評(píng)論
打印
Science and technology
科學(xué)技術(shù)
Scientific publishing
科技出版業(yè)
Brought to book
好書(shū)來(lái)了
Academic journals face a radical shake-up
學(xué)術(shù)期刊面臨徹底改變
IF THERE is any endeavour whose fruits should be freely available, that endeavour is surely publicly financed science.
如果有人試圖把成果免費(fèi)公開(kāi)的話，那他一定是科學(xué)資助者，
Morally, taxpayers who wish to should be able to read about it without further expense.
確實(shí)，納稅人都希望不再花額外的錢(qián)來(lái)閱讀科學(xué)著作，
And science advances through cross-fertilisation between projects.
并且科學(xué)的進(jìn)步也是通過(guò)各個(gè)學(xué)科之間的相互促進(jìn)吸收，
Barriers to that exchange slow it down.
而其間的交流障礙使這種進(jìn)步慢了下來(lái)。
There is a widespread feeling that the journal publishers who have mediated this exchange for the past century or more are becoming an impediment to it.
在過(guò)去一個(gè)世紀(jì)，期刊出版商給人廣泛的感覺(jué)就是他們調(diào)停了這種交流，甚至阻礙了這種交流。
One of the latest converts is the British government.
而最新的改變發(fā)生在英國(guó)政府身上，
On July 16th it announced that, from 2013, the results of taxpayer-financed research would be available, free and online,
它在7月16宣布，從2013年開(kāi)始，由納稅人資助的科研成果都會(huì)在網(wǎng)上免費(fèi)公開(kāi)，
for anyone to read and redistribute.
并且任何人都可以閱讀和轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)。
Britain's government is not alone.
并不是只有英國(guó)政府這么做，
On July 17th the European Union followed suit.
17日歐盟也緊隨其后，
It proposes making research paid for by its next scientific-spending round—which runs from 2014 to 2020, and will hand out about 80 billion, or 100 billion, in grants—similarly easy to get hold of.
建議下一個(gè)科研經(jīng)費(fèi)周期拿出800億歐元來(lái)補(bǔ)貼類(lèi)似易于獲取資料的方法。
In America, the National Institutes of Health has required open-access publishing since 2008.
在美國(guó)，國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究所從2008年開(kāi)始就要求開(kāi)放出版業(yè)。
And the Wellcome Trust, a British foundation that is the world's second-biggest charitable source of scientific money, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also insists that those who take its shilling make their work available free.
僅次于比爾和梅林達(dá)·蓋茨基金會(huì)的英國(guó)維康信托基金是世界上第二大科研資金獲取來(lái)源，也堅(jiān)持—要用我的錢(qián)就必須免費(fèi)公開(kāi)成果。
Criticism of journal publishers usually boils down to two things.
而期刊出版商對(duì)此的批判常常歸結(jié)為兩件事，
One is that their processes take months, when the internet could allow them to take days.
一是他們對(duì)資料的處理要花費(fèi)數(shù)月，實(shí)際上有互聯(lián)網(wǎng)他們只需要花費(fèi)數(shù)天；
The other is that because each paper is like a mini-monopoly, which workers in the field have to read if they are to advance their own research,
另一個(gè)原因就是由于每篇論文就像一個(gè)小型壟斷，相關(guān)領(lǐng)域的工作者想要提升研究水平就必須得閱讀那些論文，
there is no incentive to keep the price down.
這樣根本沒(méi)有動(dòng)機(jī)把價(jià)格降下來(lái)，
The publishers thus have scientists—or, more accurately, their universities, which pay the subscriptions—in an armlock.
因此出版商就把那些科學(xué)家—準(zhǔn)確來(lái)說(shuō)是那些付錢(qián)訂閱期刊的大學(xué)牢牢限制住了，
That, combined with the fact that the raw material is free, leads to generous returns.
再加上原始材料免費(fèi)這一事實(shí)，這些常常為出版商帶來(lái)了巨額回報(bào)。
In 2011 Elsevier, a large Dutch publisher, made a profit of 768m on revenues of 2.06 billion—a margin of 37%.
在2011年，荷蘭出版商愛(ài)思唯爾從20.6億歐元的投資中獲取了7.68億歐元的回報(bào)—利潤(rùn)達(dá)到了37%，如此高的收益被認(rèn)為太過(guò)分，
Indeed, Elsevier's profits are thought so egregious by many people that 12,000 researchers have signed up to a boycott of the company's journals.
因此愛(ài)思唯爾遭到了12000名研究人員的聯(lián)名抵制。
A golden future?
未來(lái)一片光明？
Publishers do provide a service.
出版商也確實(shí)做了一些工作，
They organise peer review, in which papers are criticised anonymously by experts.
他們要對(duì)論文經(jīng)行同業(yè)互查，
And they sort the scientific sheep from the goats, by deciding what gets published, and where.
并且還要對(duì)論文進(jìn)行分類(lèi)和挑選，決定是否出版和在哪里出版。
That gives the publishers huge power.
這就給了出版商很大的權(quán)利，
Since researchers, administrators and grant-awarding bodies all take note of which work has got through this filtering mechanism,
因?yàn)檠芯空摺⒐芾韱T和撥款獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)機(jī)構(gòu)都在注意誰(shuí)的論文通過(guò)了這個(gè)過(guò)濾機(jī)制，
the competition to publish in the best journals is intense, and the system becomes self-reinforcing,
在最好的期刊上發(fā)表論文的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)非常激烈，出版系統(tǒng)就變得更加自我強(qiáng)化，
increasing the value of those journals still further.
也推高了那些期刊的價(jià)值。
But not, perhaps, for much longer.
或許以后不會(huì)再這樣了，
Support has been swelling for open-access scientific publishing:
支持開(kāi)放科學(xué)出版業(yè)的呼聲越來(lái)越強(qiáng)烈：
doing it online, in a way that allows anyone to read papers free of charge.
把研究成果放到網(wǎng)上，讓任何人都可以免費(fèi)查閱。
The movement started among scientists themselves,
這個(gè)運(yùn)動(dòng)開(kāi)始由科學(xué)家發(fā)起，
but governments are now,
但是現(xiàn)在政府也站了出來(lái)，
as Britain's announcement makes clear, paying attention and asking whether they, too, might benefit from the change.
比如英國(guó)政府的通告就很清楚，它不僅在關(guān)注此事，還詢問(wèn)科學(xué)家們是否可以從這個(gè)變化中受益。
The British announcement followed the publication of a report by Dame Janet Finch, a sociologist at the University of Manchester,
Dame Janet Finch的報(bào)告發(fā)表之后英國(guó)政府才發(fā)出通告，
which recommends encouraging a business model adopted by one of the pioneers of open-access publishing, the Public Library of Science.
這位曼徹斯特大學(xué)的社會(huì)學(xué)家建議鼓勵(lì)一種商業(yè)模式，這個(gè)方法被一家開(kāi)放出版業(yè)的先鋒—公共科學(xué)圖書(shū)館所采納。
This organisation, a charity based in San Francisco, charges authors a fee and then makes their papers available over the internet for nothing.
公共科學(xué)圖書(shū)館是一家位于舊金山的慈善組織，它會(huì)付給作者一筆費(fèi)用，然后再把他們的論文在網(wǎng)上免費(fèi)公開(kāi)。
For PLoS, as the charity is widely known, this works well.
對(duì)于公共科學(xué)圖書(shū)館來(lái)說(shuō)，它的慈善事業(yè)廣為人知，并且做得很好，
It has launched seven widely respected electronic journals since its foundation in 2000.
并且從2000成立開(kāi)始，已經(jīng)出版了7大類(lèi)備受推崇的電子期刊，
For reasons lost in history, this is known as the gold model.
雖然由于各種各樣的原因，它們都淹沒(méi)在歷史的塵埃中，這種方式被稱(chēng)為 “黃金模式”。
The NIH's approach is different.
國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究所的方法不一樣，
It lets researchers publish in traditional journals, but on condition that, within a year, they post their papers on a free “repository” website called PubMed.
它允許傳統(tǒng)學(xué)術(shù)期刊發(fā)表研究人員的論文，但是有一個(gè)條件，就是在一年之內(nèi)他的論文會(huì)在一家名為PubMed網(wǎng)站的免費(fèi)“知識(shí)庫(kù)”中公布，
Journals have to agree to this, or be excluded from the process.
期刊出版商必須同意這么做，要么就會(huì)被排除在該程序之外，
This is known as the green model.
這就被稱(chēng)為“綠色模式”。
Both gold and green models involve prepublication peer review.
不管是黃金模式還是綠色模式都涉及到正式出版前的同業(yè)互查問(wèn)題，
But a third does away with even that.
但第三種就不需要這樣了，
Many scientists, physicists in particular, now upload drafts of their papers into public archives paid for by networks of universities for the general good.
現(xiàn)在很多科學(xué)家都為共同利益而把他們的草稿上傳到由大學(xué)運(yùn)營(yíng)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)公共檔案館中，
Here, manuscripts are subject to a ruthless process of open peer review, rather than the secret sort traditional publishers employ.
在這里，手稿都暴露在嚴(yán)格的同業(yè)互查之下，而不是被傳統(tǒng)出版商私下分類(lèi)。
An arXived paper may end up in a traditional journal, but that is merely to provide an imprimatur for the research team who wrote it.
一份被arXiv化論文可能會(huì)以傳統(tǒng)期刊的出版而結(jié)束，但這僅僅只是為研究小組提供出版許可，
Its actual publication, and its value to other scientists, dates from its original arrival online.
它的實(shí)際出版物，還有對(duì)其他科學(xué)家的價(jià)值和原始數(shù)據(jù)都可以在網(wǎng)上找到。
The success of PLoS, and the political shift towards open access, is encouraging other new ventures, too.
科學(xué)公共圖書(shū)館的成功讓其把政策轉(zhuǎn)向開(kāi)放閱覽，這也鼓勵(lì)了其他新的投資者。
Seeing the writing on the wall, several commercial publishers are experimenting with gold-model publishing.
在看到這些“不祥之兆”后，一些商業(yè)出版商開(kāi)始嘗試以“黃金模式”出版，
Meanwhile, later this year, a coalition of the Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will publish the first edition of eLife, an open-access journal with ambitions to rival the most famous journal of the lot, Nature.
與此同時(shí)，在今年晚些時(shí)候，馬普研究院和霍華休斯醫(yī)學(xué)研究中心將與維康信托基金會(huì)合作，出版首期eLife電子期刊，這份開(kāi)放閱覽的期刊有信心與它們之中最著名的《自然》競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，
The deep pockets of these organisations mean that, for the first few years at least, this journal will not even require a publication fee.
那些財(cái)大氣粗的組織甚至想至少在頭幾年不對(duì)期刊收取出版費(fèi)。
Much remains to be worked out.
仍然還有許多要解決的東西，
Some fear the loss of the traditional journals'curation and verification of research.
一些人擔(dān)心會(huì)失去傳統(tǒng)期刊的內(nèi)容治理和調(diào)查核實(shí)，
Even Sir Mark Walport, the director of the Wellcome Trust and a fierce advocate of open-access publication, worries that a system based on the green model could become fragmented.
甚至維康信托基金會(huì)的主管和開(kāi)放出版的堅(jiān)定支持者M(jìn)ark Walport先生也擔(dān)心基于綠色模式的系統(tǒng)會(huì)分崩離析，
That might happen if the newly liberated papers ended up in different places rather than being consolidated in the way the NIH insists on.
如果新式寬松論文政策被某些原因終結(jié)而不是如NIH所堅(jiān)持走統(tǒng)一合并的路子，這一切就有可能發(fā)生。
But research just published in BMC Medicine suggests papers in open-access journals are as widely cited as those in traditional publications.
但是根據(jù)《BMC醫(yī)學(xué)》最近公布的調(diào)查顯示，開(kāi)放閱覽期刊被引用的廣泛程度和傳統(tǒng)期刊一樣多。
A revolution, then, has begun.
所以一場(chǎng)革命已經(jīng)開(kāi)始了，
Technology permits it; researchers and politicians want it.
不僅技術(shù)上可行，研究人員和政客也需要。
If scientific publishers are not trembling in their boots, they should be.
如果傳統(tǒng)科技圖書(shū)出版商沒(méi)有覺(jué)得膽戰(zhàn)心驚的話，那現(xiàn)在就是時(shí)候了。
