On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Albert Henderson wrote: > James E. Till sees science editors as the main barrier to the > circulation of free preprints. He should understand that there is > a good reason for editors' successful opposition, one that is not > as well recognized by the author as by the scientific world. Put > as succinctly as possible, the reason is that editors are responsible > for the integrity of the scientific record...
Without endorsing James E. Till's position (I don't think Science Editors are a barrier, nor that the real issue is primarily "preprints"), one can immediately correct the familiar error Albert Henderson is making here: He (and many others) are inadvertently conflating (1) refereed journal editors' GATE-KEEPING FUNCTION (in implementing and umpiring peer review) with (2) refereed journal publishers' TOLL-GATING FUNCTION (the collection of Subscription/License/Pay-Per-View [S/L/P] fees as a condition for access to the refereed paper. These two are entirely different matters; and although they were inextricably coupled in the Gutenberg Era, because of the necessary expenses of on-paper dissemination, they can -- and should and will -- be decoupled in the on-line era. In brief, we can now have and keep and pay for the essential gate-keeping function (peer review) without the need to block access with gate-tolls. So there is no longer any justification whatsoever for attempting to put up barriers to the circulation of free eprints (sic) in the name of protecting the "integrity of the scientific record." See: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#3.3. Separating (i) QC/C> Now, having said that it is not scientific editors who are the barriers, I must admit that some editors have allowed themselves to become spokesmen for the specious defense of continuing to hold the refereed corpus hostage to toll-gating in the name of gate-keeping. See the following for a full rebuttal: Harnad, S. (2000) E-Knowledge: Freeing the Refereed Journal Corpus Online. Computer Law & Security Report 16(2) 78-87. [Rebuttal to Bloom Editorial in Science and Relman Editorial in New England Journal of Medicine] http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm See also: Harnad, S. (2000) Ingelfinger Over-Ruled: The Role of the Web in the Future of Refereed Medical Journal Publishing. The Lancet Perspectives 256 (December Supplement): s16. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.lancet.htm But the issue is not only, nor even primarily, (unrefereed) "preprints." What can and should and will be made free through self-archiving is EPRINTS, which includes both unrefereed preprints and refereed postprints, and the latter are by far the more important to free. Yet the case of refereed postprints is the one in which it is most transparent that the real purpose of erecting barriers to their free circulation is to protect S/L/P toll-gate revenue streams, not to protect "the integrity of the scientific record"... See: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.5. Distinguish unrefereed preprints> Distinguish unrefereed preprints from refereed postprints, just as the scientific community has been successfully doing for decades, on-paper as well as on-line. > No one who has not performed the task of assessing and accepting > hundreds of manuscripts for publication can comprehend the potential > for poorly prepared, poorly presented, careless, biased, and > unscientific submissions. All true, and all irrelevant. Peer review does the Quality Control and Certification (QC/C), and self-archiving circulates the outcome for free. See: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.4. Distinguish self-publishing> Distinguish SELF-PUBLICATION (vanity press, no QC/C) from SELF-ARCHIVING (of both pre-QC/C and post QC/C work). And vide supra (distinguish preprints and postprints). > An automated preprint server would probably > accept and publish articles that would be rejected out of hand by > journal editors. See again: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.4. Distinguish self-publishing> Distinguish self-publication (vanity press, no QC/C) from self-archiving (of both both pre-QC/C and post QC/C work). And vide supra (distinguish preprints and postprints). > As William Garvey described the > scientists' problem more than 20 years ago, "Even if they had > perfect retrieval systems they would be presented with so many > items that they could not assimilate and process them." True, and completely irrelevant. See: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#4. Navigation (info-glut)> Needless toll-gating can no more be defended in the name of information-glut than it can be in the name of gate-keeping. If the new on-line navigational tolls are imperfect, they are still infinitely preferable to letting S/L/P budget constraints be the determinant of what one can and cannot access. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Stevan Harnad [email protected] Professor of Cognitive Science [email protected] Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582 Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865 University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/ Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/ SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html You may join the list at the site above. Discussion can be posted to: [email protected]
