Academician Yang Wei: OA journals are not reputable. How to promote open science in China?

Text | Yang Wei (Director of the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Expert Committee of the World -Class Science and Technology Journal Construction)

With the development of scientific research and exchanges, the form of academic publishing has undergone irreversible changes. This change is to open up. In other words, the entire open science is already on the agenda.

Openness is one of the essential attributes of science. For scientific researchers, open science is conducive to improving data reliability and the ability to contact scientific data. However, it is still facing many challenges to promote open science in China.

Global open scientific governance requires China to join

At present, the open scientific movement has reached a global consensus, and the global open scientific governance requires China to join.

The open scientific movement is promoted in Europe, and the third world countries are also actively participating and supporting. China is already the country with the most science and technology papers in publishing OA (open), and is the pole of the game of open science. The active joining of China is good for building a community of human scientific destiny, which is good.

From the perspective of the number of global scientific research outputs, the cumulative influence of the ten years of chemistry, engineering, materials and computers in my country has become the world's first. Essence

However, in the construction of world -class journals, my country has to make more efforts.

At present, only more than 1,000 scientific and technological journals in my country have entered the Scopus database (scientific research search analysis analysis and disciplinary planning management database launched by Ais Weier Publishing House. Disciplinary development, editor's note), scientific and technological journals registered in China only account for about 4%of the Scopus database, which is not enough.

In view of this, China has increased its efforts to build a first -class international journal since 2020. It is hoped that in 2030, it can occupy a place in the world technology publishing community, and in 2050 to reach the level of shoulders compared with Europe and the United States.

my country's open science is accepted by academic circles and faces two major tests

The development trend of international science and technology publishing shows that open acquisition has become a major model with a clear business model and sales model.

The business model is mainly from the original subscription mechanism to the APC (thesis processing fee), and the sales model is promoted by the "conversion journal".

my country is currently promoting open sciences to face many challenges and opportunities. First of all, the substantial participation of my country in open science is not enough, and it should actively promote this work. Secondly, my country's open science is accepted by the academic community, namely to answer the following two questions.

The first is how to achieve a win -win situation for interests?

In complete OA, the rights and responsibilities of readers, writers, publishers, libraries and funders are asymmetric.

As a result, a series of issues follow: Is the new rights and new responsibilities obtained by science and technology workers in open science? Readers have the right to read and do not need to pay. What is the responsibility? The author's literature reference and quotation benefit -less double paid and the APC needs to be paid, but those authors who have no funding support may have complaints.

In addition, publishers are new business models (from subscribing to APC) and new sales models (group purchase). The library does not need to pay the subscription fee, but no longer has data. Funders avoid dual funding, replacing academic institutions to become the main paid, what is the "name" of funding agencies to pay more?

The second is how to change the reputation of OA in the academic world?

The reputation of OA journals was not high.

At present, China's posts in OA journals have surpassed the United States and become the world's number one. However, the average impact factors of the OA journal issued by Chinese scholars are low, which are distributed in double peaks. 75%of papers published in lower -end OA journals, many of which are predatory journals.

However, the reputation of the OA journal is also recovering. For example, the top journal (such as the "Nature" series) is changing from a mixed to a conversion, and nearly one hundred journals have joined this process.

Our excellent plan (the "China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Plan" jointly implemented by the Seven Departments of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, editor's note) Most of them adopt OA paths. At the same time, the blacklist of plunder journals was announced that the reputation of OA journals was gradually getting better.

In addition, OA has the advantage of reference. The impact factor of all OA journals has increased faster, and the transformation of the global publishing model is approaching.

Three thresholds that may encounter in open sciences

Observing the current situation of the domestic academic community, the implementation of open sciences in my country may encounter three thresholds, and three questions must be answered.

The first is who is the main body?

The main body of the subscription model is the negotiation of the leading price framework of the China Academic Library Information System (Calis), from 2000 to 2035. Specifically, the libraries are responsible for ordering, and each academic institution pays, and has the right to use the purchased database in the specified IP group.

OA model author pays the APC of OA papers according to the general price. Academic institutions no longer have databases located in the cloud, and government departments should not directly negotiate group purchases with data providers. Therefore, whoever organizes a group and who pays is a problem.

The second is how to gradually meet the price difference?

China has spent 20 years from developing countries to academic countries. In the order model, the negotiation of Calis leading the price framework, from 2000 to 2035, the starting price of developing countries reached 80%of the world's average price. The APC of OA papers is based on the average world price. At present, various publishing fees (subscription fees+APC) paid in my country account for about 6%to 8%of the world's total, and the number of SCI papers published by my country in 2020 has reached the world Total 28.5%.

If it is changed to OA model, the payment price will increase by 3 to 4 times. So, how can we gradually increase the price difference?

The third is how to stabilize the development of domestic science and technology journals?

Assuming that the global order model is changed to an open acquisition model, the funding assisted alliance and the publishing platform negotiate to reach a group purchase agreement.

After the group purchase, my country's major academic institutions have obtained the right to read the scientific data of the corresponding publishing platform, that is, exempt APC within the agreed share, then the author of my country's major academic institutions will invest most of the manuscripts to the publishing platform after the group purchase payment payment. Because these platforms are famous, influential, open, and non -payment.

The 5,000 local journals in my country are divided into 4,000 legal persons, and it is difficult to start group purchases. As a result, most of the high -quality manuscripts may be lost.

In this way, after simply opening up the conversion, 5,000 local scientific and technological journals in my country may fall into the trough. The development of stable national magazines has become a problem that cannot be bypassed.

my country's scientific and technological journals promote the four paths of open science

In view of the above problems, I would like to put forward four implementations for reference from the perspective of promoting the open scientific perspective of promoting the scientific scientific perspective of my country.

The first is to build China's world -class academic data operation and service platform.

This platform should have a professional information and analysis team, with platform operation capabilities (flow computing, server, application team), and have a considerable open scientific data (type, quantity and quality) with considerable and competitors. And the reputation among scholars.

The second is to form a composite subject for purchasing open scientific data.

The library alliance of the academic institutions still uses the subjects of the form, and uses the price framework of the subscription agreement as the starting point of the group purchase. The IP group of academic institutions is still used as the coverage of reading rights, and the address range of academic institutions is used as users of APC exemption. The medium map import and export company (the right to import and export with scientific data) or the National Natural Science Foundation of China (publishing funding) as the general unit.

The third is the price strategy of base price+funding subsidy.

The base prices that pay less than the prices of the original data ordering model related to the group purchases are not lower than the price of the original data ordering model. , Subsidize the difference between the development of scientific data group purchases, and use this data to bless some of the "open science and service platform" operation part of the profit nursery fund.

The fourth is to encourage my country's high -level journals to open up group purchase.

The seven ministries and commissions of the China Science and Technology Association have formed a certain lead in our journal community through the "Chinese Science and Technology Journal Excellent Action Plan" and other plans.

It can be led by the Chinese Science and Technology Association to form an evaluation mechanism for 5,000 scientific and technological journals in my country. On the basis of the assessment, the list of journals that can be included in the national open scientific database. According to the group purchase model of the international open scientific publishing platform data, the fund will be purchased by the selected journal. The above process can be carried out by dynamic adjustment.

(This article is organized by Zhao Guangli, a reporter from the China Science News)

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Capture | Guo Gang

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