OA Publishing Transforms Medical Research

Towards Open Access: the medical scholarly publishing ‘Open access will… enable scientists to begin transforming scientific literature into something far more useful than the electronic equivalent of millions of individual articles in rows of journals on library shelves. The ability to search, in an instant, an entire scientific library for particular terms or concepts, for methods, data, and images – and instantly retrieve the results – is only the beginning.’ Michael Elsen, Co-Founder, Public Library of Science ABSTRACT This paper reviews and analyzes the differences between traditional and “new models” of publication and the impact of Open Access (OA) publishing on medical research work. The aim is to establish, through literature review, how digital resources might provide an opportunity to house future medical scholarship outputs and the advantages or disadvantages versus traditional publishing. It examines how OA, free from all access barriers, would allow for the widest possible dissemination of scholarly work. In this scenario, learning to discern online publishing becomes crucial. Librarians can play major roles in connection with the OA movement. This paper outlines some of the myriad of Internet resources currently available to the medical field and the validity of those sources both to researchers and authors to acquire and disseminate knowledge without going through the traditional peer-review process. The criticism of the free, online models that lack quality control offered by traditional publishing is discussed and OA publishing is validated as a new way of delivering quality journals that are vital to scholarly research. Introduction As a source of subject-oriented information, the Internet is a powerful tool and currently, there is virtually no subject that cannot be found on the Internet in one form or another. Academic users are “special seekers and disseminators” of information. The use of electronic resources for scholarship flourishes and is becoming increasingly vital for education and training in academic environments. Scholars are experimenting with participation in new models of digital publishing. How can we value new forms of scholarship and compare it to the traditional model of monograph and journal? New forms are increasingly part of the everyday reality of research and scholarship. What kinds of quality control practices are used? How the medical scholars behave in relation to it? Some studies have been done and many undergoing. Some new models have become embedded in disciplinary communication practices. Regularity of use by a community of scholars will make those new models successful. Towards Open Access Scholars and researchers are prone to change their way of sharing new knowledge. In fact the use and contribution to new kinds of works in their field is increasing. Scholars themselves invented the scholarly journals, now they are taking the lead in inventing a new generation of scholarly outputs. The new forms of publications are accessible to end users directly, and many of these resources have become essential tools for scholars conducting research, building scholarly networks, and disseminating their ideas and work. In 2005, the Center for Studies in Higher Education embarked on a study about the future of scholarly communication. The report was published in 2010 “Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An Exploration of Faculty Values and Needs in Seven Disciplines” (Harley, D., Akord, S. K., Earl-Novell, S., Lawrence, S., & King, C. J, 2010). One of the findings in relation to requirements needed for tenure and promotion the report states: “There are virtually no surprises here. As we found in the planning study, peer-reviewed prestige publications are the ‘coin of the realm’ in tenure and promotion decisions” (p. 7). On the other hand, the study revealed that scholars see the new publishing models as being needed for shorter “monographs” in some humanistic disciplines and longer articles in the sciences. Other constraints of traditional models are the exclusion of high quality images and other supporting materials. In addition there is a lack of linking final publications directly to data sets and/or primary source material. The urge to support OA comes from many organizations. “When departments evaluate scholarly publications for purposes of hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion, the standing of an electronic journal should be judged according to the same criteria used for a print journal” (MLA, 2003). Also the Statement of Scientists and Scientific Societies working group (2003) reports that, “Scientists agree to advocate changes in promotion and tenure evaluation in order to recognize the community contribution of open access publishing and to recognize the intrinsic merit of individual articles without regard to the titles of the journals in which they appear.” The American Philological Association Task Force on Electronic Publishing (2008) recognizes the importance of digital format as a valid alternative to communicate and access research and primary resources. Electronic publishing offers a new market in the dissemination of the Humanities scholarly work, in particular for housing the production of monographs that at present are neglected by university libraries because of budget constraints. The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) promotes the use of OA publishing because it offers “free and timely access to scientific literature.” Scientific research depends on the experiments of others and is informed by the results of others. The scientific community wants to ensure that research results are disseminated immediately. Electronic publication of research results offers the opportunity to share research results as well as ideas with the scientific community and the general public. The scientific research is taxpayer-funded and therefore should be made available immediately. ASBC also observes that publishers shouldn’t be afraid of OA as they would still make a profit, for example by giving a “short embargo period that protects subscription revenue.” Differences between traditional and “new models” of publication “Scholarly” resources are those authored by and for the scholarly community. This definition includes a wide variety of resources, from peer-reviewed publications like print journals and e-only journals, to websites where scholars would share casual information or thoughts-in-progress, including discussion forums or blogs. Perhaps studies should also take into consideration popular-interest resources, such as YouTube and Wikipedia. While scholarly society journals and university presses still the major form of scholarly publishing, many new digital scholarly resources have appeared. Blogs, Wikis, and other forms of online publishing and discussion now appear in every discipline. Some of these digital resources resemble their print predecessors such as the e-journals, others are very innovative and “original”, making use of the space, speed, and interactivity that the Internet allows. New formats: It is possible to identify eight principal types of digital scholarly resources: ,[object Object]

Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and annotated content

Discussion forums (Wikis, Blogs, Newsgroups)

Professional and scholarly hubsCopyright With the Open Access model authors are allowed to maintain copyright over their articles. Authors are often required to license the articles according to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows anyone to download, reuse, reprint, redistribute, or copy them, as long as the original authors and source are credited. Authors are encouraged to anticipate their future needs and to retain the rights they need in order to optimize dissemination of their research. Some of these rights include: use part of the work as a basis for a future publication send copies of the work to colleagues present the work at conference or meeting and give copies of the work to attendees use a different or extended version of the work for a future publication make copies of the work for personal use and educational use self-archive the work in an institutional repository ,[object Object],Access The digital environment offers many new kinds of works that are accessible to end users directly, and many of these resources have become essential tools for scholars conducting research, building scholarly networks, and disseminating their ideas and work. The new models provide access to the most current research, facilitate exchange among scholars as well as support co-location of works. Quality Control One of the most valued functions of a journal to ensure quality control is peer-review. Some concerns persist in the academy that publication in e-only journals will be perceived as less prestigious than publishing in print. One recurring question among researchers is if the publication will be considered legitimate by a tenure review board. Misperceptions about the level of peer-review of open access publications have contributed to these concerns, although leaders of the Open Access movement have continued to argue that quality and cost are not synonymous, and that notions of access and prestige can be separated. Online journal publishers take the same measures of legitimacy and excellence. Long-established scholarly publishers through longevity enjoy reputation. Publication cost This varies from journal to journal. For example PLOS costs more than (PLOS) US$2000.The amount is a concern when considering the cost of the research that led to the article. Publication fees are a small fraction of the costs of doing research, and it makes sense for funding agencies to include these fees in research grants. Many funding agencies now support this view. For a detailed view of Journals and their standard article-processing charge see table 1 at the end of this paper (Biomed Central website tracks journals cost. It is one of the best sources of up-to-date information: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/apcfaq#howmuch). Publication speed The vast majority of journals never release their content. Furthermore, timeliness of publication is very important—to readers and to authors—and even a 6- to 12-month delay is detrimental to research, especially in the biomedical sciences. Open Access is a more efficient, and effective means to disseminate scientific and medical literature. As soon as it is published, a research paper can and should be available to all. Value in Academic world Although new digital publications emerge every year, many of the most popular and most robust resources have been in existence for years. Given the importance of longevity in establishing scholarly reputation, the necessity of building an audience to attract high-quality content, and the time it takes to fine-tune a digital resource, even excellent new digital publications may need years to establish their place in their scholarly community. Other Features Innovations relating to multimedia and Web 2.0 content and functionality are encouraging the emergence of new types of publications. Although many of the digital scholarly resources are primarily text-based, we also see examples that incorporated multimedia technology and networking tools to create new and innovative works. Challenges of searching for new models The decentralized distribution of these new digital resources can make it difficult to fully appreciate their range and number, even for university librarians tasked with being familiar with valuable resources across the disciplines. Scholars are both the producers of and the audience for digital scholarly communications. While many of the ways in which scholars contribute to print publications also exist in the digital world – writing and peer-reviewing articles, editing journals, reviewing books, etc. – electronic media also facilitates new forms of scholarly contributions. Examples of this include moderating a discussion list, contributing data to a shared repository, posting thoughts and annotations on a blog, or editing a Wiki. It is imperative to catalog and cite scholarly content in familiar ways while still facilitating more rapid dissemination of content. There is a need for databases that include OA resources and other intensive resource development. The Internet offers a vast amount of journals and books where the best sellers are on the surface. It would be nice if all web sites would be catalogued into ”one huge library database”. Web feeds are an important step for semantic web. The most common formats are RSS, ATOM and PodCast. Also FeedNavigator collects web feed-data and allows using this data in many ways (http://www.terkko.helsinki.fi/feednavigator/) Assessing the credibility of the resources ,[object Object],New models contribute to the area of interest. While many scholarly resources combine several types of formal and informal content, we found that most of the original scholarly resources in our sample featured one primary content type. Although e-only journals were well-represented across the disciplines, different content types stood out in each broad subject area (see appendix “current model report” ithaka ). The science, technical, and medical (STM) fields resources – data sites and e-journals were most often named – seemed to be valued for providing access to new research; Sites that enable access to and publication of data seem especially important in the STM field. Within the group of STM-focused sites, the largest group by far was of these data resources, followed by e-only journals and professional and scholarly hubs. Faculty members told librarians that other aspects they appreciated in these sites included news and alerts about publications, conferences, and other developments in the field; and access to different types of content including data, primary source material, reviews, and teaching materials. E-only journals Despite their relative infancy in the field, open access journals are ranking high in an impact factor studies done by ISI. Among the titles scoring high are Respiratory Research, PLoS Biology, Breast Cancer Research and Critical Care. This resource resembles their print forbearers, including credibility, prestige, tenure and promotion decisions. PLoS, a collection of online journals in the biological sciences, includes the option to comment on an article and encourages both peer commentary and responses by an article’s author. The digital environment allows to accelerate the speed of publication and the peer-review process, and to explore the possibilities of including new media formats. Often traditional journals may limit publication to research articles of 6,000 to 10,000 words. Experimentation with peer-review among e-journals has become more common. The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine is the official journal of the California Chapter of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. WestJEM is now indexed in PubMed with full text in PubMed Central (http://escholarship.org/uc/uciem_westjem) and developed an online training module for reviewers. Many of e-only journals includes some form of multimedia content. In many journals, the digital environment enables the publication of data visualizations, large data sets, or audio and video clips that serve to illustrate the text of scholarly articles. A few publications, like JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments are making multimedia a more central element of the work. However, it is worth noting that the pressures of traditional scholarly publishing may affect the opportunities for an e-only journal to innovate in this way. Interviews with Moshe Pritsker, CEO, and Nikita Bernstein, CTO of JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments, August 15, 2008. Following our interview, JoVE was accepted for indexing in MEDLINE and PubMED, the official databases maintained by the National Library of Medicine. JoVE refers to its contributions as “video-articles.” JoVE seeks to speed knowledge transfer that takes place in laboratories. While the “methods and materials” section of a scientific article currently serves this function, it is difficult to re-create experiments, a critical aspect of the scientific process. As they point out on the Web site, “written word and static picture-based traditional print journals are no longer sufficient to accurately transmit the intricacies of modern research.” Independent titles usually tend to be Open Access. Even when editorial labor is donated, however, publications still need to generate revenue to support costs such as Web hosting and copy editing. Many of the e-only journals have in-kind support from their host institution, in the form of server space, technical support, or the contributed staff time of programmers. Other revenue-generating strategies included soliciting donations from readers, advertising, and (particularly in STM fields) author fees. A short list of e-Journals (via subscription) is given below: The BMJ (British Medical Journal - http://www.bmj.com/) is an international peer reviewed medical journal and a fully “online first” publication. Their publishing model—”continuous publication”— means that all articles appear on bmj.com before being included in an issue of the print journal. The website is updated daily with the BMJ’s latest original research, education, news, and comment articles, as well as podcasts, videos, and blogs. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment is a scientific journal available via subscription. Its focus is on the treatment of and investigations in breast cancer. It is targeted towards a wide audience of clinical researchers, epidemiologists, immunologists, or cell biologists interested in breast cancer. The types of articles in this journal include original research, invited reviews, discussions on controversial issues, book reviews, meeting reports, letters to the editors, and editorials. Manuscripts are peer reviewed by an international and multidisciplinary panel of advisory editors. The British Journal of Cancer (http://www.nature.com/bjc/index.html) a twice-monthly professional medical journal of Cancer Research UK (a registered charity in the United Kingdom). The British Journal of Cancer (BJC) provides a forum for clinicians and scientists to communicate original research findings that have relevance to understanding the etiology of cancer and to improving patient treatment and survival. Once accepted, papers are published in print and online. Critical Care Medicine (http://journals.lww.com/ccmjournal/pages/default.aspx) is a peer-reviewed medical journal in the field of critical care medicine. It is the official publication of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Society of Critical Care Medicine members can access the full content of Critical Care Medicine. The Journal also publishes Ahead-of-Print. The International Journal of Surgery is a peer-reviewed scientific journal available via subscription through Elsevier. It covers all aspects of clinical surgery, experimental surgery, surgical education, and history. It appears four times a year and contains research papers, editorials, and review articles, as well as a forum for the exchange of ideas through a correspondence section. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), available via subscription, is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. BioMed Central BioMed central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All original research articles published by BioMed Central are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. BioMed Central views open access to research as essential in order to ensure the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. It publishes 208 peer-reviewed open access journals. A list of OA (free) journals published by Biomed Central can be found at http://www.biomedcentral.com/browse/journals/ Repository Model Repositories range from those hosted by an institution to house the intellectual property created by that institution or repositories that are subject based such as biomedicine or physics. While some repositories perform peer review functions, most serve simply as a repository for materials (published and unpublished) such as manuscripts, theses, supplemental data, conference proceedings, student posters, faculty notes, newsletters, to name a few examples. There is a tendency towards quot;
federatedquot;
institutional repositories but this idea still in embryo. There are visible outcomes such as cross-institutional repository search, augmentation of geographic and systems diversity, and other capabilities. In addition to this “federation” allows faculty to collaborate with other scholars and easily move among institutions without boundaries. OAIster was a project of the Digital Library Production Service and the University of Michigan University Library. It has a search function that permits the user to search all repositories at once. Though I don’t think couldn’t find a way to limit search to just the bioscience or health fields. Its goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone. OAIster harvests from Open Archives Initiative (OAI)-compliant Digital Libraries, Institutional Repositories, and Online Journals using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) protocol. In early 2009, OCLC formed a partnership with the University of Michigan in order to provide continued access to open-archive collections through OAIster. OAIster records are indexed in WorldCat.org, and is integrated in WorldCat.org search results along with records from thousands of libraries worldwide. OAIster has a very broad scope but does cover the medical field. To locate a repository use the HYPERLINK quot;
http://roar.eprints.org/quot;
quot;
_blankquot;
Registry of Open Access Repositories (http://.roar.eprints.org). Institutional Repository HYPERLINK quot;
http://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/quot;
quot;
_blankquot;
Digital Commons@Becker Digital Commons@Becker is a digital repository for hosting the scholarly work created at Washington University School of Medicine and enhancing its visibility and accessibility to scholars, researchers, and the public. Administered and maintained by the Bernard Becker Medical Library, Digital Commons@Becker provides groups, departments, centers, divisions, or programs at the School of Medicine with a platform for creating customized collections that reflect the wide range of their scholarly output. Collections can include journal articles, meeting abstracts, capstones, research papers, poster presentations, newsletters, videos, sound files, and more. ,[object Object],Subject-Based Repository HYPERLINK quot;
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/quot;
quot;
_blankquot;
PubMed Central PubMed Central (PMC) is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. PMC was started in 2000 and contains over half a million articles, including supplemental data, most of which have a corresponding entry in PubMed. Authors who publish manuscripts based on research funded by NIH are strongly encouraged to deposit their work in PMC. Blogs: A blog is a regularly-updated site of entries arranged in chronological order. Blogs have been central to the rise of web 2.0 and form the basis of a lot of social activity and knowledge exchange on the current web. Blogs can be thought of as virtual office spaces for health librarians and help to collect and share stories, pictures and interesting ideas. Internationally, there is a growing community of health librarian and medical blogs. ,[object Object]

Open Medicine blog post. The mission of Open Medicine is to facilitate the equitable, global dissemination of high-quality health research; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care. (http://blog.openmedicine.ca/)Wikis: Wiki-like sites are often used internally among scholars, they are useful for project coordination and organization. It’s a place where scholars can hold discussions, and share and manage information. Medical wikis will play an important role in medical education (Dr. Meskó, B., 2007). “A wiki can serve as a preservation mechanism since drafts of scientific papers and research processes are archived and can be retrieved with relative ease” (Harley, D., et al, 2010). Some example are listed below: ,[object Object]

HYPERLINK "http://www.radiopaedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page" "_blank" Radiopaedia: a wiki for radiology. Radiopaedia.org is a rapidly growing open-edit radiology resource primarily complied by radiologists and radiology residents / registrars / fellows from across the globe. Our mission is to create the best radiology reference available, and to make it available for free, forever, for all. (http://radiopaedia.org/)

HYPERLINK "http://www.ganfyd.org/index.php?title=Main_Page" "_blank" Ganfyd.org: Ganfyd is a collaborative medical reference by medical professionals and invited non-medical experts. (http://www.ganfyd.org/index.php?title=Main_Page)

HYPERLINK "http://medgadget.com/wiki/wiki/Main_Page" "_blank" Medgadget Wiki: Medgadget’s wiki aiming to create a comprehensive database of medical technologies and devices, including specifications, methods of use, and commentary on efficacy and other issues. http://www.medgadget.com/

Podcasting audio and video files can be played on handheld devices and personal computers via RSS and Atom. Podcasting is a powerful tool that can be used for outreach and training as it can offers current awareness and learning opportunities for end users at their fingertips. The use of audiovisual media increases as society moves into web 3.0 and physicians try to keep current with changes in evidence-based health care.

A short list of podcasts is listed below:

Harvard Center - Cancer News in Context and Prevention Radio offers Short commentaries on the latest news on cancer prevention and screening from the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention. Includes Cancer News in Context and Prevention Radio. (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/)Johns Hopkins Radiology Teaching Podcast: http://www.rad.jhmi.edu/residents/podcasts.htm Urology Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Podcasts: http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/44073 Videocasts: ,[object Object]

Webicina, founded by Dr. Bertalan Mesko, has a list of podcasts (http://www.webicina.com/emergency-medicine/emergency-medicine-videos-animations-and-videocasts/). In addition to videocasts the site futures podcasts, twitters, Wikis, etc.

Anesthesiology Clinics of North America: (http://www.anesthesiology.theclinics.com/content/mp3)Professional and Scholarly hubs: Until recently most types of the new models deliver one type of content, such as journal articles, but we are now assisting to resources that combine a wide range of content types in a single site. These “hubs,” often the digital portal for a scholarly society or professional membership organization, may offer e-only journals, access to preprints and conference papers, grey literature, blogs or newsletters, etc. These sites though combine content from the other formats described in this paper, are valuable because they are portals, or “one-stop shops” for information (Nancy L. Maron, L., Smith, K., 2008). Few example of scholarly hubs are given below: ,[object Object]

E-medicine (http://www.emedicine.com/)

Future medicine (http://www.futuremedicine.com/)Conference proceedings A short list of conference is given below: ,[object Object]

4th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF) Rome Italy

3rd International Conference on Drug Discovery & Therapy Dubai United Arab Emirates

29th Annual UC Davis Infectious Diseases Conference Sacramento CA

Emergency Medicine 2011: 34th Annual UC Davis Winter Conference Truckee, Lake Tahoe CA

For a more comprehensive list refer to the Medical and Medical Scientific Conferences Worldwide website (http://www.conferencealerts.com/med.htm)Special libraries “A health or medical library is designed to assist physicians, health professionals, students, patients, consumers and medical researchers in finding health and scientific information to improve, update, assess or evaluate health care. Medical libraries are typically found in hospitals, medical schools, private industry and in medical or health associations. A typical health or medical library has access to MEDLINE, a range of electronic resources, print and digital journal collections and print reference books” (Medical Library. Wikipedia, 2010). The number of medical special library is vast and a full list cannot be given in this paper. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the largest biomedical library in the world, and collects and provides access to some of the best health information in the world (due to its linkage to the National Institutes of Health). AA sample list of Special Libraries in Pittsburgh and vicinity is given below (a brief description is given for the first one): ,[object Object]

Allegheny University - Forbes Health System Library

Alleghenty Valley Hospital Medical Library

Cullen Health Sciences Library

Marshall University - Health Science Libraries

Pittsburgh Mercy Health System Libraries

Pittsburgh Ohio Valley General Hospital Library

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center - Falk Library of the Health Sciences

OA Publishing Transforms Medical Research

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