Electronic Publishing at Humboldt University, Berlin

Article Review

5. Muller et al (2006) reports the electronic publishing activities at Humboldt University, Berlin. The E-Publishing system originally established to merely publish electronic theses and dissertations as well as postdoctoral theses. The university library and the computer and media service have installed a joint electronic publishing group, which concentrates on offering the service to potential authors and editors. Besides enhancing the visibility of the university’s research results, to increase the availability of Humboldt University’s scientific output especially those that were hardly available and accessible like dissertations or research papers, it is the primary goal to establish a ‘new culture for e-publishing’ within and outside the university by encouraging scientists to use new publishing models and change publication habits. The edoc server at Humboldt University, Berlin has become the service platform for scholarly publications of all types. It is an integral part of the university’s information infrastructure which also contains a teaching management system (Moodle), a virtual library portal (Metalib) and a media portal (Mneme). The edoc server itself has become a DINI certified server in 2004. ProPrint, a print-on-demand service jointly developed by Humboldt University and the State university library, Gottingen deliver the tailor-made publications as paper back copies by using a PDF merge function. To support peer review processes the university offer two different systems; a conference system and GAPworks. The authors conclude that the interest of the university primarily was to enhance the visibility of its scientific output and excellence and not to reach the maximum monetary return of investment in this case. But it was obvious that edoc and the electronic publishing service do not convince large parts of the university to change from traditional publication habits. There are still necessary technological and organizational enhancements to be done.

           

     Uwe Muller, Manuael Klatt, Susanne Dobratz, Sven Bahnik (2006, June). Electronic Publishing at Humboldt University, Berlin: Concept, Tools and Services.- Proceedings ELPUB 2006 conference on Electronic Publishing- Bansko, Bulgaria.

Back to Academia?

Article Review

4. Okerson (1991) discusses the contribution of academicians towards scientific publishing in American universities. The author reveals that America’s 3500 academic libraries spend more than $1.25 billion a year on acquisitions out of which 58% spent on serials. Contrary to this, they found, about 70% of scientific journal articles are from universities. But universities are increasingly unable to ‘buy back’ their own work. It is not surprising that a vision of university based publishing captures the imagination of parts of academe. A marketing survey in 1990 determined that universities publish at most 15% of their scholar’s output.  It is a stretchy 15% including not only work of university presses, but also publications of individual academic departments, working papers and periodicals. About 90% is produced by scholarly and scientific societies as opposed to the commercial sector but soft evidence suggests that since World War II, half or more of what used to be not for profit output is now commercially published. Universities could compete and influence price by retrieving control of a proportion of the academic literature and strengthen the arm of university publishing without through lack of interest, support, glamour or profitability. In the US in 1991, university based publishing is receiving significant attention as well as tremendous re-vitalization from the university linked networks. The confluence of a number of factors suggests that the time is perfect for academe to re-affirm its commitment to wide distribution of scholarly information. The mechanisms are almost in place; the community is energetic and eager; the need is urgent.

           

 Ann Okerson (1991).  Back to Academia?: The case for American Universities to publish their own research.-LOGOS 2/2,  pp 106-112

Role of university libraries in scholarly communication system

Article Review

3. Rao (2009) discusses the role of academic libraries in disseminating scholarly information and explores the possibility of librarians acting as partners in electronic publishing and self archiving of the university’s research output. At present the academic and research community is faced with a new challenge of communicating their research to others directly over the World Wide Web. Although electronic journals have been in existence since 1976, full fledged e-journals came into limelight only in the 1990s. One study identified 30 scholarly e-journals in 1991, which by 1997 have increased to 2500.  the cost of journal is increasing day by day. The average increase in journals cost is estimated to be around 8% per year. At the same time, rarely do academics and scientists receive any remuneration for scientific articles published in journals. The commercial publishers are not willing to share their profits with the ‘creators’ of information. So far so good, with the learned societies, who are prepared to pass on the benefits of electronic information to the creators. It is also noticed that various publishers are coming together and interlinking their databases through third party ‘aggregators’ so that the user can access all these databases by subscribing to any one vendor.                                             

Some libraries like, Highwire Press, a division of Stanford University Libraries, which publish life-science journals, provide free access to most back issues of its publications and some current journals. University librarians have already accepted the role of publishers by maintaining copies of open access journals under the banner of institutional repositories, which might lead to a transformation of the scholarly communication system itself. Further the availability of free online journal publishing software enabled everyone to publish journals online. The internet revolution has partly given the ‘power’ back to scientists, universities and leaned societies. Publishing in e-journals is gaining recognition and momentum with the inclusion of the reference or peer review system by major publishers.               

Koteswara Rao, M (2009). Academic Publishing: Role of university libraries in scholarly communication system. Proceedings of International Conference on Academic Libraries, India, University of Delhi,

Authors’ perceptions of electronic publishing

Article Review

2. Schroter (2004) and others contributed a study on authors’ perceptions of electronic publishing of the unedited version of article on bmj.com once papers have been accepted for publication. Conducting two cross sectional surveys among 253 authors from corresponding authors of a consecutive sample of published BMJ research articles that had undergone the ELPS (Electronic Long, Paper Short) process and corresponding authors of consecutive research articles submitted by BMJ authors, but there is some concern that electronic information is not permanent and uncertainty about how versions are referenced. While authors who had experienced ELPS reported some problems with editors shortening papers, most were able to rectify these. Overall 70% thought that the BMJ should continue to use ELPS; 49% thought that publishing just the abstract in the printed journal with the full version only on bmj.com was unacceptable; and 23% thought it unacceptable to post unedited versions on bmj.com once a paper had been accepted for publication. The study revealed that it is acceptable to authors to publish short versions of research article in the printed version of a general medical journal with longer version on the websites i.e., the authors are in favour of electronic publishing of their articles.       

Sara Schroter, Helen Barratt and Jane Smith. Authors’ perceptions of electronic publishing: Two cross sectional surveys. BMJ vol. 328,  5 June 2004. bmj.com.

The library as a mediator for e-publishing

Article Review

1. Denmark is a small country but with a large and diverse scholarly publishing environment. There are many small journals, mostly in English. A majority of these see the potential in online publishing but do not gave resources and capabilities to do so. Furthermore they have a conservative business model (i.e, Finance) that doesn’t encourage an open access publishing strategy. The study reveals that the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) library provides low risk environment for small journals related to the business sholl to make a gradual transition to e-publishing / e-archiving. The authors found out that the major hurdles to migrate to online in Denmark are lack of fund and lack of sufficient techno-savvy personals. The study also discuss about the Open Journal Systems (OJS) in Denmark. Copenhagen Business School has started e-publishing of scientific articles from their ‘own journals’ in a logical step. The largest university in Denmark, the University of Copenhagen was planning to start an e-publishing project in autumn of 2007. Its university library supports an active blog on open access. This paper includes a case study of “Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies”, and “Foucault Studies” published from Denmark and moved from print to online publishing.

Mikel K Elber and Lars Nondal (2007). The library as a mediator for e-publishing: A case on how a library can become a significant factor in facilitating digital scholarly communication and open access publishing for less web-savvy journals. First Monday 12 (10). 

About this Blog

This blog carries open access materials on electronic publishing around the world. The emerging trends in scholarly electronic publishing, various models,systems, organisations, standareds, conference and workshops and related meterials are collected here for use of those who interested in this field.