SPARC Japan NewsLetter No.11 conentsfeature articlestopicsactivty reports
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The Dream of Scientists to Be Freed from Reference Management

Hisako Kikui
(JBB editorial staff, the Society for Biotechnology, Japan)

 

 

Activities at SPARC Japan began in 2003, just a year after I took over the editorial work of the Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering (JBB) from the predecessor. The very concept of electronic journal publication was completely new to me and, to be honest, I did not understand what is sought to be accomplished by supporting and strengthening the digitization of academic journals, which was the main focus of SPARC Japan. At the time, I was thinking of the publication of a journal as administering the review process, putting together those articles accepted for publication into a journal, and having it be published. In a way, I thought it was a simple task. Being busy with daily routine also kept me away from thinking about what other academic societies are up to. However, through my involvement with SPARC Japan, I have learned that the world trend is shifting from paper-based to online publication and that the rising costs of journal subscriptions resulting from oligopoly by US and European publishers are squeezing the budgets of libraries and impacting the publishing and subscription models of non-profit organizations such as learned societies. Development of institutional repositories by universities and other research organizations, the technology trends in online publishing, the necessity of branding journals and building business models – they were also new to me as a novice journal staff. As such, starting on a blank sheet of paper, I have come to know these various moves in the world one by one and begun to think about the future of journal publishing. What I learn from the presentation of case examples, lectures, and questions and answers between lecturers and participants at SPARC seminars has been helping me to back up and put into perspective bits and pieces of fragmentary knowledge obtained through the Internet or otherwise. When I could not attend certain lectures, I would always look through the presentation materials made available online afterward. Building relationships with people in the same profession through seminars and debriefing sessions, sharing knowledge and encouraging each other have become valuable assets to me.

As a SPARC Japan partner journal, we have received specific support for our joint project with Osaka University Co-op to develop an online submission system which enabled JBB to shift from hard-copy submission to online submission in the summer of 2006. The introduction of the online submission system has contributed to the significant increase of worldwide interest in the journal and the number of international submissions doubled to more than 200 in 2007. Due to changes in circumstances surrounding the journal, we are now using Elsevier’s submission system. However, this experience of considering the system of manuscript submission fundamentally has been helping me a lot in undertaking daily tasks.

As part of activity under the joint promotion program for Japanese chemistry journals, launched in 2007 by five SPARC Japan partner journals and two journals published by the Chemical Society of Japan (seven journals published by six societies in total), I have participated in the 9th Asia-Pacific Biochemical Engineering Conference (APBioChEC’09, Kobe, 2009), the 3rd EuCheMS Chemistry Congress (Nuremberg, Germany, 2012), and the 242nd American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition (Denver, US, 2011) as a booth attendant. In the overseas events, we welcomed researchers who are both readers and contributors of the journals as well as people engaged in journal publishing in Europe and the United States at our booth. I have learned a lot from these events; even solving problems such as shortage of fixtures and delayed delivery of shipments turned to be a good experience. The favorable and enthusiastic responses from those people who have been to Japan for study or on business made me feel embarrassed at first, but at the same time, I was impressed and encouraged by their continued expectations and trust for our country. One thing I found worrisome, however, is that while many participants from various countries visited our booth, we saw very few Japanese participants.

In the world of scholarly communication, open access (OA) has been one of the hottest issues in recent years. However, it seems that at least researchers in Asia — those who are the target researchers of the JBB — are not yet ready to accept the author-pay model. This is represented by the fact that the number of international submissions, particularly from other Asian countries, has increased drastically after eliminating publication fees for articles submitted from abroad. Although some members of our society are calling for free access to research papers, any proposal that imposes additional financial costs to authors would not be accepted. Also, as we publish the JBB in partnership with Elsevier, the introduction of OA would mean double-charging authors, requiring them to pay OA fees for the distributor on top of the publication fees charged by our society. This is an issue that must be considered carefully along with the creation of a sustainable business model.

While SPARC Japan activity has expanded my view, I have come to feel strongly that big changes hardly ever take place without active commitment and engagement by researchers themselves. Efforts made under the SPARC Japan initiative will bear fruit only when researchers take the problems facing scholarly communication as their own matter. In reality, however, researchers are left with little time and energy to dedicate to such “extracurricular activity,” as they are already busy fulfilling their primary responsibility, which is increasing due to cuts in research funding, reduced number of staff and positions, and increased odd duties per person. When we introduce new knowledge obtained from seminars, only a limited number of researchers show interest. We have been also hearing that while researchers are given high credit for having their articles published in US and European journals and for their attendance in international conference, they are hardly appreciated for their contribution to journals published by Japanese societies, serving as reviewers or editors for domestic journals, or participating in society activity. A Japanese professor teaching in an overseas university has pointed out to me that while participation fees for attending society meetings in Japan are kept relative low, many Japanese researchers are paying expensive participation fees to join in those of overseas societies, meaning that Japanese research funds are enriching organizations outside Japan. Focusing on the international scene should not mean disregarding domestic needs. It is necessary to create an evaluation mechanism in which researchers would be appreciated for participating in activities leading to the strengthening of domestic research foundations.