The Culture of the Internet is Permeating Science (TRANSLATION)

[Recently, Spektrum der Wissenschaft published an article (Die Internet-Kultur sickert in die Wissenschaft ein) citing Dr. Bora Zivkovic of PLoS and A Blog Around the Clock. I found the article by Lars Fischer, of Fisch-Blog, to be quite interesting, so with permission I have translated the article and am posting it here. UPDATE: Lars Fischer has posted the original English-language transcripts of the interview with Dr. Zivkovic.]

The Culture of the Internet is Permeating Science
by Lars Fischer
translated by Toaster Sunshine

Open Access is changing scientific communication through both online periodicals such as the successful PLoS ONE or the increasing diversity of classical publishers’ online offerings.

“Open Access”, says Bora Zivkovic, “is just a stage of the process through which scientific communication will change as a whole.” He should know, because as Community Manager for PLoS ONE, currently the most successful Open Access journal, he is directly involved in this change. PLoS, founded in 2001 as the Public Library of Science, is financed by money from an endowment and authors’ dues, and makes all articles it publishes available on the Internet for free.

While the copyright of published works in Germany is still debated philosophically, international publishers are preparing themselves for the time after their abolishment. “The next step is that the journals abandon printing their articles on paper,” said Zivkovic. As a result they would be compelled to conform to economic reality: “Because the biggest costs in publication houses have nothing to do with their content. The preparation for printing, the printing itself, the paper, the ink, the truck and driver, the distribution system, all these are enormous costs.”

Pioneering in the Industry

That’s why even scientific publishers are working diligently to cooperate with the new digital world. Elsevier, with headquarters in Amsterdam, is currently developing a far-reaching, paper-free publication model. The “Article of the Future”, as the project is called, is strongly organized around the technical opportunities and demands of the Internet: individual article sections are laid out next to each other in the same page view, with valuable video and audio data embedded and all bound up in links. Naturally, readers’ comments also receive their own section.

Other industry leaders, such as the Nature Publishing Group in Britain, are going even farther. Admittedly, their journals continue to be available on paper. However, Nature has also already established a broad spectrum of online communities and services tailored to scientists, which is ground-breaking in the publication industry.

All of this does not signal the end of published articles. “The printing process simply shifts itself from producers to consumers”, says Zivkovic. This is a pattern seen across many industries: “It is like a supermarket, where one places what they want into their cart and take it to the cash register. For the past 50 years we’ve had someone putting the products onto the shelves for us.”

“A doctor in Chad cannot afford to purchase research”

Zivkovic is convinced that current developments in Open Access will eventually prevail in scientific publishing. “If everything online is available, then it is only natural that everything will somehow also be free. A doctor in Chad who wants to learn more about the symptoms of his patients and potential therapies cannot afford to pay $60 per article when he finally find what he was looking for. The pressure of consumers on journals to open their content for free access will grow strongly.”

As demand increases, publishers will have to greatly alter their business models. Through digitization, printing and distribution costs, which make up the lion’s share of the journals’ prices, fall sharply. Accordingly, remaining costs must be covered by other sources of income. “Open Access journals have diverse opportunities to cover their costs and simultaneously utilize others.” Currently the most widely known opportunity is that the authors themselves pay for the publication of their work, which constitutes only a small portion of the hosting costs under PLoS.

When applicable by individual circumstances, PLoS also waives author’s fees to reduce the hurdles faced by less cash-flush researchers and institutions. However, this raises the possibility that, barring conflicts of interest, editors and reviewers will perceive articles for which no fees were paid as being of poorer quality. To protect against this, Zivkovic is strenuous on the rule: “As to what was paid for, only the accountant knows.”

In any case, Open Access has established itself in the publication scene. For example, the Open Access model is apparent when scientific articles are published traditionally and later made freely accessible on the homepage of the journal. In the meantime this “Green Path” has also received official sanction: the NIH now stipulates that all research works produced from NIH funding must be made openly available within 12 months of publication. Despite this regulation, “golden” Open Access has also grown: approximately 4000 journal titles are now freely available online, the trend is increasing and demand is also growing. This is certainly due to practical reasons: “The culture of the Internet is permeating science”, says Zivkovic. Many also push for the free posting of their research on the Internet as a political and ideological action. It also applies, that: “They who pay for something on the Internet expect that it is absolutely fantastic, absolutely necessary, and absolutely inimitable.”

Publication determines who may ultimately consume data

In the long term the practical reasons for Open Access easily outweigh any costs. Many fields of research are already relying upon widespread sharing of digital data. “Publishing makes examples of those, the physical chemists or bioinfomaticists who are unfortunate that their search mechanisms and data crawlers cannot fully utilize the data on the Internet. In bioinformatics this stymies the development of new medicines, when their search mechanisms cannot access the necessary databases and calculations of other researchers.”

The trend to Open Access will take on classical publishers themselves. The subscription costs of journals in particular have increased immensely in the last few years. “That has nothing more to do with supply and demand,” grouses Zivkovic, “it’s a pure rip-off.” In 2007, Norwegian scientific libraries and the German Max-Planck-Gesellschaft threatened to boycott certain journals for this very reason.

Naturally the problem with high subscription costs has yet to be resolved. Because of this “the libraries [are] important patrons of Open Access. Because of the enormously increased prices they are able to afford ever fewer journals, which further hampers the researchers and their institutions.” Open Access journals demonstrate that it can be done differently, yet established print journals have not entirely committed. At least not all publishers raise their prices so casually: “On the other end of the scale are journals such as Nature, which are not nearly so expensive and are consequently prepared for the new, digital world.”

In Defense of Cliches

Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock and Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science alerted me via Twitter to an article in Wired Science by Betsy Mason entitled "5 Atrocious Science Cliches to Throw Down a Black Hole". In short, the article claims that "Holy Grail", "Silver Bullet", "Shedding Light", "Missing Link", and "Paradigm Shift" are overplayed, tired terms that should be banned from scientific reportage.

Betsy Mason is wrong.

We need cliches. We depend upon cliches, and cliches are quite useful in the proper context. While it may be true that the above terms do get thrown about quite a bit, they're still quite useful. Science journalism is already a convoluted field that must continually walk the line between being too esoteric for its mainstream, non-scientist audience and maintaining proper accuracy to satisfy its scientific constituents, which keeps information flowing. Banning the use of any widely understood vehicles for explanation just raises the barrier to effective communication between science and the public. And when we, as a scientific community, have already made it clear that we're not usually pleased by the transmission of our findings to the public through the prism of science journalism, do we really need to throw in even more barriers?

This article indulges in a great deal of unfortunate professional myopia. From the perspective of a scientist, calling research, such as active in vivo RNAi therapy, the Holy Grail of cancer research will seem inaccurate given the breadth of other therapies being developed to combat cancer. It may be more accurate to place RNAi therapy in the context of all the other therapies, from advanced laser ablation at the level of individual cells to cytolethal fusion proteins, but with this accuracy comes a great sacrifice in public comprehensibility. Science is detailed, science is convoluted, and science is very nuanced. But unless we're willing to write and peer-review multi-chapter articles for the popular press, if those outlets would even carry the required tomes, we must tell a complex story simply and linearly in order for anyone but the most educated and avidly interested members of the public to understand it. Using widely understood cliches as vehicles to convey that comprehension is not just necessary, it's laudable.

I do not mean to impugn the intelligence of the general population. Perhaps naively, I still believe that the public is usually smarter than we give them credit for. But at the same time, scientific communication is a form of technical communication with clearly defined words and standards. We use "attenuated", "potentiated", "significantly", "stochastically", "sufficient", and "necessary" in very specific ways that don't necessarily* translate into normal, everyday public usage. We can't well use these standards to communicate effectively to the public, instead we must speak to the public on the public's terms, which by and large will involve either sports analogies or cliches. The above maligned cliches are here to stay, and they remain quite useful. If they continue to help convey broad understanding of scientific concepts, then I will continue to welcome them and their use.

*Like that.

UPDATE (tweets):
[@ToasterSunshine] @BoraZ @edyong209 | In defense of the "5 atrocious science cliches": http://bit.ly/15vgZL | Must speak to the public on the public's terms.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine You present false choice between cliches and jargon. Entirely possible to write lay-friendly copy w/o cliches.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Or at the very least, without seriously misleading cliches.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Yes, sometimes cliches may be overused/misleading. But to call for a ban takes tools away from communicating scientists.
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Scientists get jargon + don't need cliches or analogous metaphors as vehicles for understanding research. Public probably does.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine If tools are crap, they won't be missed. Good writers/communicators ought not to rely on cliches *anyway*.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Neither article nor I calling for end to analogy/metaphor but end to MISLEADING ones.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Again, I think you're presenting false choice between jargon and cliches. Metaphors are good but we can do better.

betsymason@toastersunshine I don't advocate a ban on metaphors for science, just the most overused, hyperbolic & annoying cliches. We can do better.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 @betsymason I don't dispute that "paradigm shift" is overplayed. I do stand firmly against anything that attenuates science comm.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine Not attenuation. Sci-com benefits if misleading terms are lost, writers forced to think creatively. Atten'g BAD comm= good.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Agreed less bad comm good, but cliches not always misleading/bad. Cliches often help capture interest and sustain story reading.
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 See rec Herceptin research: "Herceptin magic bullet against breast cancer stem cells" vs. "Herceptin inhibits even HER2- tumors".
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 HER2 = jargon, but HER2 also absolute key to story. Accurate inclusion in headline turns general audience away. Need interest.

Toaster's Late to This Party, Apparently

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI, 14th district [Detroit]) has introduced legislation into the House of Representatives, H.R. 6845, the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act", that will apparently effectively prevent the public at large from accessing publicly-funded (e.g., NIH) research. This is bad, and in my mad opinion, also rather stupid. I don't think it is inappropriate to compare this to buying a book and then finding that the pages are all glued together.

This issue has been covered by the Scimese over at ScienceBlogs in great detail already (this is why I am late to the party). For broader commentary, check out Coturnix from Blog Around the Clock here and here, Greg Laden here, and Effect Measure here.

What I do not understand is the why of this legislation. ARRA had a clear purpose: beginning to fix the economy. However, this act just seems recidivist and arbitrary. Scientists are not publishing dangerous methodologies and subliminal evil schemes along with their important research, so unless the sponsors of the bill believe that the American people are too stupid and fragile-minded to read raw research and thus must be protected, I don't know why they are doing this. Or, wait, are we too dangerous to be allowed to communicate with the public? Are they afraid we're going to corrupt their constituents with logic, reason, research, and mad science!? Are we all so diabolical that we need to be contained? Maybe this is just the first volley and soon they'll be installing public relations officers at all MRUs whose job it is to Taser us whenever we attempt to speak to the press...

Well, I do have a sign on the door of our lab with everyones' names and the undertitle "Keeping otherwise dangerous minds off the streets and in the lab." Think about it, if scientists intensely curious about the physical world weren't in the lab doing science, wouldn't we probably be doing it at home in much more dangerous conditions instead?

I was under the impression that the big science publishers were not profitable or big enough to have the clout to write this bill, but maybe there have been arcane corporate mergers or something that have made them more powerful than we know (suddenly PLoS seems like Link up against Ganondorf and Zant at the same time). As far as I know the corporate entities of Science, Nature, et al are not publicly held and as such aren't profit driven like the businesses in the RIAA.

My Point:
I have contacted Rep. Conyer's office to ask them why this legislation has been deemed necessary. They said they'd call me with the information once they've gathered it. I'll be posting this conversation as it progresses.