New Patterns for scientific communication on OSH: The view of scientific editors

Introduction:

The on-line circulation of scientific journals is both an opportunity and a challenge for the scientific editorial sector, because it modifies the sector’s relations either with the reading public and with the scientific community who develops the contents. New audience profiles and new ways of access to and use of the scientific information are coming up and call for a reappraisal of the contents and of the process of evaluation and review of scientific papers.

Main Body of Abstract:

During the last years, e-journals have risen sharply their relevance in the system of scholarly communication. In the period from 2004 to 2009 the American libraries expenditures in electronic resources increased from 36.4% of total expenditures to 75,8% and expenditures for on-line journals subscription raised up from about 541.000 $ to about 1.500.000 $.

In 2008, 96% of Scientific, Technical and Medical  journals were available online and 87% of arts, humanities and social sciences journals were accessible electronically (source: STM Report, 2009).

As outlined by STM report this dramatic development of online versions of scientific journals has led to a greatly increased access to the scientific literature. This has been possible because the "low marginal costs of electronic distribution have allowed publishers to offer access to sets of journals for relatively small additional licence fees compared to the previous total print subscriptions at the institution" (STM Report, 2009). This trend is confirmed by Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics which show that the number of serials purchased per ARL libraries increased from 131.525 in 2001 to 211.471 in 2009.

The reduction of publishing costs has also contributed (at least in part) to the increase of in the number of articles published per year. This can be confirmed by NSF analysis (NSF 2008), which reported that the number of articles catalogued by Thomson Reuter’s Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) grew by 2.3% p.a. between 1995 and 2005 (from 564,645 to 709,541). Moreover, this growth coincide, in part, with an increase in the number of articles per journal (from 117 in 1988 to 139 in 2005) (source: STM Report, 2009).

Despite this impressive growth in publishing and using electronic resources, their potential contribution to the development and circulation of scientific knowledge is still far to be fully understood and exploited:

- new business models are offered to scientific journals publishers. The reduction of publishing costs for electronic articles make an alternative scholarly publishing model based on authors payment feasible.

Furthermore the opportunity to offer an open access to the scientific articles online version after an embargo period, is persuading an even growing number of journal publishers to adopt a delayed open access model. This model allows an increase in the circulation of articles without compromising the revenues. 

- institutional and central subject-based repositories (such as PubMed Central) and related self archiving practices of author's un-refereed articles or final refereed manuscripts are emerging as an alternative to journals for the open access to scientific contents.

- the “usage indexes” based on online articles download statistics offer an interesting alternative to citation indexes to measure the scientific impacts. The resulting usage data allow scientific activity to be observed immediately upon publication, rather than to wait for citations to emerge in the published literature (P.T. Sheperd, 2007). Furthermore some studies show that the usage based measures can represent stronger indicators of scientific Prestige than many available citation measures (J. Bollenet al. 2009).

- the growing use of search engines (such as Google and Google Scholar) and Abstract and Index (A&I) databases (as showed by Inger & Gardner's 2008 study) is modifying the ways readers access and navigate to journals. This change has consequences for publishers who are called to support all conceivable routes to their content through the web (this, for example, can be achieved through the open distribution of XML metadata catalogues, through RSS feeds, collaboration with CrossRef, library technology vendors and through working with major gateways, A&Is and search engines).

- the spreading information technology lead (together with the contribution of other factors) to the increase of international collaboration in drafting scientific articles. By the way of example, the articles published in EU with at least one co-author from a non-EU country, accounted for 36% of all articles in 2003, up from 17% in 1988 (NSF 2006).

-  electronic submission and publishing technology offer new opportunities for peer-reviewing the manuscripts. For instance, an open post publication peer review process which involves all readers can be developed by using Web 2.0 platforms. Furthermore a reduction in publication times can be achieved through online submission systems which can help reviewers to assess the manuscript and to detect plagiarism

Conclusions:

Within this framework of communication patterns’ changing, the round table aims to stimulate a debate among the principal scientific journals’ editors to understand the impact of these changes in the OHS scientific community. To this purpose, during the round table, participants will be invited to answer to the following questions:

• Accounting for the circulation of on-line digital platforms for the meta-analytical search of scientific contents (i.e. google scholar), how has the use of scientific publications by OSH professional changed? How does the opportunity to carry out free transversal content search affect scientific journals’ fruition?
• How do the needs of ensuring the quality of scientific contents and of responding promptly to the emerging scientific issues balance? How does the need of reducing the time of scientific review procedures affect scientific articles’ quality?
• What are trends and expectations for traditional journals on paper? What is the market place for on-line scientific journals?
• What are the indicators to be used to evaluate the scientific production in OSH sector? What is the future of the existing indicators like Impact Factor and H-Index?
• What contribution has to be expected by scientific associations in the production of collective scientific works? What is the role of these associations in the creation of multinational and trans-institutional working groups?

References:

• Albanese, R. (2009) Institutional Repositories: Thinking Beyond the Box, Library Journal 1

March 2009

• ARL (2002-2005-2009) Annual Statistics 2001-2002, 2004-2005, 2008-2009
• ARL (2009) Statement to Scholarly Publishers on the Global Economic Crisis, February 2009.
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Competition? Publishing Research Consortium

http://www.publishingresearch.net/self_archiving2.htm

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arXiv:0902.2183v1

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policies and practices in online publishing. Third survey (ALPSP) http://is.gd/3Q932

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Bench Marks blog

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JISC

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http://www.sic.ox14.com/publications.htm

• NSF (2006) Science and Engineering Indicators 2006, National Science Foundation

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/

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http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/

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Rapporteurs :

• Sergio Iavicoli (Director of Occupational Medicine Department INAIL /ICOH Secretary General)
• Tee L. Guidotti (Chief Editor of Archives of Environmental & Occupational )
• Mikko Härmä (Editor in chief of Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health)
• Frank Van Dijk  (Coronel Institute of. Occupational Health, Academic Medical Center)

Round Table Discussants:

• Anil Adisesh (Assistant editor for Occupational Medicine)
• Bonnie Rogers  (Editor of Journal for Legal Nurse Consulting)
• Seong-Kyu KANG (Editor in Chief  of Safety and Health at Work)
• Shin-ichi Sawada (Managing editor of Industrial Health)
• Mikko Härmä (Editor in chief Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health)
• Tee L. Guidotti (Chief Editor of Archives of Environmental & Occupational )

Time                         Semiplenary Session structure

11:00 – 11:05        Welcome

11:05 - 11:20         New patterns for scientific communication on OSH: an overview – Sergio Iavicoli

11.20 – 11.35        Publishing in Occupational and Environmental Medicine - Tee L. Guidotti

11.35 – 11.50      The change of scientific contents of OSH scientific journals: bibliometric analysis  of the Scand   J Work Environ & Health over the last 10 years  - Mikko Härmä

11.50 – 12.05      Knowledge translation from science to practice, but how? - Frank van Dijk

12:05 – 12:45      Round table with the following discussants:

• Anil Adisesh
• Seong-Kyu KANG
• Bonnie Rogers 
• Shin-ichi Sawada
• Tee L. Guidotti
• Mikko Härmä