Elsevier journal publishing- a publisher’s perspective

Plagiarism, duplicate submission and ethical issues
New business models (Open Access and variants, such as Sponsored Articles, Delayed Access) – need to ensure sustainability in the long term and preservation of peer review
New Research Outputs (data, video, attachments) – do these need peer review? Authenticity of imagery is a key area here. Are there broader societal changes that we (librarians, publishers, information professionals) are overlooking.
Changes in research practice and interaction (web 2.0, how postgraduates work together)
Different measures for assessing research productivity (H factor)
Author/Referee ratio is ‘out of synch’

1. Elsevier journal publishing
- a publisher’s perspective
PPA Information Resource Summit
David Clark, Publishing Director, Physics, Maths, Computer Science and Astronomy, May 2007

2. 2
Quick Agenda
1.What we do currently
2.What is changing
3.Challenges/Issues

3. 3
1. What we (Elsevier) do currently?
“Contribute to the progress and application of science,
by delivering superior information products and tools
that build insights and enable advancement in research”

4. 4
Solicit and
manage
submissions
Manage
peer review
Production
Publish and
disseminate
Edit and
prepare
Archive and
promote
•18 new journals per year•600,000+ article submissions per year
•200,000 referees
•7,000 editors and
70,000 editorial
board members
•260,000 new articles produced per year
•10 million+
researchers
•250 million+
downloads/year
•2.5 million print
pages/year
•>1 billion articles
downloaded on
ScienceDirect
•8.1 million
articles now
available
•Organise editorial boards
•Launch new specialist
journals
•40%-90% of
articles rejected
What that involves at the macro level

5. 5
At a journal level: relationships
The author is our customer.
Journals, editors, reviewers, etc. are “tools” to
satisfy key author needs:
• certification of research,
• continuation of funding and employment,
• recognition and career
Author
paper
data
etc.
Reviewer
Publisher
Editor
Author
Marketing
Relationship
Management
journal
Brand
Management
branding/ certification
distribution
v a lid
a tio
n
Research
Output
Indexing tools
(e.g ADS, ISI)

6. 7
2. What’s changing
China
Wiki’s
Instant messaging
Open access
Blogging
Research offshoring
Search
NIH
Repositories
WEB 2.0
Open peer review
Podcasts
Google scholar
Plagiarism
E lab notebooks

7. 8
etransformation
= print
= print + electronic
= eOnly
Current Benefits
For researchers
•Remote, desktop access
•Fast search
•Interlinked articles
•eFunctions (e.g, email alerts)
For librarians
•Easier collection management
•Usage data per journal
•Reduced storage space
•Time efficiencies
2007 and Beyond
•Further integration into researcher workflow
•Increased usability (fewer clicks to reach
content)
•Dynamic content, social bookmarking,
personal tagging
1997 1999 2001 2003 2005
2001, 2003 and 2005 include migrated Harcourt content

8. 9
Tw – Taiwan; Br – Brazil; Tk – Turkey; SK – South Korea; In – India; Mx – Mexico; Ru – Russia
Ch 99
Ch 05
Ru 99
In 99
S K 99
Br99
Tw 99
Tk 99
Mx99
Ru 05
In 05
S K 05
Br 05
Tw 05
Tk 05
Mx 05
0.000
0.100
0.200
0.300
0.400
0.500
0.600
0.700
0.800
0.900
1.000
- 10,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,00070,000
Number of papers
F
e
i
l
d

W
e
i
g
h
t
e
d

R
e
l
a
t
i
v
e

I
m
p
a
c
t
Quantity and quality from emerging countries
increasing quickly… China is unique in every aspect
China
China: From 23,000 papers in
’99 to 60,000 in ’05 with
significant quality improvement

9. 10
3. Challenges/Issues
… there is stability in underlying fundamentals..
Large majority of authors feel that peer review remains important;
Current open peer review experiments get hardly any traction;
Authors get tremendous value and prestige from high quality brands
like Science, Nature or Cell;
Lack of trust of information that is not validated;
Lack of trust in scientific communication based on opinions, such as
blogs.

10. 11
But some new things…
Plagiarism, duplicate submission and ethical issues
New business models (Open Access and variants, such as
Sponsored Articles, Delayed Access) – need to ensure sustainability
in the long term and preservation of peer review
New Research Outputs (data, video, attachments) – do these need
peer review? Authenticity of imagery is a key area here. Are there
broader societal changes that we (librarians, publishers, information
professionals) are overlooking.
Changes in research practice and interaction (web 2.0, how
postgraduates work together)
Different measures for assessing research productivity (H factor)
Author/Referee ratio is ‘out of synch’

11. 12
Thank you
Any questions?