On Fri, 1 Jun 2001, George Lundberg wrote: > In the document entitled Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted > to Medical Journals published by the International Committee of Medical > Journal Editors it is stated that "...electronic publication is > publication..." Most such journals do not wish to consider for > publication a paper that has already been published. Thus an author can > choose the initial method of distribution of written work once only.
It is not clear to me why George posted this comment in the "Copyright" thread. Nor does the brief passage he quotes appear in the version I found on the Web (original draft 1978, revised in 1997, last update of web version 5 May 2000). http://www.cma.ca/mwc/uniform.htm The closest approximation I could find was: "Most journals do not wish to receive papers on work that has already been reported in large part in a published article or is described in a paper that has been submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere, in print or in electronic media. This policy does not preclude the journal considering a paper that has been rejected by another journal, or a complete report that follows publication of a preliminary report such as an abstract or poster displayed for colleagues at a professional meeting. Nor does it prevent journals considering a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting but not published in full or that is being considered for publication in a proceedings or similar format." I doubt that George is meaning to construe this as the "Ingelfinger Rule," which has nothing to do with copyright, and which some journals try to invoke as a justification for declining to publish or even to referee papers that have been archived online as preprints. If that is George's intention, then please note that the Ingelfinger Rule is neither a legal matter nor is it enforceable. Nor does it have any justification -- scientific, ethical, or otherwise. It is merely a measure for protecting journal revenue streams. (About protecting public health, see references below.) And it has been discussed in this Forum, before (e.g., under the thread "Ingelfinger and physics journals"). Harnad, S. (2000) Ingelfinger Over-Ruled: The Role of the Web in the Future of Refereed Medical Journal Publishing. Lancet Perspectives 256 (December Supplement): s16. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.lancet.htm 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 Journalof Medicine] http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/eletters/285/5425/197#EL12 Nor do I think George is merely trying to remind us of a home truth that everyone in the American Scientist Forum surely knows and accepts already: That a refereed electronic-only journal is indeed a journal, hence publication in such a journal is indeed publication. So just what point WAS George trying to make with this posting? -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
