APPENDIX 98
Memorandum from the Institute of Food
Science and Technology
1. WHAT IMPACT
DOES PUBLISHERS'
CURRENT POLICIES
ON PRICING
AND PROVISION
OF SCIENTIFIC
JOURNALS, ETC?
Pricing policies have had the effect of "biting
the hand that feeds them" and many libraries have had to
cut back substantially on the titles taken and the days of multiple
copies of the same journal in different parts of a university
are long gone. Rationalisation of the titles taken has become
the norm with smaller or minority interests being squeezed out.
This has limited the journals consulted by scholars and researchers
and this has certainly not facilitated scientific rigour and scholarship.
The cost of accessing scientific journals is
undoubtedly high and it is also true that many scientists give
their time to journals without charge, in the case of referees
who play the key role in the peer-review process, or with a small
honorarium, in the case of editors. Traditionally, as with the
assessment of grant applications and membership of the boards
of funding bodies, this has been part of the support that scientists
have given to their community. Hence, the argument that publishers
make considerable profits out of journals is valid. However, it
must also be remembered that many journals are published by scientific
societies and their publication often represents a significant
proportion of the society's income, which is then recycled into
the scientific community through the societies' activities. From
this it is clear that there is a difference between publishers
who produce journals for financial gain and publications, which
are linked with professional bodies and subsidise wider scientific
activities. In relation to this latter point, membership of a
professional body can provide a "good deal" in relation
to a beneficial subscription to the linked publication.
2. WHAT ARE
THE CONSEQUENCES
OF INCREASING
NUMBERS OF
OPEN ACCESS
JOURNALS?
The open access approach has the attraction
that it would make the scientific literature more freely available
to those who wished to use it. However, it would only be free
at the point of access since someone would have to pay for it.
In most credible models the funding would come from the authors
and this, in effect, means the bodies funding the research. This
creates a number of problems:
(i) Why should an author, who pays for the
publication, readily permit the text of the paper to be criticised,
changed or rejected?;
(ii) The pressure to accept papers would
be much higher, especially as in the open access environment the
web publishing of un-refereed papers would be very tempting;
(iii) There is likely to be a significant
impact on the income of professional scientific societies that
publish their own journals;
(iv) If author-paying journals became the
norm it would tend to cut out authors from the third world who
could not afford to pay for publication. The counter argument
is that some authors would be allowed to publish without cost
but this would either increase the costs to paying authors or
limit the number of non-paying authors;
(v) The same problem applies to publications
from the work of postgraduate students where research councils
do not pay publication costs. Where would such publication costs
be found since it is vital to provide postgraduate students with
the satisfaction and excitement of publishing their findings?
Would another class of non-paying author be created?; and
(vi) It is important to have a "level
playing field" if future assessments of research quality
continue to focus on the perceived quality of published research
output.
A very major problem with web publication is
that since it is uncontrolled there is no peer review process
and there can be no control of the validity of anything published
through the vehicle of the Internet.
3. WHAT IMPACT
WILL TRENDS
IN ACADEMIC
PUBLISHING HAVE
ON THE
RISKS OF
SCIENTIFIC FRAUD
AND MALPRACTICE?
These risks are increasing. In the same way
that students can, if so minded, plagiarise material from the
Internet and pass it off as their own, the same risks and opportunities
occur for malpractice in the publication of scientific results.
At the end of the day, any controls arise from the knowledge of
the peer-reviewer and the integrity and principles of the researcher.
These are personal characteristics, which would be impossible
to "enforce" in a totally open system. IFST is firmly
of the view that peer review is crucial and is the only appropriate
quality check for scientific publication. IFST considers that
there are no circumstances where authors should make public the
results of their R&D without a quality check. It is also pertinent
that membership of a professional scientific society encourages
a professional approach in authors.
February 2004
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