Interview with Jan Velterop - pro open access

About Jan Velterop

Jan Velterop has a wealth of experience within scientific journal publishing. Throughout the 1990s, he was the managing director of Academic Press Ltd, where he was responsible for initiating and taking forward the innovative IDEAL project, one of the first e-journal initiatives, which now provides thousands of libraries with access to the content of Academic Press journals. He has also held high-profile positions at Macmillan Publishers, where he was the Publishing Director of Nature Publishing Group and President of Nature Inc, and at the Dutch Media Group, Wegener, where he was the managing director of one of their newspaper titles.

Jan Velterop is a key figure in BioMed Central, the largest open access publisher, with over 110 journals in its portfolio. Launched in 2000, the company now has a number of years of experience in open access publishing, though it has not yet made a profit. DCLnews asked Velterop whether he believes open access to scientific and medical literature is inevitable?

Jan Velterop: We are definitely seeing a move towards open access to scientific research publications. In many ways, it is part of a move to more openness by society as a whole, and will happen no matter what we do. In science there is also a very practical reason: a shift towards data intensive papers that cannot really be read in the same way as they were in the past. And in many cases they shouldn't be. They are records of what the researcher has been doing. But the record is not read in a linear fashion; it is referred to and is mixed with a big chain of other papers. As more analysis gets done, the data is rehashed and reinterpreted in different ways.

To bring this ever growing body of research together by hand is an enormous amount of work. But this can be reduced to a fraction if the material is made available electronically - which means text and data can be mined. The preparatory work for further analysis can be done automatically. But for that to work properly you need to have the full-text available without barriers. At BioMed Central we think it is a good business opportunity, as openly online accessible full-text isn't readily available with regard to research articles.

So we started providing it for the research articles and journals we publish. As publishers, we see ourselves as providing services to the scientific community. Which means we are not in the business of acquiring and selling copyright of research articles in the same way as mainstream scientific publishers are.

DCLnews: So you're offering the scientific world a kind of weblog service?

Jan Velterop: Well, there's one big difference. There has to be an assessment to make sure material is scientifically in order. We do this, just like traditional publishers do, by peer review, which enables us to test these papers on scientific soundness. We ask things like: Is the conclusion warranted on the data provided? Have the methods been described properly? Is it scientifically sound? That's the sort of scientific peer review we insist on and we reject about half the papers we get as a result.

DCLnews: Will the scientific publishers that currently work on a profit model be able to move over to open access?

Jan Velterop: We, too, work on a profit model. But our model, which is mainly supported by article processing charges, makes real competition possible, and that naturally keeps profits at a fair level. Traditional scientific journal publishers have a big problem: They often make big profits on the basis of a highly monopolistic business model. The major traditional publishers are, due to that monopolistic model, used to profits in the order of 35%, which is unnaturally high. So it would be difficult for them to go to a level where profits of 10% would be considered very good.

If a publisher is used to making 10% profit then it would be relatively easy to move to an open access model and earn a similar amount. But taking a drop in profits is problematic because publishers have shareholders breathing down their necks, which can be a bind.

DCLnews: Many traditional publishers are unhappy about the European and U.S. governments weighing in on the side of open access. What do you think?

Jan Velterop: There is some rallying against the government initiatives taking place in Europe and America. Some say governments are deciding how publishing should take place. But that is not the case. Governments are simply saying that, where it is they who fund the research, they want to see it openly available. We mustn't forget that it is tax payers' money that is being invested, which means it should be freely available to the public. In my view, governments are quite lenient when they insist on open access to scientific literature that they have funded, but allow delays to open availability. They - and other funders, private ones included - provide the money, so they are the ultimate customers, and the customer is king in all other situations. So why not in scientific literature?

Interview with Peter Banks - opposed to open access

Peter Banks is the publisher of the journals of the American Diabetes Association (www.diabetes.org). He is also a writer and consultant, and is president of the Society of National Association Publications. DCLnews asked him if he sees anything good in the current open access proposals?

Peter Banks: No. To have governments create repositories of primary biomedical literature would create major problems as far as the integrity of the literature is concerned. Under the National Institute of Health (NIH) proposal a parallel universe of publications would be created. The publishers would have the final version of a publication, while the NIH would get the early version. So before we launch this program we'd better figure out how to reconcile these various versions.

The fact is, medical literature is already a mess. But this proposal throws open the doors to a level of confusion that helps no-one. It doesn't help librarians who have to be meticulous about publications of record. It doesn't help the public who visit the NIH to find manuscripts - under the new proposals they would find manuscripts that haven't been edited or proof-read and might contain significant errors.

DCLnews: Essentially you are saying traditional scientific publishers add a lot of value?

Peter Banks: Absolutely. Dr Harold Varmus (former NIH chief and long-time open access advocate) and his cohorts say publishers don't add value. That they merely take manuscripts and mark them up at a tremendous profit. This simply isn't true. Quite the contrary. They provide skilled editing, peer review, and proofreading services. These are expensive and intensive processes that ensure medical literature is truly valuable.

DCLnews: What is your response to the Nobel Prize winning scientists who dismiss scientific journal publishers as "rip off artists"?

Peter Banks: I question how much they have thought about this issue. Harold Varmus is a charismatic and brilliant man. So when he calls someone asking them to sign up to a given statement, they aren't going to say no. Critical thought will have been suspended. This is not to say I dismiss the sentiment behind the Nobel Laureates' statements. Everyone wants the public and researchers to have more access to the information they need. But to say publishers are rip off artists who add no value just shows a deep ignorance of publishing.

DCLnews: Is there a solution to the open access problem?

Peter Banks: Frankly, I'm not sure there is a problem. In fact, the proposal put forward by Doctor Zerhouni of the NIH has been aptly described as a proposal in search of a problem. Non-profit and learned society publishers make a tremendous amount of information available already. In my case, two of our American Diabetes Association journals are freely available. In two other peer-reviewed journals, content is available after six months, and the most clinically relevant material is available immediately. We aren't unique in this. The non-profit publishing community puts a lot of effort into making content available for free.

The truth is, there has never been a time in history when so much content has been so freely available to so many people. What problem do we need to solve?

DCLnews: What about firms like BioMed Central? Don't they show the feasibility of open access publishing?

Peter Banks: We have yet to see the sustainability of BioMed Central or the Public Library of Science. PLoS was propped up by an initial $9 million grant, and now has an additional $3 million to keep it going. Most of us publishers publish the old fashioned way where you actually have to balance your books. We'd dearly love to have a big corporate sponsor keeping us afloat.

DCLnews: What's your view of European and U.S. governments getting behind open access?

Peter Banks: I think they've been sold a false bill of goods. They've been sold the idea that you can increase the reward from your investment and research by just having open access. They think there is some magical way of extracting more value from the research dollars they're spend now. The open access model they are advocating would do a disservice to the public they pretend to serve.

Ironically people in the U.S. cite the need for a repository of freely available scientific literature because the government can provide a stable platform and source of funding. But when has the government ever provided a stable platform and source of funding? Industry is in a better position than government to provide stability for medical literature.

DCLnews Editorial

Disclaimer: DCLnews is purely a technology and industry news source. It does not endorse any of the companies, products, or services that are mentioned in news items, interviews, and articles.

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