November 5, 2019 • 27 mins
In this continuing discussion on the academic journal, we turn our attention to the shifting kaleidoscope of scholarly communication, in an attempt to understand how publication channels and formats are evolving. This time Michiel Kolman interviews Kent Anderson of Caldera Publishing, who believes we are living through one of the most confusing times in the information space.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Research Futures report: In 2019, Elsevier and Ipsos MORI joined forces to understand how trends, from advances in technology and funding pressures to political uncertainly and population shifts, might be fueling the changes we'll see in the coming decade. The resulting large-scale, future-scoping and scenario-planning study raised many questions and sparked many conversations, some of which are touched on in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Music (00:03):
[inaudible].
Mancini (00:06):
Hi, I'm Giacomo Mancini.
Welcome to Research 2030 anElsevier podcast series in which
guests from academia and beyondjoin us in exploring, debating
and challenging the changingresearch landscape and welcome
to the second of our breaking upis hard to do episodes, in which
we turn our attention to theshifting kaleidoscope of
scholarly communication in anattempt to understand how
(00:27):
publication channels and formatsare evolving.
For decades now, journals, thepeer reviewed content they
publish and the metrics we useto measure their impact have
enjoyed a symbiotic relationshipwith many aspects of the
research ecosystem shapingdecisions around funding,
researcher careers andinstitution rankings and more.
(00:48):
But much is changing, largelydriven by the rapid advances
we've witnessed in technology.
The key question we've set outto answer in these episodes is
how those changes might impactresearch articles and their
journal jacket.
I'm delighted to say thatMichiel Kolman, president of the
international publishersassociation and senior vice
president at Elsevier forinformation industry relations
(01:08):
is on hand to help us.
As you might recall in theprevious episode, he spoke with
Heather Stains, head ofpartnerships at the MIT futures
knowledge group who outlined afuture in which research
articles continue to evolvefollowing publication.
In this episode, Michiel isjoined by Kent Anderson of
caldera publishing who believeswe are living through one of the
(01:28):
most confusing times in theinformation space.
Music (01:34):
[inaudible]
Kolman (01:36):
I'm very happy to introduce our guests, which is
Kent Anderson who was publisherof the AAAS, New England journal
of medicine.
Started I think, scholarlykitchen and is now running
caldera publishing solutions.
And I think you're still maybeassociated with scholarly
kitchen Kent.
So Kent, welcome.
It's great to have you on board.
Anderson (01:58):
Thank you very much.
Michiel,
Kolman (02:00):
is there anything else I missed in my introduction?
Anderson (02:03):
Just about a year ago I launched a subscription E
newsletter called the Geyser,which, uh, publishes daily and
covers a lot of topics ofrelevance to scholarly
publishers, editors, people inthe information space.
The goal is to humanize the,what we're talking about.
And so I have a lot ofinterviews with people who are
actually doing the work and whoactually are setting the
(02:24):
policies and, and thinking aboutthese things.
Kolman (02:28):
Great.
Yes.
And I must say, I do read italmost every day and I know my
colleagues here at Elsevier doas well.
So, all right, back to the topicfor today, the research journal,
but before we dive in there, um,let's explore a bit how you view
that the world of researchitself is evolving and of
course, what are thenimplications for the way
(02:51):
information is discovered inshared?
Anderson (02:54):
Right.
Well, I think for the past 20years we've spent a lot of time
modeling the behaviors ofSilicon Valley and the
information theories that areboth implicit and explicit
around the development oftechnologies that now
essentially have consolidatedinto a few major players,
Facebook, Google, uh, Amazon andApple and Twitter.
(03:18):
And by doing that, I think we'velost, we've lost track of sort
of our purpose and our remit andwe've kind of turned over,
surrendered some of our, uh,special and unique and important
valuable contributions.
And I think now it's shiftingback to a great degree based on
user demand, which is morearound quality, more around
(03:40):
trust and I think essentiallypushing back and saying we've
gone too far that, that now thedownsides of information
weaponization and um, just, youknow, unfettered information
sharing have become too obviousand people have found ways to
exploit that and they want morehuman expert control exerting
(04:03):
itself.
And I think we'll get into thosetopics, but I think you know,
that that goes to how things arefunded, who pays for what, it
goes to how at what stagesthings are released, it goes to
a lot of different topics.
Kolman (04:18):
So in a way you see that the tech backlash could be an
inspiration for the STMpublishing industry.
Anderson (04:26):
I think what it is is a, an exploitation backlash and
a feeling victimized backlash.
And I think people are tired offeeling victimized and just
pummeled constantly byinformation and having to deal
with, there is just, you know,there's, there's just a point of
exhaustion that, that, you know,is that true?
Is that not true?
(04:47):
Is that person biased?
Is it not biased?
And so they're, they'reconsolidating their attention
again around trusted outlets.
And so newspapers, magazines,all those subscriptions are up
because people have basicallysaid, my, my time and attention
is worth more to me.
And I, that was, that wasinteresting.
(05:08):
That was an experience.
But it, the downsides becamereally apparent and I want some
sanity in my life and I wantexpertise again.
Kolman (05:17):
So when people say information just wants to be
free, you're essentially sayingit comes with a price.
So to say.
Anderson (05:24):
Well I mean we have to again always complete that quote
from Stewart Brand, which isinformation a wants to be
expensive too because the rightinformation at the right point
can be priceless.
And I think, you know, and alongthat spectrum that you know,
good information is worthsomething and better information
is worth more and worseinformation is worth less.
(05:47):
And if you, you know, kind ofjust honor that very simple
rule, you tend to see the worldfunctioning you in more toward
the middle of that spectrum, uh,with a little bit of wiggle room
on either side and not at theextremes.
Kolman (06:03):
And what are the implications for say, the, the
academic journal?
Anderson (06:09):
Well, I think there are a few.
I think that one of theimplications has been the
internalization of the ideasthat the digital tech, the
digital landscape is cheaper torun in the print landscape was
and you know, so the informationwants to be free, kind of
coincided with the emergence ofthe internet.
People conflated those twonotions that Oh, digital can be
(06:30):
free or much less expensive.
Think what experience has shownus is that that's not true.
That digital technologies areexpensive to build, maintain,
purvey, upgrade, and expand andextend.
And I remember I worked in printand print was actually very
cheap and efficient.
(06:51):
You could, it was very much abatch process.
You would finish an issue, you'dsend it to the printer and then
you would work on the next oneand you pretty much would forget
about the issue that you know,maybe two or three issues ago,
you wouldn't really worry aboutthose, you know, libraries were
storing them on shelves.
You didn't have to as apublisher, have to pay to
archive them.
You didn't have to worry aboutupgrading all of that content.
Kolman (07:14):
No long-term preservation at all.
Anderson (07:17):
No long-term preservation, no long-term up,
you know, upgrading, you didn'thave to put it through another
DTD or jets, you know,conversion, things like that.
So, you know, so I think one ofthe implications has been that
people who have been payingattention have learned that
digital is actually moreexpensive and the costs are
different, they are fixed costs,meaning salaries and
(07:37):
infrastructure, and they're notthe variable costs of print,
which could be managed moreeasily.
It's easier to take five poundsoff your paperweight and save
money in a, in a rough year morebecause you want to shifts, or
spend money on something elsethan it is to fire 12
developers.
So, you know, that's, that'skind of, I think one of the
(07:58):
lessons that we've learned overthe past 20 years is that
digital is different, hasdifferent dynamics, and is more
expensive to run than anybody Ianticipated.
So, you know, once we get, againwe get to the point of accepting
that then discussions about costand value and then you also have
(08:20):
the vastly expanded bandwidth ofdigital as far as the number of
articles and the size ofjournals that can be supported.
And during the 20 years, youknow, journals have increased in
size, in number and in andarticles have gotten longer,
reference lists have gottenlonger.
All of those things are pricesthat people have to pay for.
Submissions have gone up aroundthe board, those are expensive
(08:42):
to handle.
So the whole, in aggregate thesystem has gotten more expensive
and then volume has gone updramatically because China has
entered the market in the past20 years and now outpaces the US
as a producer of research.
So there's no, I, I've, I'veseen no measure of the scholarly
publications landscape that saysthis is getting cheaper.
(09:05):
I see every measure saying thisis getting more expensive.
It's getting more complicated.
The volumes going up, the scopeis going up.
And the competition fortechnology resources is also
going to drive expense.
Kolman (09:18):
And maybe also the expectations with the end users.
Anderson (09:21):
Absolutely.
I think people, you know like Ialways used to like to say 99%
of the time, your customer spendonline is not with you.
They're out forming theexpectations that they will
arrive at your site with.
And those expectations will be,you know, Amazon level
e-commerce, it will be Applelevel interfaces.
It will be, you know, Googlelevel search capabilities.
(09:44):
All of those things will justnecessarily, you'd be brought to
your site by users and thosecompanies spend their billions
of dollars in expendituresgetting those things working as
well as they do.
And so there you go.
You know, you'd have to at leastmake an attempt.
Kolman (10:05):
And so we are increasingly live in a world of
high quality digital solutions,but perhaps that's not always
appreciated as much by everybodyaround us.
So how will you explain thatkind of divide in opinions?
Anderson (10:22):
I think it, part of it comes from a lack of experience
with actual what actuallyhappens.
There was a lot of optimism veryearly on and I, I enjoyed that
optimism as well.
I thought it was going to beexciting.
I thought it was going to be socheap that we'd be able to do
everything we could imagine thatw e'd, you know, realize all of
(10:45):
these benefits.
I think what has transpired has,y ou k now, been different than
that and kind of a l et d own.
But I also think that somelagging cultural or policy level
factor continues to feed intothe system that this should be
cheap.
This should be free.
(11:06):
This should be, ah, completelyavailable to everybody all the
time.
You know, there's all sorts offinancial and economic pressures
that people need to take intoaccount as well.
And it's not a great time for,there's not exactly a moonshot
going on when it comes toscientific research and the
supportive academic careers,scientific careers, scholarly
(11:26):
careers.
You look at, you know, howtenure tracks are eroding.
You look at, you know, adjunctfaculty in the U S becoming the
norm.
You look at all these pressureson young researchers and all of
those things are, I think, partand parcel with this entire
underfunding of the scholarlyinfrastructure.
(11:47):
And that's another fundamentalissue is that everybody thought
this was going to get cheaper.
And I think actually led peopleto say, well, we aren't going to
need as much money and nowthat's...yeah.
Again, you look at the driversand that's just not, it hasn't
proven to be true at all.
Kolman (12:03):
So you sounded a bit pessimistic about the future of
the, you know, the sciencejournal, the research journals,
t here are so many pressuresfrom so many angles s ay the
ecosystem.
Anderson (12:16):
Yeah.
So my, my mindset is I'moptimistic and I'm critical
because I believe that only thatcriticism ultimately will get a
response and fix things.
So that's the way I'm optimisticis by saying, you know, Hey,
we've got a problem over here.
If we fix that, things arebetter.
And I think one of the things wecould fix would be for the story
(12:36):
to shift from publishers areexploitative, publishers are
unnecessary, publishers are, youknow, blah blah, blah.
You go down, whatever the, thelist you want to, there's a
partnership that exists.
One thing that confuses me isthat institutional and libraries
(12:56):
and publishers fundamentallyserve the same people in
different ways.
And for them to be fighting, um,is kind of, I just don't get it.
I don't understand why that is.
So one of the things I would,you know, I commend a lot of
publishers for is working veryclosely with libraries and
librarians to help themunderstand how this all works.
(13:17):
I've been doing my part in thatas well.
And I think that, you know,through these, but it's a very
slow, gradual process.
And fundamentally you also haveto get up to the administrators
at the universities to say, youknow, the volume of research has
exploded over the last 20 years.
The number of people beingtrained in the STEM disciplines
is growing and you're, you'reparty to that.
(13:39):
You're not giving them jobs,you're not paying for the
information they need and so onand so forth.
So I think being critical and,and really looking at the facts
as the way to, to make sure thatthings do actually improve and,
and get back to a place wherethey've are functional.
Kolman (13:55):
So just the to be a little bit controversial since
my background is in physics, um,are the roles of the pre-print
servers.
So you might meet people in highenergy physics was saying, well
I have all the information at myfingertips.
Every morning I come to the lab,I look at the archives, I read
my five articles or manuscripts.
Depends where you stand.
(14:15):
And that's a little do to trickfor me.
Maybe I get some articlesrecommended from colleagues, but
that's about it.
So what do you think is thefuture of, of preprint servers
and or in general of ofmanuscripts made available
immediately upon submission?
Anderson (14:33):
Well, I think that again, one of the things that we
need to always return to and isthat journals are essentially
community communication tools.
They, and by extension to someextent preprint servers are,
they're just badly built ones.
So for astrophysics, the way thethe machines are able to throw
(14:53):
off data at such a rate thatastrophysicists cannot keep up
with even writing papers basedon the data that they're getting
from 24, seven radio telescopedata generation from probes they
have all that it is, it's justmassive.
So they, they can't keep up withthe data that their disciplines
(15:14):
generating.
They try to, they publish asmuch as they can on archive.
Then the journals publish 60, 60to 70% of that that they deem to
be sort of the cream of thecrop.
But if somebody publishes apaper on archive that says
pulsar one, two, three isexhibiting this behavior, and
(15:38):
that turns out to be wrong, nokid's going to get sick.
Nobody's going to make a publicpolicy decision that is going
to, you know, lead to, uh,deleterious health outcomes.
When you move into thebiological sciences, you start
to get into a whole differentrange of risks.
And I think by mimicking thekind of behavior of one
(16:03):
community, which makes sense forthat community and just blindly
applying it to other communitiesthat's not responsible.
And I think what has happenedwith some of the preprint
servers as they've been prettyirresponsible in actually tuning
there, uh, their design of theirpreprint servers to the
information, the audience, thepotential risks.
(16:26):
I think Med archive has done aslightly better job than bio
archive.
I think Sci archive has not donea good job.
It varies.
Kolman (16:33):
What's the differences between the three mentioned and
why do you think one did abetter job than the other?
Anderson (16:38):
Well, so Med archive has a warning on the very front
page that says nothing in hereis peer reviewed essentially.
And you should, the mediashouldn't cover it.
People shouldn't use it at allfor making personal healthcare
decisions.
It disclaims the entire sitebasically.
And that's a step in the rightdirection.
Bio archive doesn't do that.
Bio archive has small print ingray type unfree prints that
(17:03):
haven't been accepted.
And I've seen, and I'll bepublishing later this week, an
analysis of how some of thosepreprints have made it into the
press and actually caused healthscares.
That's irresponsible to me thatyou would, and then you have
also how five-year-old preprintsstill up there that that were
covered by the media, never seena peer reviewed publication and
(17:26):
all the information's out there,people can still find it.
I infer from the fact that it'sever been published that it's
either abandoned by the authorsor has been rejected by the
collective community that it wasintended to, um, to speak to or
both.
So, and you know, I don't thinkcontributing to the level of
confusion in society is a goodthing.
(17:46):
And I don't think it's somethingthat designers as preprint
servers actually intended do,but they also didn't, they
aren't self reflective enoughthat I've seen to actually say,
Oh, we made a mistake.
But Med archive is a step in theright direction.
Sci archive doesn't do the same.
It doesn't disclaim itsmaterials as well.
But there was a story in the NewYork times this summer about how
(18:08):
the body politic is in the U Sis thinking and it was based on
a Sci archive p re-print that'sa year old has never been
published in a peer r eviewedjournal.
And y ou k now, we have enoughmisinformation about the p
olitics in the U S that we don'tneed scholars.
Y es.
And there's, you know, there arepublishing partners contributing
(18:29):
to that by s ort o fdisrespecting peer review, not
giving it the time it needs.
Not saying that for, you know,for you to get distribution for
you to get a permanentidentifier for you to get a
branded outlet, you need to gothrough peer review.
You need to uh, take a breathand let people striving to be
(18:49):
objective.
Third parties take a look atthis and see if it's good
enough.
Two, get out to that publicinterface.
So, you know, I think forastrophysics that's not such a
concern.
Kolman (19:00):
That's clearer.
You said on the pre-printservers that, you did refer to
trustworthy information andaccountability.
Is that still provided by peerreview or you see already
different developments?
In that area as well.
Anderson (19:15):
Yeah, I think that again, we've, we've modeled some
of the behaviors of, you know,people who don't respect peer
review and so we've shifted peerreview from you know, novelty,
quality, you know, repeatabilityand finality too, you know, is
it scientifically valid,whatever that means.
(19:35):
And that's an a term that wehaven't really defined well or
satisfactorily.
I've read some of the open peerreview reviews and if you know,
there, there was clear that inmany cases it was clear one of
the reviewers was rejecting it.
But I also think we need to notbe entirely devoted to looking
only at peer review as asolution.
(19:56):
Editorial or review is a hugepart of what makes a good
journal.
That is you have an editoreditorial team and associate
editor panel at the head of thejournal and they define a lot
about how that journal relatesto the community.
It's really is intellectual workby experienced people and it's
hard to, hard to sort of, youknow, try to automate that.
(20:20):
But I think editorial review is,you know, is one of the things
that we need to pay moreattention to and is where a lot
of differentiation happensaround quality information.
I mean desk reject is a hugepart of saying not in my house.
Kolman (20:35):
And you mentioned before, you know, this
incredible rise from China.
Unfortunately most of thereviewers are outside of China,
so an incredible burden also onthe whole system.
The, so if these editorialreview will kind of lighten the
burden on the peer reviewsystem, I think that's also
something to take intoconsideration.
Anderson (20:56):
Yeah, it's interesting, one of the, just
back to preprints for a moment,one of the things that I learned
when I was a pup in the industrywas that an editor told me that,
you know, 30% of papers shouldnever be published.
Just rule of thumb.
As he'd worked for 20-30 yearson journals, he kind of learned
(21:16):
that.
And every other journal I workedon or consulted with or you
know, advised that rule of thumbheld true.
Then you look at bio archive and30% of the preprints never get
published anywhere.
So it seems to be a decent ruleof thumb.
The, like you said, if editorscan pick those 30% out right off
(21:38):
the top that are coming intotheir office and say, Nope,
that's not for us.
And then another, usually 20 to30% that just don't meet the
scope of the journal, don't meethow it wants to interface with
its community then you're downto, you know, 50 40% of
submissions that actually go outfor peer reviews.
So absolutely.
Kolman (21:58):
My final question is a bit like looking forward.
So, and I understand alreadyfrom your, your answers so far
that there are ongoing themes,so to say about accountability
and trustworthiness.
Where do you see thedevelopments on sharing research
and research outcomes in thearea around journals say five
(22:20):
years from now or 10 years fromnow?
Anderson (22:22):
Well, I think journals represent, again, communities
and those communities are, it'salways shifting their boundaries
and overlapping and interestingand new ways.
I think that, you know, the openscience movement is an attempt
to make it so that some of thoseboundaries can be seen through
and potentially there can bemore collaboration across
(22:43):
boundaries that people didn'trealize were actually shared in
some way.
Because you know, that's one ofthe things that conversations
can yield is that you havethings in common he didn't
understand.
But another thing about openscience is it needs to be funded
and you know, so I think thatwe're going to continue to face
funding pressures as you know,because we're going to continue
(23:04):
to see more science generated.
We're going to continue to seepeople looking for high quality
information.
But I, I, it's hard to predictfrom here what's going to
happen.
Actually for me, I think this isone of the most confusing times
in the information space I'veever seen.
You've got looming regulation ofFacebook and Google in the U S.
(23:24):
You've got the EU is stillactivist in properly so.
Other countries you have Chinathat is actively participating
in misinformation and now 70countries are participating in
that because they've learnedthat it's a great way to wield
political power in a shadowyfashion.
You have people in our space whoare saying, you know that that
(23:45):
all information should just beput out there and you have a
public that suffers from time totime from that, I don't know
what the future holds.
I think that what I hope is thatpeople will continue to push us
to make sure that theinformation we put out to the
public interface is highquality, trusted, trustworthy
(24:08):
and we'll guide them towardanswers that they have a high
confidence will be true orhelpful or at least work in
their favor and I think if we dothat we'll be in better shape
and all the other things mightstraighten out to some degree
after that.
I think that's where in someways publishers need to take the
(24:29):
lead and say, actually, this iswhat we stand for.
This is what we do.
One of the things I've spent onmy mind is, you know, we've
moved into this author servicemode and I think, you know, my
experiences, it's better when wepartner with authors and partner
with institutions.
And so I think, you know,exerting our ideals and are
(24:49):
experience on the market willonly help the market kind of
serve its purpose, which isagain, to serve the public, not
to serve itself.
(24:58):
Great.
Great.
I liked that very much.
So I share with you a little bitthe, the uncertainty of where
are we going.
That's it.
To go back to, you know, thecore functions that we all serve
around trustworthiness, aroundquality.
I think that's a very powerfulmessage.
So thank you so much for doingthis, uh, this podcast with us.
It was great having you here asa guest and uh, I look forward
(25:22):
to, to hearing much more fromyou through the Geyser and
scholarly kitchen and all yourother outlets.
Thanks again, Kent.
Anderson (25:29):
Thank you.
Mancini (25:33):
It's clear that for Kent journals still have a role
to play in the researchecosystem with readers craving
the reassurance of an expertfilter and high quality
authoritative content.
It's also clear that he believespublishers have a job to do and
ensuring those needs are met.
Some of his views chime withthose expressed by our previous
guest on breaking up his art todo Heather stains, but there are
(25:54):
some fascinating differences aswell.
If you didn't catch Michiel'sinterview with Heather, it's
available now and please don'tforget to subscribe through
research 2030 so you arenotified when future episodes
are released.
Interested in discovering moreabout how the future of
scholarly communication mightunfold and was a key theme in
Elsevier's 2019 Research Futurestudy alongside an essay devoted
(26:17):
to the topic.
The research contains threeplausible scenarios all set a
decade from now, which make itclear that whatever the winds of
change bring journals andarticles won't escape untouched.
You can download the report fromour website or you can also find
the link and more information inour show notes.
In closing, we want to thankKent Anderson for joining us
here on research 2030 as well asMichiel Kolman for hosting this
(26:41):
episode.
I'm Giacomo Mancini.
Thank you for listening andresearch 2030 is an official
Elsevier podcast.
[inaudible].
Mancini (00:06):
Hi, I'm Giacomo Mancini.
Welcome to Research 2030 anElsevier podcast series in which
guests from academia and beyondjoin us in exploring, debating
and challenging the changingresearch landscape and welcome
to the second of our breaking upis hard to do episodes, in which
we turn our attention to theshifting kaleidoscope of
scholarly communication in anattempt to understand how
(00:27):
publication channels and formatsare evolving.
For decades now, journals, thepeer reviewed content they
publish and the metrics we useto measure their impact have
enjoyed a symbiotic relationshipwith many aspects of the
research ecosystem shapingdecisions around funding,
researcher careers andinstitution rankings and more.
(00:48):
But much is changing, largelydriven by the rapid advances
we've witnessed in technology.
The key question we've set outto answer in these episodes is
how those changes might impactresearch articles and their
journal jacket.
I'm delighted to say thatMichiel Kolman, president of the
international publishersassociation and senior vice
president at Elsevier forinformation industry relations
(01:08):
is on hand to help us.
As you might recall in theprevious episode, he spoke with
Heather Stains, head ofpartnerships at the MIT futures
knowledge group who outlined afuture in which research
articles continue to evolvefollowing publication.
In this episode, Michiel isjoined by Kent Anderson of
caldera publishing who believeswe are living through one of the
(01:28):
most confusing times in theinformation space.
Music (01:34):
[inaudible]
Kolman (01:36):
I'm very happy to introduce our guests, which is
Kent Anderson who was publisherof the AAAS, New England journal
of medicine.
Started I think, scholarlykitchen and is now running
caldera publishing solutions.
And I think you're still maybeassociated with scholarly
kitchen Kent.
So Kent, welcome.
It's great to have you on board.
Anderson (01:58):
Thank you very much.
Michiel,
Kolman (02:00):
is there anything else I missed in my introduction?
Anderson (02:03):
Just about a year ago I launched a subscription E
newsletter called the Geyser,which, uh, publishes daily and
covers a lot of topics ofrelevance to scholarly
publishers, editors, people inthe information space.
The goal is to humanize the,what we're talking about.
And so I have a lot ofinterviews with people who are
actually doing the work and whoactually are setting the
(02:24):
policies and, and thinking aboutthese things.
Kolman (02:28):
Great.
Yes.
And I must say, I do read italmost every day and I know my
colleagues here at Elsevier doas well.
So, all right, back to the topicfor today, the research journal,
but before we dive in there, um,let's explore a bit how you view
that the world of researchitself is evolving and of
course, what are thenimplications for the way
(02:51):
information is discovered inshared?
Anderson (02:54):
Right.
Well, I think for the past 20years we've spent a lot of time
modeling the behaviors ofSilicon Valley and the
information theories that areboth implicit and explicit
around the development oftechnologies that now
essentially have consolidatedinto a few major players,
Facebook, Google, uh, Amazon andApple and Twitter.
(03:18):
And by doing that, I think we'velost, we've lost track of sort
of our purpose and our remit andwe've kind of turned over,
surrendered some of our, uh,special and unique and important
valuable contributions.
And I think now it's shiftingback to a great degree based on
user demand, which is morearound quality, more around
(03:40):
trust and I think essentiallypushing back and saying we've
gone too far that, that now thedownsides of information
weaponization and um, just, youknow, unfettered information
sharing have become too obviousand people have found ways to
exploit that and they want morehuman expert control exerting
(04:03):
itself.
And I think we'll get into thosetopics, but I think you know,
that that goes to how things arefunded, who pays for what, it
goes to how at what stagesthings are released, it goes to
a lot of different topics.
Kolman (04:18):
So in a way you see that the tech backlash could be an
inspiration for the STMpublishing industry.
Anderson (04:26):
I think what it is is a, an exploitation backlash and
a feeling victimized backlash.
And I think people are tired offeeling victimized and just
pummeled constantly byinformation and having to deal
with, there is just, you know,there's, there's just a point of
exhaustion that, that, you know,is that true?
Is that not true?
(04:47):
Is that person biased?
Is it not biased?
And so they're, they'reconsolidating their attention
again around trusted outlets.
And so newspapers, magazines,all those subscriptions are up
because people have basicallysaid, my, my time and attention
is worth more to me.
And I, that was, that wasinteresting.
(05:08):
That was an experience.
But it, the downsides becamereally apparent and I want some
sanity in my life and I wantexpertise again.
Kolman (05:17):
So when people say information just wants to be
free, you're essentially sayingit comes with a price.
So to say.
Anderson (05:24):
Well I mean we have to again always complete that quote
from Stewart Brand, which isinformation a wants to be
expensive too because the rightinformation at the right point
can be priceless.
And I think, you know, and alongthat spectrum that you know,
good information is worthsomething and better information
is worth more and worseinformation is worth less.
(05:47):
And if you, you know, kind ofjust honor that very simple
rule, you tend to see the worldfunctioning you in more toward
the middle of that spectrum, uh,with a little bit of wiggle room
on either side and not at theextremes.
Kolman (06:03):
And what are the implications for say, the, the
academic journal?
Anderson (06:09):
Well, I think there are a few.
I think that one of theimplications has been the
internalization of the ideasthat the digital tech, the
digital landscape is cheaper torun in the print landscape was
and you know, so the informationwants to be free, kind of
coincided with the emergence ofthe internet.
People conflated those twonotions that Oh, digital can be
(06:30):
free or much less expensive.
Think what experience has shownus is that that's not true.
That digital technologies areexpensive to build, maintain,
purvey, upgrade, and expand andextend.
And I remember I worked in printand print was actually very
cheap and efficient.
(06:51):
You could, it was very much abatch process.
You would finish an issue, you'dsend it to the printer and then
you would work on the next oneand you pretty much would forget
about the issue that you know,maybe two or three issues ago,
you wouldn't really worry aboutthose, you know, libraries were
storing them on shelves.
You didn't have to as apublisher, have to pay to
archive them.
You didn't have to worry aboutupgrading all of that content.
Kolman (07:14):
No long-term preservation at all.
Anderson (07:17):
No long-term preservation, no long-term up,
you know, upgrading, you didn'thave to put it through another
DTD or jets, you know,conversion, things like that.
So, you know, so I think one ofthe implications has been that
people who have been payingattention have learned that
digital is actually moreexpensive and the costs are
different, they are fixed costs,meaning salaries and
(07:37):
infrastructure, and they're notthe variable costs of print,
which could be managed moreeasily.
It's easier to take five poundsoff your paperweight and save
money in a, in a rough year morebecause you want to shifts, or
spend money on something elsethan it is to fire 12
developers.
So, you know, that's, that'skind of, I think one of the
(07:58):
lessons that we've learned overthe past 20 years is that
digital is different, hasdifferent dynamics, and is more
expensive to run than anybody Ianticipated.
So, you know, once we get, againwe get to the point of accepting
that then discussions about costand value and then you also have
(08:20):
the vastly expanded bandwidth ofdigital as far as the number of
articles and the size ofjournals that can be supported.
And during the 20 years, youknow, journals have increased in
size, in number and in andarticles have gotten longer,
reference lists have gottenlonger.
All of those things are pricesthat people have to pay for.
Submissions have gone up aroundthe board, those are expensive
(08:42):
to handle.
So the whole, in aggregate thesystem has gotten more expensive
and then volume has gone updramatically because China has
entered the market in the past20 years and now outpaces the US
as a producer of research.
So there's no, I, I've, I'veseen no measure of the scholarly
publications landscape that saysthis is getting cheaper.
(09:05):
I see every measure saying thisis getting more expensive.
It's getting more complicated.
The volumes going up, the scopeis going up.
And the competition fortechnology resources is also
going to drive expense.
Kolman (09:18):
And maybe also the expectations with the end users.
Anderson (09:21):
Absolutely.
I think people, you know like Ialways used to like to say 99%
of the time, your customer spendonline is not with you.
They're out forming theexpectations that they will
arrive at your site with.
And those expectations will be,you know, Amazon level
e-commerce, it will be Applelevel interfaces.
It will be, you know, Googlelevel search capabilities.
(09:44):
All of those things will justnecessarily, you'd be brought to
your site by users and thosecompanies spend their billions
of dollars in expendituresgetting those things working as
well as they do.
And so there you go.
You know, you'd have to at leastmake an attempt.
Kolman (10:05):
And so we are increasingly live in a world of
high quality digital solutions,but perhaps that's not always
appreciated as much by everybodyaround us.
So how will you explain thatkind of divide in opinions?
Anderson (10:22):
I think it, part of it comes from a lack of experience
with actual what actuallyhappens.
There was a lot of optimism veryearly on and I, I enjoyed that
optimism as well.
I thought it was going to beexciting.
I thought it was going to be socheap that we'd be able to do
everything we could imagine thatw e'd, you know, realize all of
(10:45):
these benefits.
I think what has transpired has,y ou k now, been different than
that and kind of a l et d own.
But I also think that somelagging cultural or policy level
factor continues to feed intothe system that this should be
cheap.
This should be free.
(11:06):
This should be, ah, completelyavailable to everybody all the
time.
You know, there's all sorts offinancial and economic pressures
that people need to take intoaccount as well.
And it's not a great time for,there's not exactly a moonshot
going on when it comes toscientific research and the
supportive academic careers,scientific careers, scholarly
(11:26):
careers.
You look at, you know, howtenure tracks are eroding.
You look at, you know, adjunctfaculty in the U S becoming the
norm.
You look at all these pressureson young researchers and all of
those things are, I think, partand parcel with this entire
underfunding of the scholarlyinfrastructure.
(11:47):
And that's another fundamentalissue is that everybody thought
this was going to get cheaper.
And I think actually led peopleto say, well, we aren't going to
need as much money and nowthat's...yeah.
Again, you look at the driversand that's just not, it hasn't
proven to be true at all.
Kolman (12:03):
So you sounded a bit pessimistic about the future of
the, you know, the sciencejournal, the research journals,
t here are so many pressuresfrom so many angles s ay the
ecosystem.
Anderson (12:16):
Yeah.
So my, my mindset is I'moptimistic and I'm critical
because I believe that only thatcriticism ultimately will get a
response and fix things.
So that's the way I'm optimisticis by saying, you know, Hey,
we've got a problem over here.
If we fix that, things arebetter.
And I think one of the things wecould fix would be for the story
(12:36):
to shift from publishers areexploitative, publishers are
unnecessary, publishers are, youknow, blah blah, blah.
You go down, whatever the, thelist you want to, there's a
partnership that exists.
One thing that confuses me isthat institutional and libraries
(12:56):
and publishers fundamentallyserve the same people in
different ways.
And for them to be fighting, um,is kind of, I just don't get it.
I don't understand why that is.
So one of the things I would,you know, I commend a lot of
publishers for is working veryclosely with libraries and
librarians to help themunderstand how this all works.
(13:17):
I've been doing my part in thatas well.
And I think that, you know,through these, but it's a very
slow, gradual process.
And fundamentally you also haveto get up to the administrators
at the universities to say, youknow, the volume of research has
exploded over the last 20 years.
The number of people beingtrained in the STEM disciplines
is growing and you're, you'reparty to that.
(13:39):
You're not giving them jobs,you're not paying for the
information they need and so onand so forth.
So I think being critical and,and really looking at the facts
as the way to, to make sure thatthings do actually improve and,
and get back to a place wherethey've are functional.
Kolman (13:55):
So just the to be a little bit controversial since
my background is in physics, um,are the roles of the pre-print
servers.
So you might meet people in highenergy physics was saying, well
I have all the information at myfingertips.
Every morning I come to the lab,I look at the archives, I read
my five articles or manuscripts.
Depends where you stand.
(14:15):
And that's a little do to trickfor me.
Maybe I get some articlesrecommended from colleagues, but
that's about it.
So what do you think is thefuture of, of preprint servers
and or in general of ofmanuscripts made available
immediately upon submission?
Anderson (14:33):
Well, I think that again, one of the things that we
need to always return to and isthat journals are essentially
community communication tools.
They, and by extension to someextent preprint servers are,
they're just badly built ones.
So for astrophysics, the way thethe machines are able to throw
(14:53):
off data at such a rate thatastrophysicists cannot keep up
with even writing papers basedon the data that they're getting
from 24, seven radio telescopedata generation from probes they
have all that it is, it's justmassive.
So they, they can't keep up withthe data that their disciplines
(15:14):
generating.
They try to, they publish asmuch as they can on archive.
Then the journals publish 60, 60to 70% of that that they deem to
be sort of the cream of thecrop.
But if somebody publishes apaper on archive that says
pulsar one, two, three isexhibiting this behavior, and
(15:38):
that turns out to be wrong, nokid's going to get sick.
Nobody's going to make a publicpolicy decision that is going
to, you know, lead to, uh,deleterious health outcomes.
When you move into thebiological sciences, you start
to get into a whole differentrange of risks.
And I think by mimicking thekind of behavior of one
(16:03):
community, which makes sense forthat community and just blindly
applying it to other communitiesthat's not responsible.
And I think what has happenedwith some of the preprint
servers as they've been prettyirresponsible in actually tuning
there, uh, their design of theirpreprint servers to the
information, the audience, thepotential risks.
(16:26):
I think Med archive has done aslightly better job than bio
archive.
I think Sci archive has not donea good job.
It varies.
Kolman (16:33):
What's the differences between the three mentioned and
why do you think one did abetter job than the other?
Anderson (16:38):
Well, so Med archive has a warning on the very front
page that says nothing in hereis peer reviewed essentially.
And you should, the mediashouldn't cover it.
People shouldn't use it at allfor making personal healthcare
decisions.
It disclaims the entire sitebasically.
And that's a step in the rightdirection.
Bio archive doesn't do that.
Bio archive has small print ingray type unfree prints that
(17:03):
haven't been accepted.
And I've seen, and I'll bepublishing later this week, an
analysis of how some of thosepreprints have made it into the
press and actually caused healthscares.
That's irresponsible to me thatyou would, and then you have
also how five-year-old preprintsstill up there that that were
covered by the media, never seena peer reviewed publication and
(17:26):
all the information's out there,people can still find it.
I infer from the fact that it'sever been published that it's
either abandoned by the authorsor has been rejected by the
collective community that it wasintended to, um, to speak to or
both.
So, and you know, I don't thinkcontributing to the level of
confusion in society is a goodthing.
(17:46):
And I don't think it's somethingthat designers as preprint
servers actually intended do,but they also didn't, they
aren't self reflective enoughthat I've seen to actually say,
Oh, we made a mistake.
But Med archive is a step in theright direction.
Sci archive doesn't do the same.
It doesn't disclaim itsmaterials as well.
But there was a story in the NewYork times this summer about how
(18:08):
the body politic is in the U Sis thinking and it was based on
a Sci archive p re-print that'sa year old has never been
published in a peer r eviewedjournal.
And y ou k now, we have enoughmisinformation about the p
olitics in the U S that we don'tneed scholars.
Y es.
And there's, you know, there arepublishing partners contributing
(18:29):
to that by s ort o fdisrespecting peer review, not
giving it the time it needs.
Not saying that for, you know,for you to get distribution for
you to get a permanentidentifier for you to get a
branded outlet, you need to gothrough peer review.
You need to uh, take a breathand let people striving to be
(18:49):
objective.
Third parties take a look atthis and see if it's good
enough.
Two, get out to that publicinterface.
So, you know, I think forastrophysics that's not such a
concern.
Kolman (19:00):
That's clearer.
You said on the pre-printservers that, you did refer to
trustworthy information andaccountability.
Is that still provided by peerreview or you see already
different developments?
In that area as well.
Anderson (19:15):
Yeah, I think that again, we've, we've modeled some
of the behaviors of, you know,people who don't respect peer
review and so we've shifted peerreview from you know, novelty,
quality, you know, repeatabilityand finality too, you know, is
it scientifically valid,whatever that means.
(19:35):
And that's an a term that wehaven't really defined well or
satisfactorily.
I've read some of the open peerreview reviews and if you know,
there, there was clear that inmany cases it was clear one of
the reviewers was rejecting it.
But I also think we need to notbe entirely devoted to looking
only at peer review as asolution.
(19:56):
Editorial or review is a hugepart of what makes a good
journal.
That is you have an editoreditorial team and associate
editor panel at the head of thejournal and they define a lot
about how that journal relatesto the community.
It's really is intellectual workby experienced people and it's
hard to, hard to sort of, youknow, try to automate that.
(20:20):
But I think editorial review is,you know, is one of the things
that we need to pay moreattention to and is where a lot
of differentiation happensaround quality information.
I mean desk reject is a hugepart of saying not in my house.
Kolman (20:35):
And you mentioned before, you know, this
incredible rise from China.
Unfortunately most of thereviewers are outside of China,
so an incredible burden also onthe whole system.
The, so if these editorialreview will kind of lighten the
burden on the peer reviewsystem, I think that's also
something to take intoconsideration.
Anderson (20:56):
Yeah, it's interesting, one of the, just
back to preprints for a moment,one of the things that I learned
when I was a pup in the industrywas that an editor told me that,
you know, 30% of papers shouldnever be published.
Just rule of thumb.
As he'd worked for 20-30 yearson journals, he kind of learned
(21:16):
that.
And every other journal I workedon or consulted with or you
know, advised that rule of thumbheld true.
Then you look at bio archive and30% of the preprints never get
published anywhere.
So it seems to be a decent ruleof thumb.
The, like you said, if editorscan pick those 30% out right off
(21:38):
the top that are coming intotheir office and say, Nope,
that's not for us.
And then another, usually 20 to30% that just don't meet the
scope of the journal, don't meethow it wants to interface with
its community then you're downto, you know, 50 40% of
submissions that actually go outfor peer reviews.
So absolutely.
Kolman (21:58):
My final question is a bit like looking forward.
So, and I understand alreadyfrom your, your answers so far
that there are ongoing themes,so to say about accountability
and trustworthiness.
Where do you see thedevelopments on sharing research
and research outcomes in thearea around journals say five
(22:20):
years from now or 10 years fromnow?
Anderson (22:22):
Well, I think journals represent, again, communities
and those communities are, it'salways shifting their boundaries
and overlapping and interestingand new ways.
I think that, you know, the openscience movement is an attempt
to make it so that some of thoseboundaries can be seen through
and potentially there can bemore collaboration across
(22:43):
boundaries that people didn'trealize were actually shared in
some way.
Because you know, that's one ofthe things that conversations
can yield is that you havethings in common he didn't
understand.
But another thing about openscience is it needs to be funded
and you know, so I think thatwe're going to continue to face
funding pressures as you know,because we're going to continue
(23:04):
to see more science generated.
We're going to continue to seepeople looking for high quality
information.
But I, I, it's hard to predictfrom here what's going to
happen.
Actually for me, I think this isone of the most confusing times
in the information space I'veever seen.
You've got looming regulation ofFacebook and Google in the U S.
(23:24):
You've got the EU is stillactivist in properly so.
Other countries you have Chinathat is actively participating
in misinformation and now 70countries are participating in
that because they've learnedthat it's a great way to wield
political power in a shadowyfashion.
You have people in our space whoare saying, you know that that
(23:45):
all information should just beput out there and you have a
public that suffers from time totime from that, I don't know
what the future holds.
I think that what I hope is thatpeople will continue to push us
to make sure that theinformation we put out to the
public interface is highquality, trusted, trustworthy
(24:08):
and we'll guide them towardanswers that they have a high
confidence will be true orhelpful or at least work in
their favor and I think if we dothat we'll be in better shape
and all the other things mightstraighten out to some degree
after that.
I think that's where in someways publishers need to take the
(24:29):
lead and say, actually, this iswhat we stand for.
This is what we do.
One of the things I've spent onmy mind is, you know, we've
moved into this author servicemode and I think, you know, my
experiences, it's better when wepartner with authors and partner
with institutions.
And so I think, you know,exerting our ideals and are
(24:49):
experience on the market willonly help the market kind of
serve its purpose, which isagain, to serve the public, not
to serve itself.
(24:58):
Great.
Great.
I liked that very much.
So I share with you a little bitthe, the uncertainty of where
are we going.
That's it.
To go back to, you know, thecore functions that we all serve
around trustworthiness, aroundquality.
I think that's a very powerfulmessage.
So thank you so much for doingthis, uh, this podcast with us.
It was great having you here asa guest and uh, I look forward
(25:22):
to, to hearing much more fromyou through the Geyser and
scholarly kitchen and all yourother outlets.
Thanks again, Kent.
Anderson (25:29):
Thank you.
Mancini (25:33):
It's clear that for Kent journals still have a role
to play in the researchecosystem with readers craving
the reassurance of an expertfilter and high quality
authoritative content.
It's also clear that he believespublishers have a job to do and
ensuring those needs are met.
Some of his views chime withthose expressed by our previous
guest on breaking up his art todo Heather stains, but there are
(25:54):
some fascinating differences aswell.
If you didn't catch Michiel'sinterview with Heather, it's
available now and please don'tforget to subscribe through
research 2030 so you arenotified when future episodes
are released.
Interested in discovering moreabout how the future of
scholarly communication mightunfold and was a key theme in
Elsevier's 2019 Research Futurestudy alongside an essay devoted
(26:17):
to the topic.
The research contains threeplausible scenarios all set a
decade from now, which make itclear that whatever the winds of
change bring journals andarticles won't escape untouched.
You can download the report fromour website or you can also find
the link and more information inour show notes.
In closing, we want to thankKent Anderson for joining us
here on research 2030 as well asMichiel Kolman for hosting this
(26:41):
episode.
I'm Giacomo Mancini.
Thank you for listening andresearch 2030 is an official
Elsevier podcast.
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