19 Aug 93

         Richard W Meyer <RMEYER@TRINITY.EDU> wrote:

“ Do we really need archives?  Or, better still, do we even need

electronic journals?  If we need them, how come the growth

 in the number of lists and newsletters on the Internet has

 been approximately 123 percent over the past two years while

 e-journals have been added at a rate of only about 65

 percent? “

Because the unrefereed vanity press always flows more freely than

quality-controlled publication. Peer review takes time to implement on

the net and requires some initiative and innovation. Also, authors have

a lot of prima facie worries about publishing electronically rather than

on paper. All these worries have answers, but making THOSE known and

understood takes time too. Lists and newsletters don't have to prove

themselves on the net; their existence speaks for itself. Refereed

publication does. Hence the 123/65 ratio is meaningless. On the other

hand, the 65% annual growth rate for electronic journals (if accurate)

seems salutary in its own right. The figure represents a much more

significant phenomenon than mere lists and newsletters.

If you have been involved with editing or publishing

 an e-journal over this time period, have you been impressed

 with the growth of unsolicited submissions?  Or have the

 majority of the electronic journals started off strong but

 faded?  (Who has the numbers?)  Is it possible that this slow

 growth is indicating that something is going on other than

 what we expected?

Submission rate is and continues to be a problem, but predictably so.

Even new paper journals usually go through an initial period of reliance

on invited or encouraged submissions rather than just spontaneous

submission (and even so, many fail). Given the prima facie worries

alluded to earlier (academic credit, readership, permanence, etc.), be

they ever so readily answerable, it is not surprising that manuscript

flow will have to be "subsidized" when not only the journal, but the

medium itself is brand new to everyone.

 Let us see the statistics  for the cientific journal  PSYCOLOQUY  that I am Editor:

The article count for PSYCOLOQUY is 15/16/70 for 90/91/92 and at

49 currently, the estimate would be 84 by the end of 93. So growth

continues. Ahead of us is a critical mass (one that will probably

ramify across disciplines) after which the spontaneous submission

rate will pick up on its own. The growing PSYCOLOQUY readership (last

estimated at over 20,000) and the entry of citations to it in the paper

literature will also help with time. But it's no surprise to me that the

first decade requires a lot more encouragement than the first decade of

the paper journal I edit required: The net doesn't have centuries of

precedent and prior habit behind it; rather, it must OVERCOME them.

 If we examine the history of journals in the print domain we

 find that they have filled four roles.  Journals in print have  had to communicate, filter, authenticate, and archive.  1)  Journals play a role in communicating the results of  scholarship in order to keep scholars up to date on progress  and avoid duplication of effort as well as to establish  reputation of scholars in their discipline.  2)  By   concentrating the results of their work in specific disciplines  into the narrow areas represented by each journal title,

 journals play an important role as filters, which both lower   scholars' costs of information searching and provide   assurance that only acceptable contributions will appear.  3)   Perhaps most importantly, journals play the role of   authenticating the credentials of those who publish in them.

 The knowledge, expertise, and skills of the scholar are   captured and displayed in the works her or she publishes. This has   caused journals to play an important part in the tenure and   promotion review process.  They provide a low cost measure   of scholarly expertise.  4)  Of course, journals play a role in   archiving knowledge.  In effect, the print journal is an   institutional artifact created to accomplish these roles.  Do   they need to be accomplished in the same way in the   electronic domain?

Of course. What is there in the foregoing list that is medium-specific?

All these functions -- including the all-important quality-control

function of peer review -- can and will be performed electronally.

(Your list has implicit in it, indeed in the very fact that it is seen

as being in any way print-specific, several of those readily answered

prima facie objections twice alluded to here.)

 Consider the following scenario.  Suppose the typical scholar  has his or her own computer workstation with substantial   disc space.  Suppose every time the scholar reaches the point  of nearing final draft of her or his latest paper, that draft is   loaded to a file publicly available for FTP.  Suppose after he

 or she loads the paper, the scholar sends a message to a list   in his or her discipline announcing that the full report of the   latest work on a given topic is available for FTP; and suppose   the announcement contains a cogent  ummary of the paper.

 Now suppose also that  WWW, and  hypertext, etc., if you care to) technology is more efficient,   and is augmented by the inclusion of a subject descriptor

 filed on the original paerr.  I'm not sure how librarians will   develop a low cost method of providing classification   numbers to scholars, but lets assume a universal authority   control mechanism(s) emerges in association with scholarly   postings.  Better yet, assume that this new mechanism  is really smart as a   knowbot and can parse out the subject character of papers

 as well as good catalogers can.  Suppose also that the   scholar makes a habit, since disk space is so cheap, of   downloading and keeping copies of all the papers he finds in   other FTP sites (whether they be individuals or institutions)   that are of interest on his disk in the FTP archive.  Now, ask

 yourself, does this scenario describe an electronic   environment which accomplishes all the roles described   above for print journals?

You have described an unrefereed manuscript archive or vanity press; it

is no wonder that your point of comparison was lists and newsletters, as this is very much in that same spirit. But electronic JOURNALS, like  paper ones, have to be peer reviewed -- and peer-reviewed by HUMAN  PEERS, not some automatic content analyzer (no serious scholar or  scientist I know advocates THAT). So you are comparing apples and  oranges. Peer review on the net will have to be implemented EXACTLY the  way it is in paper, with guidance and validation by experts prior to  acceptance and publication. Moreover, there will be, just as in  paper, a qualitative hierarchy of peer-reviewed journals, to help guide  the reader. Though it can be optimized in certain ways electronically,

peer review is not medium-dependent. (See bibliography below.)

 Many messages to Internet lists communicate progress in   research and make it possible for readers to get access to full  copy.  The discipline specific nature of lists serves to filter   out much of the material not appropriate to the discipline.

 Downloading by others serves to authenticate the level of   importance of individual work.  And keeping downloaded files   serves to provide an archive (an efficient one) for posterity   and preservation of time stamps on  expressions.  Sounds   overly simplified, but if I were a journal publisher, I'd be   nervous.  What's more, I would be seeking to provide services   to that would accelerate development of this sort of scholarly   communications infrastructure. There could be money in   facilitating this model by asking scholars to pay a fee to load   their material.  In the meantime, how do we explain that   what I describe here is actually becoming fairly common?

Sounds like a specialized mechanism for unrefereed manuscripts rather

than the peer-reviewed archive serious scholars and scientists expect,

whether in paper or on the net. 

 Such a prepublication communication  network is certainly a valuable way of sharing not-yet-validated ideas  and findings, as they are already shared by word-of-mouth, phone,  letter, preprint, and unrefereed (paper) conference proceedings, but  those are all apples, and scholarly journal authors, editors, readers  and publishers are interested in oranges.

 What is a virtual journal (or even virtual library) if it ins't   the infrastructure  on the Internet that systematizes access   to articles by common themes, which are randomly   distributed on FTP sites around the world?  This virtual

 journal must fulfill all the roles that have been traditionally   fulfilled by journals in the print domain, but isn't this what  is emerging on the Internet right now?   You tell me, but be   sure to include an explanation of the relative growth rates of   lists versus journals and the seeming disinterest in

 publishing in those e-journals.

The relevant variable is refereed vs unrefereed, and it cuts across

media.

 Incidentally, if you are interested in the full draft of the

 paper which is herein summarized, please send me an e-mail

 note, and I'll post a copy to you.  In the meantime, I am

 looking for a place to publish it.

I hope you will update it to remove some of the prima facie  isunderstandings I've tried to point out here. And see Harnad (1990,  1991, 1992) for some revolutionary new interactive capabilities for  scholars and scientists that ONLY the net affords (refereed scholarly  "skywriting").

 Oh, wondering what these phenomena mean to librarians?

 Well, ask yourself why graduation rate totals from all US   library schools combined have dropped from approximately   8,000 per year to 4,000 per year over the last 20 years.

I hope (scholarly/scientific) librarians will become sophisticated in  these matters, ready not only to perform in the electronic world their  traditional role of selecting, acquiring, classifying, archiving, and  making searchable and retrievable the fruits of scholarly and  scientific research, but also to use this sophistication to inform  those who are new to or worried about the new medium. Unfortunately, your own analysis here is not one that will enlighten them; rather, it  will help keep them in the darkness of the easily dispelled prima  facie worries that beset everyone after centuries of doing everything

the old way.

              REFERENCES

Garfield, E. (1991) Electronic journals and skywriting: A complementary

medium for scientific communication? Current Contents 45: 9-11,

November 11 1991

Harnad, S. (1979) Creative disagreement. The Sciences 19: 18 - 20.

Harnad, S. (ed.) (1982) Peer commentary on peer review: A case study in

scientific quality control, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Harnad, S. (1984) Commentaries, opinions and the growth of scientific

knowledge. American Psychologist 39: 1497 - 1498.

Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science,

Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.

Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A

difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.)

Nature 322: 24 - 5.

Harnad, S. (1990) Scholarly Skywriting and the Prepublication Continuum

of Scientific Inquiry. Invited Commentary on: William Gardner:  The

Electronic Archive: Scientific Publishing for the 90s Psychological

Science 1: 342 - 343 (reprinted in Current Contents 45: 9-13, November

11 1991).

Harnad, S. (1991) Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolution in the

Means of Production of Knowledge. Public-Access Computer Systems Review

2 (1): 39 - 53 (also reprinted in PACS Annual Review Volume 2

1992; and in R. D. Mason (ed.) Computer Conferencing: The Last Word. Beach

Holme Publishers, 1992; and in A. L. Okerson (ed.) Directory of

Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists, 2nd

edition. Washington, DC, Association of Research Libraries, Office of

Scientific & Academic Publishing, 1992).

Harnad, S. (1992) Interactive Publication: Extending the

American Physical Society's Discipline-Specific Model for Electronic

Publishing. Serials Review, Special Issue on Economics Models for

Electronic Publishing (in press)

Katz, W. (1991) The ten best magazines of 1990.

Library Journal 116: 48 - 51.

Mahoney, M.J. (1985) Open Exchange and Epistemic Progress.

American Psychologist 40: 29 - 39.

Wilson, D. L. (1991) Testing time for electronic journals.

Chronicle of Higher Education September 11 1991: A24 - A25.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Stevan Harnad

Editor, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, PSYCOLOQUY

Cognitive Science Laboratory |    Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement

Princeton University         |    URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.

221 Nassau Street            |    Universite d'Aix Marseille II

Princeton NJ 08544-2093      |    13388 Marseille cedex 13, France

harnad@princeton.edu         |    harnad@riluminy.univ-mrs.fr

609-921-7771                 |    33-91-66-00-69

       PEER REVIEW, OPEN PEER COMMENTARY AND PLEBISCITE

Ken Laws wrote:

 Peer review and the imprimatur of publication

 are designed to produce archival-quality technical papers.  With a

 bit of editing, many of these papers are even readable.  But is it

 really necessary to have a prestigious editorial board or a

 blue-ribbon reviewer panel decide what I will be allowed to read?

 An alternative is to permit readers (members, subscribers) access

 to all submitted works, and to titles and abstracts of proposed

 papers.  Various ways of appending or responding to reader

 feedback are possible.  Then have a sort of "best paper" vote

 each month to determine which papers will receive the journal's

 sanction as being "ready for prime time."  A larger audience

 will then choose to read the papers, and might be involved in

 a best-paper-of-the-year competition.  -- Ken Laws

Ken Laws's vision and resourcefulness are commendable. I think, however,

that he conflates two relatively independent desiderata in the

following: Peer Review and Open Peer Commentary. I have some experience

with both, and they assuredly do NOT perform the same function, nor can

one replace the other. 

The Net should be open, and should allow open discussion, all the

way down to the unmoderated vanity press. But it should ALSO allow those

who wish to filter their information more DISCRIMINATINGLY (and do not

have the time or inclination to sample everything) to systematically

restrict their reading (and writing) to peer reviewed material (and

even here there is a hierarchy of rigor with which peer review can be

implemented, and readers/authors should have their choice).

Open Peer Commentary is splendid, indeed, in my opinion, it represents

the truly revolutionary dimension of electronic scholarly communication

("Scholarly Skywriting"). I've devoted over a decade and a half of my

life to it, in paper and on the Net. But it is no SUBSTITUTE for Peer

Review. It is a COMPLEMENT to it. Indeed, Peer Commentary itself, at

the higher levels of the quality-control hierarchy, itself needs to be

peer-reviewed.

The value of ideas and findings is not ascertained by a box score!

Otherwise scholarly inquiry will devolve to the level of the beauty

contests and opinion/consumer polls of the mass media. Let the vanity press  thrive, but please allow for the option of a more disciplined,

constrained and answerable medium too -- and answerable to something

other than a head count! Democracy is for people. Ideas require that the

best be judged by the best; if they are judged by all, you will simply

get regression onto the mean. The emphasis in peer reviw is on PEER, not

PLEBS.

Some references (retrievable by anonymous ftp) follow 

Cognitive Science Laboratory |    Laboratoire Cognition et Mouvement

Princeton University         |    URA CNRS 1166 I.B.H.O.P.

221 Nassau Street            |    Universite d'Aix Marseille II

Princeton NJ 08544-2093      |    13388 Marseille cedex 13, France

harnad@princeton.edu         |    harnad@riluminy.univ-mrs.fr

609-921-7771                 |    33-91-66-00-69

The following three files are retrievable from directory pub/harnad/Harnad on host princeton.edu

Harnad, S. (1990) Scholarly Skywriting and the Prepublication Continuum

of Scientific Inquiry. Psychological Science 1: 342 - 343 (reprinted in

Current Contents 45: 9-13, November 11 1991).

FILENAME: harnad90.skwriting

Harnad, S. (1991) Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolution in the

Means of Production of Knowledge. Public-Access Computer Systems Review

2 (1): 39 - 53 (also reprinted in PACS Annual Review Volume 2

1992; and in R. D. Mason (ed.) Computer Conferencing: The Last Word. Beach

Holme Publishers, 1992; and in: M. Strangelove & D. Kovacs: Directory of

Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists (A.

Okerson, ed), 2nd edition. Washington, DC, Association of Research

Libraries, Office of Scientific & Academic Publishing, 1992).

FILENAME: harnad91.postgutenberg

Harnad, S. (1992) Interactive Publication: Extending the

American Physical Society's Discipline-Specific Model for Electronic

Publishing. Serials Review, Special Issue on Economics Models for

Electronic Publishing, pp. 58 - 61.

FILENAME: harnad92.interactivpub

------------------------------------------------------------

The following are available only in paper:

Harnad, S. (1979) Creative disagreement. The Sciences 19: 18 - 20.

Harnad, S. (ed.) (1982) Peer commentary on peer review: A case study in

scientific quality control, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Harnad, S. (1984) Commentary on Garfield:  Anthropology journals:  What

they cite and what cites them. Current Anthropology 25: 521 - 522.

Harnad, S. (1984) Commentaries, opinions and the growth of scientific

knowledge. American Psychologist 39: 1497 - 1498.

Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science,

Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.

Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A

difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.)

Nature 322: 24 - 5.