive in an unrestricted self-archive (this is the leading-horses-to-water problem) -- will be enough to offset authors' well-established, sensible (and highly rewarded) practise of publishing their papers in the best journals they can get them into, which means the most prestigious, highest-quality, highest-impact-factor established journals. It is PRECISELY for this reason that I gave up on the hope that (1) establishing new rival online free journals, or (2) trying to persuade established publishers to go online and free were the way to free the literature. Authors will rarely risk their best work in a new journal, let alone a new online journal, etc. (and going online free is currently against established journals' interests). I took the path of subversive self-archiving because it was the ONLY one that did not require authors to make this choice (between their preferred established journal and something else): With self-archiving, they could have their cake (publish in the prestige refereed journal of their choice) and eat it too (give it away to one and all for free through self-archiving). http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/ The latest draft of the NIH proposal would instead be forcing authors with a choice between giving up on their preferred journals or giving up on free archiving, and my prediction is that the only ones who will choose the first option (apart perhaps from a few zealots like you and me) are weaker authors, the ones who would choose to submit to new journals anyway, because they think their chances of acceptance there are higher (and they are!), and weaker journals, brand new ones, or older ones who participate because they were barely staying afloat the old way. The result would be that FROM THE VERY OUTSET, the contents of NIH/PubMed Central would be associated with the low-end of the literature. The effect of that would only be to strengthen the (unjustified) notion that there is an inherent quality disparity between the for-free and the for-fee literature. And it would play into the hands of the publishers of the strong journals, whose interest is obviously in preserving the status quo for as long as possible. > [some of the journals that will be starting already seem likely > to attract the best articles in their field] Yes, well have another look at AAAS's On-Line Journal of Clinical Trials, which also looked as if it was going to "attract the best articles in their field" and see how its submissions are doing now. Or keep an eye on the IOP's brave new online-only Journal of Physics (for which I forecast quite a few years of uphill battles to fill their pages and cover their costs -- which I hope IOP will have the courage to sustain until something finally does succeed in putting us all over the threshold to the optimal/inevitable). Or, for that matter, have a look at my own decade-old online journal, Psycoloquy. It is still there, limping along, but it has hardly "captured" the literature yet -- and will never do so on the strength of new online journals alone. Something else is needed to get it all over the top. I had hoped it would be the NIH Archive. But if it does not support self-archiving, I am afraid it will not be. > [a number of outstanding scientists have indicated their interest in > getting involved. My assumption is that the "pyramid of science" will > exist quite soon in PubMed Central as it does in the current system - a > relatively small fraction of the journals will be seen as > prestigious...] I think your hopeful view is several orders more speculative than what the status quo and the evidence so far implies. You'll always have a few visionaries backing new initiatives. But the rank and file (and most of their leaders) will continue doing what has worked for them until now. Yes, free online accessibility to one's work is a COLOSSAL bonus -- in fact it's on that colossal bonus that all my efforts (and yours) are predicated. But the PROSPECT of this colossal bonus has been just barely able to get authors to drink from the waters of self-archiving so far, even when the facilities are available and they need give up none of their current practises and preferences, but merely to add a tiny task to them (self-archiving). The current NIH proposal would merely be erecting more hurdles before they even get to the water, on the strength of hopeful speculations about what people will/would/might/should do... > [There are possibilities for evolution in [the current proposal] that > could become very similar to your self-archiving ideas. I find much of > what you've written and continue to write interesting and useful. The > feedback from publishers has been quite helpful even when it's clear > they've no interest in participating. And believe me, this new > proposal will certainly stir the pot...] I hope so. But as it stands, it looks like it might just create another digression from the road to the optimal and the inevitable, instead of speeding us there! You may be right, and I may be wrong. But if it should happen to be the other way round, the only hope for my views is that if they are aired, so that others can take them up, if it is not to be NIH. So I hope you don't mind if I now post the gist of my replies in these off-line interactions -- removing your name paraphrasing your words. Ok? > [it was not just interactions with publishers that led to this > strategy - many scientists favored this approach as well] If Paul Ginsparg had conducted consultations with scientists before setting up his self-archiving software, physics would still be where biomedical research is now. Thanks for agreeing to let me post my prior replies (camouflaged). -------------------------------------------------------------------- Stevan Harnad har...@cogsci.soton.ac.uk Professor of Cognitive Science har...@princeton.edu Department of Electronics and phone: +44 2380 592-582 Computer Science fax: +44 2380 592-865 University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/ Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/ SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/