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WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING NEWS
February 2009 – Number 21
Editorial
After 20 issues devoted to Journal News we have changed the title to Publishing News as we are now
including books and new forms of publishing such as WIREs (Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews). To flag this
broader editorial policy we start with a piece on books which remain a major element of scholarly
communication in SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities). It may soon be possible to produce citation data
for books (thus providing metrics for research assessment) as ebooks evolve. We hope the new broader
coverage will be appreciated. As always we welcome any feedback.
Bob Campbell
Senior Publisher, Wiley-Blackwell
Contents of this issue:
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Online Books – the New Journals?
New Advisory Board Highlights Key Society Issues
Librarians Speak of their Concerns
The Roads to Open Access – Where are we now?
All Proceedings According To Plan
Controversial New Rankings for European Humanities Research Revealed
Authorship Seminars for Chinese Scientists
Enabling Authors to Track Their Articles
Long-term Archiving of Online Content
Publishing Ethics Guidance Available to all Wiley–Blackwell Editors
Groundbreaking Settlement in Google Lawsuit
New Series of Interdisciplinary Publications Launched
Online Books – the New Journals?
Introduction
It would be difficult today to find someone who does not believe that the future of the book as a tool in
research, academic study, and reference in an academic or corporate setting will be closely tied to online
access. The availability of book content in an electronic format is attractive to users who need remote access
to information (such as distance learners) and want to get search results from all sources (rather than just
journal articles), and to librarians who want to provide instant access across multiple physical sites, or to free
up shelf space in valuable on-campus locations. And of course the ubiquitous nature of online search has
made it an imperative that books as well as other scholarly content should make the transition to online
availability.
There are now over 1 million book chapter DOI records deposited with CrossRef. Numerous studies, such as
the CIBER SuperBook project at UCL, show that access to eBook content increases overall use of content
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resources, and demand is increasing for social science as well as physical and life science content to be
made available in this format. All these factors underline why Wiley’s Online Books program is so important to
the future of our business, and why we are passionate about our engagement with the community on these
issues.
Where are we now?
Wiley was one of the first players in this field, beginning with our launch of book content online on Wiley
InterScience in 2002. Since then many developments have occurred and shaped our thinking, most
importantly the needs of our customers that we have heard or solicited through focus groups, industry
research studies, and engagement with our Library Advisory Board. Among the key issues that we have
responded to are:
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A business model that closely resembles that of print books, including the choice of permanent
access to purchased content as well as access via subscription
Ability to buy at the single title level rather than bundled ‘collection’ availability
The need for unlimited concurrent usage, and lack of check-in/check-out restrictions
Absence of burdensome DRM (Digital Rights Management) client software
MARC record supply for integrated catalog visibility
COUNTER-compliant usage reporting
Integration into the traditional print book supply chain, such as inclusion in library vendor collection
management and approval plan tools
Future Developments
It is hard to make predictions and reports of the death of the book have been greatly exaggerated. However
Wiley is committed to providing its customers with content (there are now almost 7000 book titles on Wiley
InterScience), products, and business models that meet their needs. Our new publishing platform will feature
improved and more widely implemented functionality for books including reference linking, HTML (as well as
PDF) text display, and improved search and content discovery. We will also continue to work with
intermediaries, technology partners, and to develop our own solutions, to deliver book content for optimum
customer choice.
Michael Forster, Associate Publishing Director, Physical Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken
New Advisory Board Highlights Key Society Issues
On September 24-25, Wiley-Blackwell hosted its first Society Advisory Board (SAB) meeting in Hoboken, the
first publisher to establish such a group. The meeting brought together a group of 16 senior society
executives representing a diverse range of US-based associations – large and small; regional, national and
international; and covering a broad range of disciplines.
The main focus of the first day was a review of Wiley-Blackwell’s recent ‘21st Century Society Survey’, carried
out in late 2007/early 2008. We interviewed over 30 societies globally about what they thought would be their
main challenges over the next five years or so, with questions ranging from how quickly their society was
moving online to how important green issues would be for their organization in future. This session generated
plenty of discussion and highlighted some areas where we need to improve communications with our society
partners, as well as some potential opportunities for new services. Branding was an especially hot topic and
the SAB were pleased to hear about our plans for society branding on the new platform.
This session was followed by one on Strategic Society Development with Judith Dempster of the American
Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). This provides a framework within which to evaluate a society’s
current competitive position, identify future goals, establish a plan for achieving those goals, and set
milestones to track progress. Judith explained how the AANP used this type of approach to successfully
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achieve its goal of increasing membership to 20,000 in time for its 20 anniversary.
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The meeting concluded with a session based on a pre-meeting survey that we sent out to participants to
ensure that we covered the issues that they were especially concerned about. This provoked an interesting
discussion that ranged from concrete issues, like Open Access and concerns about the move to online
impacting print advertising revenue, to philosophical ones such as the changing role of professional and
scholarly societies.
Feedback from the meeting was universally positive and there were also plenty of suggestions for
improvements – more emphasis on sharing best practice, for example.
Members of the Society Advisory Board included:
- Mark Mecklenborg, Director, Technical Pubications & Meetings, The American Ceramics Society
(ACS)
- Diane Cushman, Executive Director, National Council on Family Relations (NCFR)
- Alan Morgan, Chief Executive Officer, National Rural Health Association (NRHA)
- Judith Dempster, Executive Director, American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP)
- Fred H. Smith, President, American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA)
- Frank von Sonnenburg, President, International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM)
- Kevin McCray, Executive Director, National Groundwater Association (NGWA)
- Nikolaus Pelka, Executive Director, Strategic Management Society (SMS)
- Lauren Tiffany, Executive Director, Midwest Sociological Society (MSS)
- Susan Oderwald, Executive Director, Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)
- Alan D. Thornhill, Executive Director, Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)
- Todd von Deak, Vice President, Membership & Marketing, Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)
- Mike Kowalski, Director of Operations, American Water Resources Association (AWRA)
- Bill Davis, Executive Director, American Anthropological Association (AAA)
- Sally Hillsman, Executive Director, American Sociological Association (ASA)
- Margaret Wilder, Executive Director, Urban Affairs Association (UAA)
Alice Meadows, Director of Central Marketing Services, Wiley-Blackwell, Boston
Librarians Speak of their Concerns
Our latest Library Advisory Board meeting was held in Oxford on December 8th and 9th 2008 and was
attended by 15 librarians drawn from across the world and from different academic, hospital, corporate and
government settings. A key topic of debate was the potential impact of the economic downturn on their work
and collections. Following is a summary of some of the key points which emerged from the meeting:
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Libraries are under pressure to find efficiencies in the current economic climate. They are seen as
ancillary services and plump targets for cost-cutting measures, although these are being felt across
institutions, e.g. with faculty positions frozen. Libraries are therefore looking to outsource, cut staff,
cut services, cancel building projects and merge. Ultimately this will impact on collections, although
journals are generally still perceived to be the cut of last resort, following monographs and databases.
Libraries will be expected to look hard at subscriptions and big deals, particularly those with high price
increases. Taking any new products involves cancelling something else now more than ever. Some
Library Directors are increasingly seeing their value add as being about service rather than content so
there is potentially a growing appetite to cut into collections.
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Librarians need to change to stay relevant in the age of Google. Managing library staff expectations
in this period of change can be difficult, often involving changes to long-held views and positions, such
as being custodians of print and manning reference desks, with a growing need to reskill, such as
teaching information skills.
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Agents still have a valuable role, particularly for handling negotiations with the smaller publishers.
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Some see Institutional Repositories as a crusade against publishers, others see them as a database
holding the output of the organization. Some institutions simply feel they need them because others
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have them. IRs won’t be affected by the economic downturn. They’ll be protected at all costs.
Institutional mandates mean that the IR no longer needs promotion – it’s the rule.
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Libraries increasingly find that taking journal subscriptions in dual media (i.e. print and online) is a
luxury they are increasingly unable to afford and that most, though not all, think that online
subscriptions are better value and will therefore be likely to cut print subscriptions in the near future.
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Libraries want choices for subscribing to and accessing journal content that meet their needs. This
ranges from “big deal” type packages to custom and subject specialty packages to title by title
selection. One size definitely does not fit all. Our new journal sales model addresses these customer
needs.
We conducted a follow-up survey in January 2009 with the purpose of asking key library customers how they
think the current economic climate will affect their materials spending for 2009 and 2010. In general, the
outlook for 2009 is reasonably steady with the expectation that journal subscriptions continue along the lines
of our experience in 2008, with a slight increase in attrition mostly occurring in the US. Interest in online
books is strong and funding is likely to be available for new purchases. This seems to be less true for
backfiles; several respondents indicate they are slowing or cutting spend on backfiles. The market in Asia is
the most robust with areas still in growth mode.
The outlook for 2010 and 2011 is less encouraging across all regions, however, and conditions are likely to be
far worse than in 2009. Library budgets in all sectors will be under pressure in 2010 and 2011 as a result of
the economic downturn and this will result in decreased purchasing power. Reduced 2009 budgets will
impact journal subscriptions for 2010 and sustained cuts are anticipated for 2010 which will have an impact on
2011 business. This will certainly be true in the US and Australia and in most parts of Europe. The impact in
Asia is less clear and likely to vary greatly from country to country. Corporate customers will continue holding
marketing spend in check until their financial conditions improve. The responses showed a near unanimous
view that protecting journal collections is the highest priority, however it is likely that established consortia
customers will be looking for concessions on online journal licenses; those coming up for renewal as well as
those midway through the term of the license. As always, we expect to work closely with consortia customers
to find acceptable compromises that will be negotiated on a case by case basis and taking into account the
economic realities of the particular customer, not just general trends.
With our experienced Institutional Sales Team of 50, including 22 in the Asia Pacific region, and our 40 person
strong global Sales Support team, we are in a good position to respond to opportunities where they occur and
are in regular communication with our established customers about the economic impact on their budgets and
ways to continue to work in partnership. It has been Wiley's position since we began licensing online products
that we would adopt a flexible pricing and licensing model and indeed our newest model, which we have
begun to introduce in 2009, is more flexible than that offered in the past. We are already and will continue to
work closely with our customers to find mutually acceptable solutions to the difficult problems we are facing.
Since customer needs and priorities vary, there is no quick fix or single formula. We will continue to monitor
the situation and will report back in this newsletter.
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Figure 1: Members of Wiley-Blackwell’s international Library Advisory Board
Emily Gillingham, Director, Library and Institutional Marketing, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
The Roads to Open Access – Where are we now?
Background
Open Access (OA) means that material is available for everyone to read, without having to pay subscription or
“pay-to-view” fees. It has been advocated since about 2001; in the UK, it became a matter of public policy
when the Select Committee on Science and Technology of the UK House of Commons held an inquiry into
scientific publications and published a report on their findings entitled ‘Scientific Publications: Free for All’ in
July 2004. Even today, commentators still confuse the Committee’s recommendations with the policy of the
UK Government, which rejected them, saying that it did not think it should intervene to support one business
model or another.
In the USA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced an initially voluntary policy of requesting
researchers to deposit the post-peer-reviewed articles of research funded by the NIH to PubMed Central, but
this was converted into a statutorily backed mandate when author compliance was revealed to be very low
(less than 5%). This took effect from April 2008.
A number of institutions (most famously Harvard) have also mandated that their researchers deposit articles
into institutional repositories (IRs), with the policy sometimes preceding the existence of the repositories!
Often, there is a lack of clarity regarding article versions, opt-out waivers, the position of co-authors in other
institutions, and the rights that authors are ceding to their employer.
Even amongst IR protagonists, the picture is often painted of IRs being underpopulated, underfunded, and
underutilised. (See for example Salo (2008).
In the EU, Governments have shied away from imposing legal mandates for open access, although a number
of funders have declared policies that vary from recommendations to mandates, and which may or may not be
clear about article versions and acceptable embargo periods.
The Two Roads to Open Access
As was established in the Select Committee’s report there are two distinctly different OA models, known by
some as the ‘Gold Road’ (where the author pays for the published article to be made freely available) and the
‘Green Road’ (where OA is achieved by authors self-archiving their articles on Institutional and Subject
Repositories for free access over the internet).
Gold Road (also known as “author-pays”)
Just about all major publishers have a Gold Road option, whereby authors may choose to pay the publisher to
make their articles open access. (This is known as the “hybrid” option, where a publisher offers both an open
access and a subscription business model.) Some publishers (such as Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor &
Francis) limit this option to a subset of their journal portfolio (e.g. to biomedical journals, where there is more
funding for researchers to use for this purpose); others (e.g. Springer) offer the option for all of the journals. A
handful of publishers (the main ones being Public Library of Science (PLoS), BioMed Central, and Hindawi)
have a “Gold Road only” business model. Some publishers (such as Oxford University Press) are
experimenting with, say, one wholly-Gold Road journal, a number of hybrid journals, and a number of
subscription-only journals. Prices vary, as do discount regimes (e.g. institutional membership schemes;
discounts for authors from subscribing institutions; waivers for authors from the developing world; etc.). The
wholly-Gold Road publishers have increased their article fees much more sharply than subscription or hybrid
publishers, and PLoS is still heavily reliant on charitable support since its costs are significantly higher than its
revenues.
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Last autumn BioMed Central (BMC) was sold to Springer, which was taken by the pro-OA lobby to confirm
that the Gold Road is now as economically sound as the established subscription-based model, although that
seems to assume that every acquisition is a vindication of a business model.
Take-up of the hybrid option is reported as being very low (often of the order of just 1 or 2%, except in
specialised areas (such as bioinformatics and computational biology), where the take-up can reach 20-30%).
It will be interesting to see if these levels are maintained or increased, but we do not yet have sufficient
longitudinal data.
One of the justifications for a research funder paying for the Gold Road is that it can achieve more citations.
This assumption may not stand. Last July Davis et al. published the results of the first randomized trial of OA.
They sampled articles due for publication in a group of physiology journals and randomly allocated them to
either OA or subscription based publication. They found significantly higher online usage of OA articles but no
significant difference in citation rates between the two groups in the first year of publication.
Another driver for the OA movement was that it would reduce costs; again an assumption now very much in
doubt. The RIN (2008) study indicates that switching to e-only formats would make savings in the whole
scholarly communication system but that a switch from subscription based publishing to the Gold Road would
make no saving. Indeed it is possible that it would cost more as the authors did allow for some costs to the
publishers in administering author-side payments but curiously did not include the administrative costs to
authors, their institutions and funders.
And the big question remains unanswered. Will editorial standards drop if authors rather than readers pay?
There are indications that they may. For example, Butler (2008) has suggested that a major Gold Road
publisher, PLoS, can only stay afloat through ‘bulk publishing’.
Green Road (also known as “nobody pays”)
We are picking up some evidence that the growth in Gold Road articles is slowing, perhaps because authors
no longer have the same motivation to take the Gold Road if OA can be achieved by the Green Road which
costs them nothing and has been receiving more publicity. The Gold Road is simply an alternative business
model; it is still based on a publisher receiving revenue for what it does, in contrast to the Green Road which
makes no contribution to publishing costs and indeed could undermine a system that is publishing around one
and a half million readily accessible articles per annum to high standards.
Research funders implementing the unfunded mandate for self archiving argue that there is no evidence that
articles posted on institutional and subject repositories undermine paid circulation especially if free access is
delayed (the embargo period) and limited to the author’s accepted version rather than the publisher’s version.
We doubt that librarians are as foolish as funders assume. If content is widely available free of charge will
they still buy it? A study published by the Publishing Research Consortium (Beckett and Inger, 2007)
suggests that as more material is hosted on institutional and subject repositories, libraries will start to cancel
subscriptions. Most of the librarians surveyed in this study felt that there is insufficient difference between the
accepted and published versions to justify paying for access to the latter if availability of the accepted version
is widespread. This was, however, a view from the librarians. A more recent survey carried out by the
Bioscience Federation in the UK (2008) suggests that researchers are more sensitive to these differences and
prefer to have access to the publisher’s version.
We should learn more about this as a result of the PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research)
project which the EU has agreed to fund. The project will investigate the effects of large-scale, systematic
depositing of authors’ accepted (i.e. post-peer-reviewed) manuscripts on reader access, author visibility,
repository costs, journal viability, and the productivity of European research.
Conclusion
The Gold Road is an alternative business model, but there are questions over standards (it is certainly a
barrier to authorship), whether it does actually drive up citations (since researchers who cite are already likely
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to have access to these articles via their institution’s subscriptions), and whether it can introduce any savings
in the overall scholarly communication system. The Green Road has been built on the false premise that
there is such a thing as a free lunch. We believe that a network of repositories which will be hugely expensive
to create even without any contribution to publishing costs is unlikely to be as effective as the current system
of journals. Funders should hold back on unfunded mandates to archive until the Green Road is better
understood or the scholarly communication system could be seriously damaged. They should wait until they
see the outcome of PEER and other similar studies. Policy should be evidence-based, not assertion-based.
Reading list
Beckett C and Inger S (2007) Self-archiving and journal subscriptions: co-existence or competition? PRC
Summary Papers 2, Publishing Research Consortium.
Biosciences Federation (2008) Learned Societies and Open Access: surveys of the financial contribution of
bioscience societies to UK universities and of researchers’ attitudes to Open Access and self-archiving.
Butler D (2008) PLoS stays afloat with bulk publishing. Nature, 454 (3),11
Davis P M, Lewenstein B V, Simon D H, Booth J G and Connolly M J L (2008) Open Access publishing, article
downloads and citations: randomised controlled trial. BMJ, 337, a568
RIN (2008) Activities, costs and funding flows in the scholarly communications system in the UK. Research
Information Network, London.
D. Salo (2008 but undated on the website) Innkeeper at the Roach Motel. Unpublished but available at
http://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/22088/RoachMotel.pdf.
Robert Campbell, Senior Publisher, and Cliff Morgan, Vice President, Planning & Development, John Wiley &
Sons
All Proceedings According To Plan
Many researchers across the world were surprised recently when visiting ISI’s Web of Science, the citation
indexing service forming the basis of Impact Factor calculations, to find that some of their favorite journal
articles were no longer articles. They had not disappeared altogether, but had stopped being articles and had
become ‘Proceedings Papers’.
The driver for this change had been the incorporation of the two ISI proceedings indexes into Web of Science,
a decision made to increase the visibility of proceedings content in general, which in itself is an action to be
applauded. Parallel to this exercise, each article in Web of Science had been retrospectively examined and
where a relationship with a conference discovered, the paper was tagged as such. In a great number of
cases, the change made sense; the article was clearly based directly on work presented at a conference or
seminar. In many instances, however, it was hard to find any indication that the changed articles were ever
connected to such an event.
The action by ISI has been subject to some debate. In many fields, conference papers are often viewed as
undergoing less scrutiny during peer review, easier to get published and thus inherently less reliable than
fully-vetted alternatives. Staff at ISI searched for any mention of the work being connected to a conference;
this was diligent but often misleading. Even when the work had been extensively revised and added to,
bearing no semblance to the bare bones of an idea first discussed at a seminar several years ago, it was now
considered a Proceedings Paper. If mention is made anywhere in the full text of any presentation or
discussion at a seminar, conference or other meeting, it falls into the new category.
Regardless of whether or not a conference paper is treated with less scrutiny in an individual case, there are
fears associated with this change in the indexing. The most important concern is that evaluations for research
assessment, like the RAE in the UK or ERA in Australia (which are both now set to contain bibliometric
criteria), may not count Proceedings Papers as valid – they could be discounted for being ‘less’ peer
reviewed. One (unintended) consequence of this is that authors may learn to remove any reference to
conferences in their articles, for fear of having that work ignored. If the bibliometrics involved in research
assessment work at an article level, and consider each and every publication, then this re-classification would
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not be a major problem; however, the fears being voiced suggest an underlying uneasiness with any system
of bibliometric evaluation and of what some have chosen to call the ‘tyranny of numbers’.
Impact Factors themselves will not be directly affected. The papers previously categorized as ‘Articles’ and
now as ‘Proceedings Papers’ will have citations to them counted and will themselves count towards the
source items that form the denominator of the Impact Factor equation. But the other ramifications of
introducing Proceedings Papers as a document type on the Web of Science will only become clear over time.
Adam Finch, Bibliometrics Analyst, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
Controversial New Rankings for European Humanities Research Revealed
A project sponsored by the European Science Foundation, the European Reference Index for the Humanities
(ERIH) has produced ‘initial lists’ of journal rankings in fourteen categories in the humanities, with more
promised in the near future (http://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/research-infrastructures-includingerih.html). The European Science Foundation conceived the ERIH project as a means to improve access to
and assessment of European humanities research and to identify excellence. Since the release of the initial
lists in 2008 the ERIH has been soliciting feedback from editors, academics and publishers, and plans to
shortly release revised lists which it expects to reevaluate only periodically.
The release of the initial lists was greeted with considerable scepticism by the academic community, which
questioned the reliability of the rankings based on the ERIH’s methodology, disregard for interdisciplinarity,
transparency and rigor in the peer review process, and lack of clarity as to what the distinction between the
rankings is supposed to be. Over fifty editors of journals in the field of History of Science, Technology and
Medicine have formally opted out of the history and philosophy of science category, decrying the
fundamentally flawed conception and execution of the ERIH. The British Academy itself concluded that the
ERIH “as presently conceived does not represent a reliable way in which metrics of peer-reviewed
publications can be constructed” (Peer Review: the challenges for the humanities and social sciences, a
British Academy report (September 2007), p. 36).
Journal rankings, this project has shown, are highly contentious in the humanities, where traditional
bibliometrics cannot be relied on as useful measures of quality. Humanities journals tend to publish articles
with a much longer life span than science and medical journals. It can take considerable time to evaluate
claims made in them and longer still to formulate responses. It is equally important to recognize that much of
the most important research in these fields is published in monographs rather than in articles. Though the
ERIH has proposed that monographs also be evaluated and ranked, it has yet to formulate a coherent policy
in this regard.
166 journals from Wiley-Blackwell were ranked by ERIH and since the initial rankings were released we have
been working with editors and societies to ensure that their voices are heard by the steering committee in
charge of the project. We have been coordinating the submission of feedback for many titles, listening to the
concerns of our editors and society partners and relaying their concerns back to the ERIH via our involvement
in the STM Association, whose Director of Public Affairs, Barbara Kalumenos, has lobbied the steering
committee on our behalf.
The lobbying from subject associations, editors and publishers has achieved some success. The ERIH has
now stated that its lists are not intended to be a bibliometric tool for the evaluation of individual researchers,
and that the difference between its A, B and C rankings were to be understood as primarily qualitative. More
recently the ERIH steering committee conceded that its letter rankings will be replaced by categories defined
solely by written descriptions. It is too early to assess whether authors deciding where to submit will be
influenced by these rankings. We shall be monitoring this on behalf of our publishing partners.
Jacqueline Fernholz, Senior Journals Publishing Assistant, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
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Authorship Seminars for Chinese Scientists
How to get your work published in English-language journals
In October last year we were delighted to join representatives of our partner societies and Editors to run three
seminars in Beijing focused on the publishing needs of Chinese scientists. One seminar took place in the
Institute of Microbiology, China Academy of Sciences (CAS) and attracted over 100 participants, the other two
were organized alongside conferences with 150 and 60 attendees respectively.
Each event had a different flavor but used similar materials and approaches with a focus on an introduction to
submitting work to scholarly journals, and the role of publisher and editor. The breakout sessions prompted a
great deal of interaction with the attendees and it was clear that there is a great need for introductory
materials and advice amongst the next generation of Chinese scientists.
The seminars were a great success, giving excellent profile to our partner societies and helping a new
generation of scientists.
David Nicholson, Journals Publishing Director, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
Jason Hu, Journal Publishing Manager, Wiley-Blackwell Asia Pacific, Beijing
Figure 2: Ian McGrath presenting on best practice in publication and experimental ethics
Figure 3: Participants in the afternoon "tutorial" session
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Enabling Authors to Track Their Articles
In Wiley-Blackwell Author Services, journal authors are invited to track production and gain access in
perpetuity to their published articles. We have added a number of enhancements to our Author Services in
2008 and have ambitious plans for 2009, including the launch of Editor Services, a view for editors.
About Author Services
More than 780 journals now benefit from Author Services and more than 125,000 articles have been or are
actively being tracked by authors since the service was first launched in 2004.
In 2009 we will be extending Author Services to all journals. Authors previously tracking production in one of
more than 400 Wiley journals in “Author Resources” in Wiley InterScience will now track articles in the new
combined website, with seamless navigation from Wiley InterScience. As is the case currently, each
corresponding author of an accepted article will receive an alert letting them know where to register for these
services and benefits. The website is separate from that for manuscript submission.
The overall ‘take-up’ for Author Services so far is 61% with some variation between the type of journals. The
geographic distribution of authors registered in Author Services is vast: the top 10 of 227 locations are: US,
UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, China, France, and Spain.
If you would like help in promoting Author Services to the authors for your journal, please talk to the marketing
manager for your title. Also, a simple note in the manuscript acceptance letter might help to encourage
authors to register their articles. Ask your Production Editor for sample text if desired.
New Features in Author Services
Last year we introduced a feature that enables authors (both corresponding and co-authors) to nominate up to
10 colleagues for free access to their article and a publication alert, with the benefit of driving readership and
citations, as well as good will. We suggest that authors be encouraged to sign up for Author Services and
nominate colleagues for free access rather than simply sending PDFs to those colleagues, as the reading of a
PDF attached to an e-mail doesn’t count towards the article’s overall readership.
Here is a list of some of the other features which were added to Author Services in two major releases in
2008:
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Access in perpetuity to published article; authors view the journal’s Terms and Conditions of use of
the PDF prior to access, and we record that acceptance each time
Co-authors may track production and gain free access separately from the corresponding author
All authors may nominate up to 10 colleagues for free access and publication alert; this feature is
retrospective – even articles already published offer this feature for free colleague access
Authors may e-mail the Production Editor about a particular article from the website article status
page, and its title and article number are automatically added to the subject line of the e-mail for
convenience
Authors may continue to reply to any of the alerts they receive, and the Production Editor will receive
the message and immediately identify the article, as the article number is added discreetly to the
original e-mail. This continues to provide a good level of communications, and authors appreciate the
ease of contact.
Authors may keep a list of favorite journals, with quick links to the Editorial Board, Aims & Scope,
Author Guidelines and if applicable the Online manuscript submission website; journals in which they
have tracked production of an article are automatically added to their favorites
Prolific authors may archive published articles to a separate page to keep their active view tidy
Authors may view the production history of each article
Feedback from Authors
We respond to around 300-500 author requests per month with a dedicated helpdesk staffed by colleagues
familiar with the Author Services system as well as the underlying production system from which the data
originates.
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At the end of the production-tracking experience, all authors are invited to provide feedback on Author
Services. We have received more than 2300 responses to date. More than 850 authors have indicated that
they would continue to provide feedback in future author surveys as part of an ‘Author Advisory group’ and in
February 2008 we received input about plans to reduce the number of stages reported in production-tracking,
perceptions of the timeliness of the alerts, the merger, and so forth. Author feedback continues to inform our
strategy and development plans.
“I think this service is magnificent. Initially I was taken aback over all the attention, because as an
author in a scientific journal you are not used to be treated like that, you are expected to just wait
patiently for months on end. This has definitely raised the bar for one's expectations. – Prof Eli
Schwarz, KOD Dean, The University of Sydney
Coming Soon - Editor Services
Planned for later in 2009, Editor Services will provide a journal view of all articles in production, including all
articles in the underlying production system. You’ll have a detailed view of the production status of each
article (original articles, review articles, and all of the minor article types), as well as a summary of how many
articles are at each of the key stages reported to authors in Author Services.
Any journal which features Author Services is eligible for Editor Services. Your Journal Publishing Manager
will let you know when your journal will be included in this service. You’ll then receive an automated e-mail,
inviting you to register for Editor Services.
Nancy Wing, Senior Web Publishing Manager, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford
Long-term Archiving of Online Content
Since the advent of online journals, many in the publishing industry and library world have been working to
determine the best models for ensuring the long-term preservation of electronic content. Unlike the print
model, where multiple libraries keep copies in their collections, for online journals most libraries access the
content from publisher servers. There is therefore the imperative to ensure that content that is available
online today, will continue to be available in the future. This is part of protecting “the minutes of science”,
which the scholarly journal literature represents.
Wiley-Blackwell is a founding member of the CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) initiative, and serves on the
Board. Wiley is a member of Portico, and is the only commercial publisher serving on the Portico Advisory
Committee. The ex-Wiley journal content is routinely deposited to Portico, and the ex-Blackwell journals are
starting to be added to Portico as of early 2009. Ex-Blackwell journals are included in the CLOCKSS system,
and the ex-Wiley journals will be added during 2009.
Former Blackwell journals are included in the KB deposit (Dutch National Library) archiving program, and we
are evaluating whether to add Wiley journals to this program. Both Wiley and Blackwell participated in the ejournals deposit pilot project of the British Library. We have representation on the Legal Deposit Advisory
Panel/eJournals Working Group and are involved in the direction of the voluntary scheme going forward and
the detailed statutory Regulations that will result.
We are also interested in the long-term curation of the data that lies behind the article. We archive some of
this currently and are in discussions with the research community on a longer term plan.
Wiley is also involved in a CLOCKSS pilot concerning the long-term archiving of electronic book content.
Craig Van Dyck, Vice President, Global Content Management, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing News
February 2009 – Number 21
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Publishing Ethics Guidance Available to all Wiley–Blackwell Editors
We are pleased to announce that all Wiley-Blackwell journals will now benefit from a new enhanced
partnership with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Instances of plagiarism, false authorship and
unethical publishing behaviour are unfortunately becoming more frequent. Working with COPE will provide us
with more expert support and our societies, editors and journals will all benefit from industry-wide best
practice in this area.
Editors from Wiley-Blackwell can benefit from attending the COPE meetings, scheduled every three months,
to discuss complex ethical problems which have arisen during the publication process. They will also have
access to other editors, their peers, to examine cases of publishing misconduct. In addition, they will be able
to use the information and educational services that COPE is developing.
About COPE
COPE (http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/) is a forum for editors of peer-reviewed journals to discuss issues
related to the integrity of the scientific record; it supports and encourages editors to report, catalogue and
instigate investigations into ethical problems in the publication process. Formed in 1997, the Committee on
Publication Ethics' (COPE) major objective is to provide a sounding board for editors who were struggling with
how best to deal with possible breaches in research and publication ethics.
John Lehmann-Haupt, Editor, Corporate Publications, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken
Groundbreaking Settlement in Google Lawsuit
On October 28, 2008, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google
announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of authors and publishers worldwide that would
expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the
collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search.
The agreement, subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, would
resolve a class-action lawsuit brought in late 2005 by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a
separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers representing the AAP’s membership—The McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc., and Penguin Group (USA) Inc., both part of Pearson; Simon &
Schuster, Inc.; and Wiley. These lawsuits challenged Google’s plan to digitize, search and show snippets of
in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright
owner.
The agreement will enable readers in the U.S. to search and preview millions of in-copyright works online,
while providing additional ways to purchase access to them. It will also provide a new avenue for institutional
subscriptions to collections from some of the world’s most renowned libraries, and free online viewing of
millions of out-of-print books at U.S. public and university libraries. The payment by Google of $125 million
will fund the creation of the independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry to ensure compensation to
authors and publishers and provide a mechanism for inclusion in or exclusion from the project.
John Lehmann-Haupt, Editor, Corporate Publications, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken
New WIREs Series of Interdisciplinary Publications Launched
As unique hybrid publications that combine the most powerful features of review journals and online reference
works, the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) will focus on high-profile research areas at the interface of
traditional disciplines. All content is peer-reviewed and edited by experts. To ensure that dynamic and
current information is available, new and updated reviews will be added monthly or bimonthly.
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing News
February 2009 – Number 21
12
“The WIREs publications have two important goals,” said Sean Pidgeon, Vice President and Publisher at
Wiley-Blackwell. “They emphasize the critical role of interdisciplinary thinking in research, and they provide
comprehensive, well structured, validated information to a broad academic, professional, and student
readership.”
WIREs titles will cover a broad range of topics across the life, physical, clinical, and social sciences, including
the first title launched in January 2009:
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Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology – Now available
Systems Biology and Medicine – Launching 2009
Computational Statistics – Launching 2009
Cognitive Science – Launching 2010
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery – Launching 2010
Climate Change (published in association with the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal
Geographical Society (with IBG)) – Launching 2010
Computational Molecular Science – Launching 2011
Developmental Biology – Launching 2011
RNA – Launching 2011
Each WIREs title will initially be made available via complimentary online access to institutions, who can also
request a complimentary print subscription: www.wiley.com/wires
Alexa Dugan, Association Director of Marketing, Life Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing News
February 2009 – Number 21
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