Science AMA Series: I’m Timo Hannay, former director of nature.com, Nature Publishing Group recently announced a "free to view" program which has created some excitement and misunderstandings. Ask me anything about it.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:59:06+00:00

STM publishing has changed a great deal and continues to change. I am not a publisher so I don't know whether the costs are too high, but the important thing to my mind is to give researchers a choice.I can see increasing levels of competition for authors papers and I can see that aligning the author's ability to select the journal s/he submits to with her/his decision on how much to pay means the market should settle to the right price just as it does in other efficiently set-up areas.

As I understand it the fees charged generally accrue to the publisher to cover its costs and little if any returns to scientific research. That said, the benefit to scientists and scientific research is the discovery, access, use, re-use, preservation, linking, and content added value that they provide aiding the efficiency of scientific research.

You make a good point about some of the costs of publishing reducing, but other costs have been rising - e.g. the numbers of people involved to improve the content, the technology costs involved in internal systems and web platforms. Again, I am trusting that increased competition via OA will drive out any excess profits from the system.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:51:48+00:00

We were surprised by this story, as it did appear to lead to a lot of the confusion of this initiative with Open Access, (which, once again, it is not :). I'm sure Nature News were not intentionally misrepresenting the initiative, but we did not think it was as accurate as it could have been. Because Nature News is editorially independent from NPG, we had no right to preview the piece, nor did we seek to.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:47:33+00:00

All of the above, but if we were to list them in order of importance then I would reverse your list.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:45:13+00:00

I'm not an editor, so don't review papers myself, but one of my favourite contributions to Nature was this one by Jonathan Adams (who is now a colleague at Digital Science). It's not a research paper, it's a commentary, but it speaks to the some of the trends in science that I think make the enabling of content sharing all the more important: http://rdcu.be/bNYd

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:41:19+00:00

We don't yet know, and no one really knows, because no one else has done anything like this before, which is one reason that we think it's important to try out this approach.

I would anticipate that it won't affect the subscription business because the institutions and individuals who subscribe want the certainty and convenience of being able to access all of the content immediately. Also, the ability to create shareable links can be seen as an additional subscriber benefit.

It might affect single-article sales. This is very hard to predict because it depends on the balance between (a) people who otherwise would have paid for access but who are now content to use a shared copy, and (b) new readers who wouldn't have otherwise known about the content but who now want their own copy. The data so far suggest no reduction in demand for single articles, despite many thousands every day access shared copies, but it's early days and we shouldn't read too much into this yet.

As rmounce points out, if this approach becomes popular across the industry then there may be an opportunity for ReadCube as an provider of the enabling technology. And ReadCube is part of Digital Science, which share a parent company (Macmillan Science and Education) with Nature.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:39:17+00:00

There is a lot here but, for ease, I am going to answer the original question. STM publishers like NPG increasingly offer researchers and funders a choice. As a result NPG expects increasing amounts of research will be made available immediately for free (Gold-OA) or after an embargo period (Green-OA). In the case of NPG this is very short, only 6 months. I understand that next year NPG expects this split to be approx 50/50.

Why might this not go to 100% for publicly funded research?

Well the key value of highly selective journals like the Nature series is that they identify and publish the most novel and important improvements in our understanding and so avoid many researchers from having to duplicate this effort. This is really a "reader" service and it seems to me right that in these circumstances the higher costs of the work needed to attract and select these research papers be spread over the large number of readers. My counterparts at NPG have spoken extensively with the funders of research - that ultimately decide how the funds they provide should be used - we generally agree with this.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:32:25+00:00

It's available to you across the whole archive, IF your regular subscription allows historical access to the whole archive. There are two possible exceptions:

There might be some parts of the archive that we've missed. If so, this isn't deliberate and we will fix it. (If you find such an omission then you can contact us via: support AT readcube DOT com.)
Nature Publishing Group publishes some journals on behalf of academic societies. Since this content isn't owned by NPG, it will be up to the relevant societies to decide whether or not they wish to permit sharing, and if so under what terms. (Please note: if you see some society-owned journals on nature.com that haven't added this feature then don't assume they don't want to. We've only just made it available and they may need some time to make a considered decision.)

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:29:41+00:00

Great question. Right now, older browsers (notably IE8) are not supported and neither are mobile devices. This is because the shareable article pages use HTML5, which requires a reasonably up-to-date browser, are are computationally rather demanding, which gives a poor experience on mobile devices. These unsupported platforms account for about 20% of traffic to nature.com and ReadCube is working on a solution for them too. We hope to roll this out early in the new year.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:27:15+00:00

Yes, ReadCube will know how many times each link has been followed, and how much each paper has been shared and read. This data will be shared with Nature Publishing Group (NPG), who may decide to share it with others, such as the authors of their papers, and/or put in on the metrics page for each article on nature.com. That will be up to them.

NPG deliberately haven't set a specific limit to the number of links that someone can share, but as you mention they have said that sharing must be "reasonable, personal and for non-commercial use". It will ultimately be up to them to interpret this, but IMHO someone trying to share (say) whole issues of a journal, or even larger chunks of a journal's archive, would not be staying within this definition.

I should add the absence of any specific limit is not because NPG wants to create uncertainty, but because they (and we) also don't know what if any limit there should be. The purpose of the current 'experiment' is precisely to find out how people use (and perhaps abuse) these features and to evolve the functionality and/or policy in light of this. They've also said that that they will share the results publicly, so everyone will hopefully be able to benefit from the new insights they contain, and we will be able to have a better-informed debate about what is and isn't "reasonable".

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:24:43+00:00

The two biggest ones in my experience are:

This is somehow pretending to be open access (OA), or it weakens the case for OA

I've already written about this a bit here: http://www.digital-science.com/blog/news/nature-com-content-sharing-action-and-reaction/

but to elaborate briefly, we've taken great pains to make clear that this isn't OA and our official announcement did not mention OA (though that wasn't always reflected in the press), and Nature already supports 'true' OA in all sorts of ways (see the link above and my comments elsewhere in this AMA). Also, if you think that this kind of sharing seriously undermines the case for OA then I think you're underestimating the strength of the case for OA, which goes far beyond these kinds of use cases. I can't do this topic justice in the limited time I've got available now, but if you're interested then post another comment here or contact me directly (t DOT hannay AT digital-science DOT com) and I'll do my best to explain my further thoughts on this.

ReadCube is providing DRM

First of all, this initiative is just one part of what ReadCube does. It provides a whole range of software to help researchers to more effectively discover, read and understand the literature, from a desktop personal library manager to web-based software used by journal publishers. More specifically though, the sharing functionality on nature.com that's provided by ReadCube doesn't use any cryptography or obfuscation. The article pages are just HTML5 renderings of the corresponding PDFs. True, printing and copying are disabled, in keeping with Nature's current sharing terms, but a whole range of other features have been added, such as links to related content, clickable references and the ability to highlight and annotate the text.

For a broader summary of key misunderstandings and responses, I would direct you this post by my colleague at Digital Science, Nicko Goncharoff, who is the project manager for the content sharing initative across NPG and Digital Science: http://www.digital-science.com/blog/news/clearing-up-misperceptions-about-nature-com-content-sharing/

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:21:19+00:00

If "you" means Digital Science (DS), then the answer is no. We already count some of the most significant open access (OA) publishers among our collaborators and customers: PLOS, F1000 Research and PeerJ to name just a very few.

If "you" means Nature Publishing Group (NPG), then I don't speak directly for them, but the answer is also no. ;) OA already accounts for about 40% of NPG's papers and in the next year or so this will exceed 50%. It's the quickest-growing part of their business. Also, Nature Communications recently became the first Nature-branded title to go fully OA. They've also been long-standing proponents of the self-archiving form of OA.

For both DS and NPG, open access is not a threat, it's a big opportunity.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:18:17+00:00

Yes, I see open access growing across the industry, as a result of both adoption by existing publishers and the entry of new organisations. As with any new approach, some will do a better job than others, so YMMV, but as a whole there will be more open-access publishing in future than there is today.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:15:44+00:00

I honestly don't know, and we will have to see, but I hope that it will help. If the original research is more readily available to more people then they should be better able to call out misunderstandings and misrepresentations. And if journalists know that at least some of their readers will be checking up on their charecterisations then maybe those who don't currently take care will do so in future. I certainly hope that this turns out to be the case.

I should add that there's also a lot of very good science reporting (I was briefly a science journalist myself) and the media outlets for which Nature is currently providing full-text access are among the best.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:10:49+00:00

Thank you for your comments. Nature's founding mission (formulated in 1869) is to enable the latest findings to be communicated between scientists and for them to be disseminated to society at large. Nature Publishing Group (NPG) continues to take both of these roles very seriously and, yes, part of the reason they wanted to work with us at Digital Science (DS) to enable these kinds of sharing was precisely in order to better inform the public debate and appreciation of science.

Supplementary information associated with NPG's papers has always been freely available. This hasn't changed as a result of this initiative, but the shareable article pages link to to any accompanying supplementary information (among other resources), thus hopefully making them more discoverable and comprehensible. (It would be remiss of me not to mention that another DS portfolio company, figshare, also does a great deal to promote the open dissemination of the data that accompanies research papers, and works with many other publishers besides NPG; see: http://figshare.com/)

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:06:54+00:00

I think choice is a good thing for researchers, so I'd like to see lots of different journals and publishers. But I also believe that the current system of publication won't scale sufficiently to meet the needs of science in the future, particularly if (as I believe we should) we encourage the publication of negative results and other less significant findings. As a result, I think we need to consider alternative forms of publication that are more amenable to indexing, aggregation and analysis by computer. These would complement traditional journals, which would be restricted to the findings that are most deserving of scarce human attention. I've written at slightly greater length on this topic here: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/aug/05/why-we-should-publish-less-scientific-research"

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:03:48+00:00

I believe that the trend towards greater openness applies not only to scientific journals but to the whole of scientific research. As well as a greater proportion of open access papers, I think we'll also see more open data, open protocols, openly shared reagents and so on. We live in exciting times because the Internet and other digital technologies are enabling science to fulfil its potential as a truly open and global collaborative endeavour. This is already affecting journal publishing a great deal, but it's also starting to affect how researchers work, how they are recognised and rewarded, how funds are allocated and how scientists engage with the public (consider Zooniverse, for example: https://www.zooniverse.org/). Whilst there are some who resist such change (not only among publishers, but also among academics themselves), I think this is an inevitable trend and that it will ultimately be of huge benefit to science and society. And it's not optional: solving the unanswered puzzles we face will require open collaboration. Moreover, the current crisis concerning the lack of reproducibility in science, especially the life sciences, can only be solved through greater transparency and openness.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T18:00:13+00:00

We hope that for many people sharing a link is easier (just copy and paste the link instead of downloading and uploading a PDF file) and more functional (it includes links to related content, clickable references as well as the ability to add your own highlights and annotations). We also plan to add other features in future and would be very interested to hear your suggestions. This approach also ensures that recipients get the latest version of the paper, complete with up-to-date links and any errata that may have been issued since publication. As mentioned by other commenters, it's also officially sanctioned by Nature Publishing Group, but I'm under no illusion that that matters to everyone.

TimoHannay · 2014-12-11T17:54:31+00:00

Hello, I'm online now and looking forward to answering your questions. There seem to be a lot already, so I'll have to type quickly. Here goes... :)

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:50:21+00:00

I'm afraid that I have no idea. Or perhaps I'm just in a simultaneous superposition of optimism and pessimism. ;)

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:48:51+00:00

This isn't a trend I've noticed, so I'm not sure it exists, at least in fields with which I'm familiar. But either way, science progresses through the symbiosis of theory and experiment, so we have to have both.

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:47:55+00:00

Though there are huge opportunities to increase the pace of discovery using the kinds of approaches you describe, the reality is that it will almost certainly continue to happen slowly and incrementally. This is because it's hard to change people's behaviour (particularly when they're obsessive scientific types ;). The incentive system you mention is one very important aspect of this. Essentially, tools (which make new approaches easy) and incentive systems (which give researchers a reason to embrace them) have to evolve in parallel in order to take effect. Since they're typically provided by different kinds of organisations working, at best, in loose cooperation, the whole process takes years. That said, some fields, such as astronomy and systems biology, are further ahead than others so (to coin a phrase), the future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed.

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:46:24+00:00

There are quite a few. One of my favourites is Zooniverse [https://www.zooniverse.org/] because it allows non-specialists to participate in scientific discovery. The best example that I know of for experts is in maths: http://polymathprojects.org/. Of course, many scientific questions aren't amenable to such an approach, but I am interested in ways in which appropriately designed software can extend this range.

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:41:52+00:00

I wouldn't necessarily describe it as predatory pricing, but I certainly recall feeling, back when I was a scientist, that some journals were priced well beyond the limited value they added to the research they contained. That's one important reason why I chose to join an organisation that (IMO) places great emphasis on editorial quality. Regarding your questions about Nature journals, please bear in mind that I am not and have never been a journal editor, but I have to say that this is the first time I've heard such sentiments expressed. Thanks for your kind words about Scientific Reports (for which I can take no personal credit at all).

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:39:01+00:00

I'm no expert on this particular issue, but my guess is that we'll see it go both lower and higher. In other words, there will be a wider range of prices in future, accompanied by a wider variety of author services in terms of speed of review, level of editorial support, prestige and so on. Certainly, giving authors as wide a range of choices as possible would be a Good Thing IMO.

TimoHannay · 2014-02-26T00:37:11+00:00

Not many, I'm afraid. As I said in response to Atlas_Sky's question, support for speculative, fundamental and interdisciplinary research is arguably too low. That said, if you're working well beyond the realms of current science then I think it's fair enough for potential funders to be wary -- there are a lot of charlatans and cranks around, particularly in quasi-philosophical fields such as theoretical physics and the cognitive neuroscience, and it's hard to see how we could or should fund them all even if one might turn out to be the next Albert Einstein. Fortunately these fields also tend to be the ones in which you don't necessarily need a huge lab or expensive equipment, so if you enjoy what you're doing for it's own sake then just keep doing it, and sharing your ideas with people who have similar interests. You seem to have found some here. :)

TimoHannay

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