An International Workshop
Creating the Information Commons for e-Science:
Toward Institutional Policies and Guidelines for Action
 UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
1-2 September 2005


Case Study:

Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics (ACP):
An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) for Improved Scientific Communication and Quality Assurance by Public Peer Review & Interactive Discussion

Ulrich Pöschl
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

The traditional ways of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to the needs of efficient communication and quality assurance in today’s rapidly developing and highly diverse world of science. Thus research and teaching are increasingly inhibited by a lack of scientific information density, accessibility, and reliability.

Substantial improvement can be achieved by open access publishing with a two-stage publication process, public peer review, and interactive discussion (interactive open access journal concept). This approach enables rapid publication and dissemination of new scientific results in discussion papers followed by thorough and transparent peer review which is open for comments from the global scientific community (permanently archived and fully citable), and it leads to final revised papers with maximum quality assurance and information density.

The concept has been successfully realized and applied in the international scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP, www.atmos-chem-phys.org), which is edited by a globally distributed network of scientists, including the Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, and published by the innovative scientific service provider Copernicus (www.copernicus.org) on behalf of the European Geosciences Union (EGU, www.copernicus.org/EGU).

The achievements of ACP, including publication and citation statistics as well as the feedback from colleagues around the world, show that the opportunities and advantages of open access, public peer review, and interactive discussion are very much appreciated by authors, referees, and the scientific community. The ISI Journal Citation Report 2004 confirms that only three years after its launch ACP was already firmly established among the top journals in the fields of environmental and geosciences.
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acpd/published_papers.html
http://www.cosis.net/members/journals/df/ranking.php?j_id=1
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/journal_impact_factor.html

EGU has adopted the interactive open access journal concept of ACP for all future publication activities. Over the past couple of years, three new sister journals have been launched (Biogeosciences, Climate of the Past, Ocean Science) and one traditional journal has been adapted to the new publishing approach (Hydrology and Earth System Sciences). Further EGU interactive open access journals are in preparation (Geology, Geodesy, etc.).     
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/publication/mission_statement_for_publications.html
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/publication_overview.html

Moreover, multiple scientific societies and commercial publishers in related and different fields of science, including biology, engineering, and economics, have expressed interest in adopting the interactive open access publishing concept.

Overall, the EGU interactive open access journals demonstrate that

  1. scientific societies indeed can and do take a lead in open access publishing with innovative techniques of manuscript processing and quality assurance;
  2. open access publishing indeed allows to enhance scientific quality assurance by interactive forms of review and discussion open to the whole scientific community;
  3. high quality open access journals indeed can be financed by modest service charges levied from the authors and research funding agencies (sustainability of “author pays” business model for open access publishing);
  4. two-stage (or multi-stage) publication processes with public peer review and interactive discussion indeed allow to foster scientific discussion;  enhance the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance;  and achieve rapid publication and dissemination of new scientific results.

Based on the experiences of the EGU interactive open access journals and other innovative and successful open access publishing initiatives, the following measures are proposed to pave the way for substantial large-scale improvement of scholarly communication and scientific quality assurance:

  1. support open access publishing by transformation of subscription charge funds into open access service charge funds to create a more dynamic and innovative market for the exchange of scientific information;
  2. promote the implementation of two-stage (or multi-stage) publication processes with interactive forms of peer review and public discussion as new standards of scientific publishing and quality assurance;
  3. exploit the full potential of open access and interactive public discussion to develop new and improved tools and (statistical) indicators for the assessment of the impact and quality of scientific publications.

References:

Interactive journal concept for improved scientific publishing and quality assurance, Learned Publishing, 17, 105-113, 2004 (http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/ad_page.html).

Interactive peer review enhances journal quality, Research Information, September/October 2004 (http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/ad_page.html).

ISI Essential Science Indicators, InCites Journals, August 2005
http://www.in-cites.com/journals/AtmosphericChe-N-Phy.html