Electronic publishing and Acupuncture in Medicine

Transcription

1 Electronic publishing and Acupuncture in Medicine Adrian White Abstract The internet has fundamenty altered scientific publishing; this article discusses current models and how they affect this journal. The greatest innovation is a new range of open access journals published only on the internet, aimed at rapid publication and universal access. In most cases authors pay a publication charge for the overhead costs of the journal. Journals that are published by professional organisations primarily for their members have some functions other than publishing research, including clinical articles, conference reports and news items. Asm number of these journals are permitting open access to their research reports. Commercial science publishing still exists, where profit for shareholders provides motivation in addition to the desire to spread knowledge for the benefit of. Arange of electronic databases now exists that offer various levels of listing and searching. Some databases provide direct links to journal articles, such as the LinkOut scheme in PubMed. Acupuncture in Medicine will continue to publish in paper format; research articles will be available on open access, but non-subscribers will need to pay for certain other articles for the first 12 months after publication. All Acupuncture in Medicine articles will in future be included in the LinkOut scheme, and be presented to the databases electronicy. Keywords Electronic publishing, journals. Introduction The invention of the internet has provided the opportunity for fundamental dramatic changes in science publishing, particularly in speed and ease of access. Material can now be published almost instantly, and accessed even more swiftly from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Articles can be published and distributed via the internet at very much lower costs than printed journals or books, and free access therefore becomes a reality. Moreover, the capacity for storage is virtuy unlimited, and information can be searched readily and accurately, to find exactly what is wanted. This development has been a chenge to the traditional concepts of medical publication, and new models have been developed for publishing, archiving and accessing research reports and other articles. The editorial board and publishers of Acupuncture in Medicine have reconsidered how they can best meet the needs of their readers, in a way that matches the journal s over objective, viz the publication of material that advances our knowledge and understanding of acupuncture from a western scientific point of view. The aim of this article is to summarise the most common varieties of publishing models in current use, and to describe the changes that will occur with this journal. Open access electronic journals Perhaps the greatest innovation in medical publishing has been the arrival of entirely new, web-based journals that offer open access, complete with new editorial boards, websites and archives. Articles can be searched, accessed, and downloaded from any internet connection, without charge, and reproduced with only one condition that they must be correctly attributed to the original publication. This move is epitomised by an international organisation ced Adrian White editor in chief editor@medicalacupuncture.org.uk Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright

2 BioMed Central (BMC), which publishes its own series of journals, and hosts a range of other journals, with the same underlying philosophy. BioMed Central views open access as essential for the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. All original research articles published by BioMed Central are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. BioMed Central is committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review. The BMC journals also operate open peer review, in which reviewers are asked to sign their reviews. For these titles, the pre-publication history of each paper (including submitted versions, reviewers reports and authors responses) is linked to the published article. Avital principle of BioMed Central is to reduce the time of processing the article to bare minimum. Articles are now published by BMC on acceptance. If the information is relevant to the public, then it is relevant now. Their target is to complete stages of review and resubmission and archive publication within eight weeks of the first submission which is about the same time it takes for conventional journals to simply organise page-setting, printing and mailing to their subscribers, let alone the whole review and resubmission process. BioMed Central contains two categories of journals: some come under the ultimate editorial control of BMC itself, and are identified by names that start with the letters BMC. In addition, BMC offers a kind of umbrella for about 100 independent journals, which are either journals newly launched by research groups or professional bodies, or journals that were already in existence and have transferred to BMC. All these journals agree with the objectives of BMC and have to meet certain quality standards including peer review of content apart from book reviews. These journals use the same instructions to authors and are presented online using the standard BMC template. Some of the content of some journals (eg Arthritis Research and Therapy) is limited to subscribers only. Although BMC is the main open access publisher, some other examples are shown Table 1. One drawback of internet publication is that it still has to be paid for. In the traditional model the reader paid, either by subscription or through reprint charges, and the journal retained copyright in order to keep control over this source of income. While internet publishing saves the costs of printing and distribution, the editing, support staff, overheads and associated information technology still have to be funded. BioMed Central have decided to charge the authors, in order to maintain their journals independence from industry and advertising. The cost of publishing in BMC is 750 per article, though this charge is waived for authors coming from developing nations. Also, in many cases the submitting author will be a member of an institution that subscribes to BMC, such as a university or the National Health Service, and can thereby claim free submission. The UK Research Councils encourage wide dissemination of research results. Mostly, this encouragement fs short of insisting on publication in an open access journal, but Wellcome Trust does make open access publication a specific condition of awarding a grant (see Box). Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from Table 1 Some examples of internet-only journals publishing primary research with open access publisher, URL e-journal name open access to content BioMed Central Arthritis Research and Therapy research only BMC Anesthesiology BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine BMC Family Practice BMC Medicine BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine Public Library of Science PLoS Medicine PLoS Clinical Trials Dr. Gunther Eysenbach Journal of Medical Internet Research on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright

3 Extract from statement by The Wellcome Trust UK ( The Wellcome Trust has a fundamental interest in ensuring that the availability and accessibility of this material is not adversely affected by the copyright, marketing and distribution strategies used by publishers (whether commercial, not-for-profit or academic). The Wellcome Trust therefore supports unrestricted access to the published output of research as a fundamental part of its charitable mission and a public benefit to be encouraged wherever possible. Specificy, the Wellcome Trust expects authors of research papers to maximise the opportunities to make their results available for free and, where possible, to retain their copyright, and will provide grant holders with additional funding to cover the costs of page processing charges levied by publishers who support the open access model Several organisations exist that provide repositories of electronic journals in order to ensure permanent availability. The best known of these is probably PubMed Central (see also database access) Membership journals Many medical journals originy evolved out of newsletters or conference reports of professional organisations. Although these journals existed partly to publish scientific reports, they had additional roles including for example interpreting and summarising recent advances in practice for their members, publishing reports of conferences and news items, commenting in editorials, and informing members of meetings and events. They also perform a more subtle but important role in generating feelings of ownership among the members. Collecting and editing this material is expensive. The costs can reasonably be covered by membership subscriptions but not by an author pays model. The best-known example of a membership journal is the British Medical Journal. They experimented with open access for some years before changing policy in the beginning of 2005 to a mixed model: scientific reports are now available open access from the moment of publication, but nonsubscribers have to pay for other material for the first 12 months after publication. The BMJ is particularly to be praised for publishing figures in a way that can be downloaded as PowerPoint slides and inserted directly into presentations, which is a fine example of the principle of open access taken to its logical conclusion. Afew other print journals offer free access to research articles. For example, Oxford Journals are also experimenting in the area of free access to research articles in journals that are membership journals, including for example Rheumatology (Oxford). In addition, Oxford Journals publish Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (e-cam) which is freely available but in this case funded by industry (Ishikawa Natural Medicinal Products Research Center). Although some membership journals sell individual articles electronicy at a nominal charge, others regard their published articles as a source of income and in this respect are acting more like commercial publishers described in the following section. Many journals, including membership journals, are now subscribed to by institutions such as the universtities and the National Health Service. Contracts are drawn up with various providers sometimes the publishers themselves and sometimes an intermediary organisation for whole blocks of journals which are then password protected and accessible only to employees, who can download articles without charge. Commercial scientific publishing The masterstroke that made Robert Maxwell his millions from science publication was to recognise that people will work without a fee: researchers are highly motivated to write and publish their work ( publish or perish ), peer reviewers regard it as a duty to contribute to the scientific community, and editors are rewarded by the prestige alone. On top of that, other clinicians and libraries would pay handsomely for the work. All the publisher has to do is to provide the administration for this activity, and bank the profits. This business model of science publishing is still prominent, as is evident from the costs of online reprints from some journals (Table 2). Aparticular example of profit-making became apparent when investigating the journal NeuroImage: if any author Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright

4 Table 2 Accessibility and cost of downloading pdf files of some recent articles on acupuncture First author, topic citation cost of download* Ezzo J, PC6 for nausea J Altern Complement Ther 2006;12: $29 Hui K, MRI study of acupuncture Neuroimage 2005;27: $30 Martin D, Fibromyalgia, RCT Mayo Clin Proc 2006;81: $5 Park J, Stroke rehabilitation, RCT Arch Int Med 2006;165: $15 Scharf H, Knee pain, RCT Ann Int Med 2006;145:12-20 $20 Staud R, Mechanisms review Expert Rev Neurother 2006;6: Takahashi T, Functional gastrointestinal disorders, review J Gastroenterol 2006;41: Williams J, Depression, pilot RCT Int J Geriatric Psychiatry 2006;21(6): $25 Zhang W, Bone strength in rats J Tradit Chin Med 2006;26: single articles not available *this figure does not include local taxes wishes his or her article to be freely accessible online, they have to sponsor the article by paying a $3000 fee. This is clearly excessive, particularly since the publisher s website clearly states that the article will already have been included in enough institutional subscriptions to be available to Worldwide approximately 10 million scientists. This business model of publishing is a major stimulus to various organisations such as Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC, This is an iance of universities, research libraries, and organisations committed to correct market dysfunctions which have reduced dissemination of scholarship and crippled libraries. The accessibility and costs of purchasing various recent articles on acupuncture (selected unsystematicy for diversity of topic and journal) are shown in Table 2. lists of article titles, with an icon which leads to the abstract. Acoloured icon indicates an electronic link exists to the article. Clicking it brings up the abstract of the article, which is marked with the journal logo. This acts as an electronic link; in the case of journals that charge for downloading, you are directed to the journal website and shown how to pay; but in the case of open access articles, the link opens the article directly in a new window. Other websites offer a slightly different facility: they catalogue the journals, not the individual articles (see Table 3). They vary in what they offer, and it is important to understand the limitations of each site in order to make best use of its facilities. At one extreme, Free Medical Journals only offers links to the journal websites, while at the other extreme Highwire Press hosted by Stanford University offers advanced searching facilities for individual articles by text word, title word or author. Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from Electronic databases and catalogues Electronic databases of individual journal articles, such as PubMed, Embase, AMED and Science Citation Index, are long established, well known and a major resource for researchers. These databases have slight differences in the range of journals covered and the information provided, but in general they do not inform the searcher whether the article is available by electronic access or only by paper copy. Therefore researchers are required to search again individuy for the articles they are interested in, either at the website of the journal or at some library. However, PubMed has introduced a major innovation LinkOut. Searches in PubMed produce Policy for Acupuncture in Medicine This journal is primarily aimed at its subscribers both those who subscribe through membership of their professional body, and individual subscribers. We believe that the great majority of these readers will want to continue to read a paper journal. Apaper copy of the journal still has distinct benefits for the reader. Foremost among these is ease of handling: a paper copy can be accessed between patients in the clinic, in bed, in front of the fire, on a train. An e- journal is simply not as flexible. Reading text on paper is twice as fast as reading it on screen; in particular, flicking through the journal to find articles of interest is much quicker on paper. Many clinicians on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright

5 Table 3 Some websites where open access journals are catalogued and accessible name URL search facility, other notes Directory of open access journals DOAJ (Lund University) Health InterNetwork HINARI do not access the internet regularly and do not feel comfortable doing so. Aprinted copy of the journal lands on the doormat and has a physical presence in the brief case or on the coffee table, whereas the electronic equivalent an e-alert is likely to be submerged in the morass of other s and forgotten. The time that professionals set aside for reading s is often different from the type of time we set aside for reading journals. Besides, internet access is far from universal, and the large files sizes of many of the articles may lead to frustration in downloading if the clinician does not have broadband access to the internet. Finy, clinicians often store paper copies of the journal at their workplace, which makes it more likely that others will read them. However, many of the articles in Acupuncture in Medicine will be of interest and importance to researchers, who would otherwise not wish to subscribe to the journal. The articles should be available for a variety of reasons: for example, case reports and case series suggest hypotheses and can be used to develop protocols, and to support applications for grants; and clinical trials need to be accessible for inclusion in systematic literature reviews. Apart from the argument that these data actuy belong to the patient not the author, and therefore should be freely available, there is the argument that the journal itself benefits from being cited in other journal articles, raising its profile and possibly attracting the submission of good quality papers to the longer term benefit of its readers. Therefore, individual research articles past, present and future in Acupuncture in Medicine will from now on be available free on-line from the moment of publication, at the new website searchable searchable; free access only in developing countries FreeMedicalJournals.com search by journal title only HighWire Press Stanford University highwire.stanford.edu/ fully searchable PubMed Central pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ fully searchable SciELO Scientific Electronic Library Online searchable; Brazilian journals only inmedicine.org.uk. This is a significant change from the previous system whereby whole issues have been available to members and subscribers, but not articles individuy. The next change concerns the way these articles can be located. Anyone who visits the journal website can search the volume index, either by volume and page number, or (soon) by author or by keyword. However, researchers are more likely to learn about the existence of an article by searching one of the regular databases: therefore Acupuncture in Medicine has now joined the LinkOut scheme (described above). Any researcher whose search finds an article in this journal can access the abstract in one mouseclick, and the article itself with a second click. It has not been possible to arrange LinkOut for previous articles back to 2001, when the journal was first included in PubMed, but it will operate from now on for the foreseeable future. The third change operates behind the scenes : we used to send a paper copy of the journal to the National Library of Medicine for secretarial staff there to enter the titles, authors, abstracts, and keywords into the database by hand, and derive the MeSH terms. This could take up to a month. From now on, this process is almost entirely automated: we send an electronic file of the journal, prepared by our printers, to PubMed at the moment of publication of the journal and this is entered into the database immediately as in process citation and available for searching straightaway. Over the following week or two the library staff cross-check the entries and construct the MeSH terms to complete the permanent index entry. This will make little difference to the average reader, but those who use automated alert systems for new articles such as Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright

6 PubCrawler will be aware of new articles at the moment of publication. In conclusion, Acupuncture in Medicine believes it is making best reasonable use of current technology to increase the access to acupuncture research articles, and to increase the journal s visibility while still preserving a sense of ownership among its subscribers. Acupunct Med: first published as /aim on 1 January Downloaded from on 14 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright