Electronic Journal Publishing: A Reader Version 2.0

Published by INASP, 2001

©INASP 2001

http://www.inasp.info

7.3 THE ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING TRUST FOR DEVELOPMENT (EPT):

putting developing country journals online

Barbara Kirsop , Secretary EPT, Director Bioline Publications, UK

Professor Vanderlei Canhos Trustee EPT, Director Base de Dados Tropical, Brazil

The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT¹) was set up at the end of 1997 to support the electronic publication of academic journals published in developing countries. It is a UK registered charitable trust and was formed as a result of the experiences of Bioline Publications² which, since 1993, has been publishing bioscience journals online. Bioline itself is a South/North partnership between the Base de Dados Tropical ³, Brazil and the UK, operating on a not-for-profit basis and run by scientists. The reason for setting up the EPT was that much research generated in developing countries is 'missing' to the international scientific community⁴. This is due both to the difficulties experienced by scientists in developing countries in publishing their research in established Northern journals, and also to the low international circulation levels of locally published journals. The lack of visibility has a negative effect on research scientists who become academically isolated and deprived of mechanisms for the exchange of ideas and professional information with others around the world working in the same areas of research. It was recognised that electronic publishing has great potential to increase the visibility of research information, and with it the science base of poorer countries.

With the help of small grants (SABDET⁵) and donations (INASP⁶) and with the voluntary support of Bioline Publications, the EPT has facilitated the electronic publication of the full text and graphics of some 15 peer-reviewed bioscience and medical journals published in Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe ⁷. Statistics show that interest in these journals grows steadily as a worthwhile body of material becomes available online (see usage chart, ⁸). Most online accessions have been made initially to the free abstracts of the journals, but now the first sales of subscriptions/ documents to the full text/graphics of journals have been achieved and publishers can anticipate the generation of new income. This may take time, as subscriptions to online journals have proved universally slow, but the main objective in the first instance is to increase visibility of published research from developing countries. With efforts in promotion and marketing and the generally attractive prices of the journals available through the EPT initiative, it can be expected that libraries will welcome this new online research as it provides unique material for their institutional reader community. As the journals from developing countries become known internationally, local scientists will become encouraged to publish in them. Authors from the developed world working in scientific areas of direct relevance to the developing countries (eg in conservation, tropical diseases (human, other animal or plants), agriculture, the biological studies of species found in these regions, biocontrol and bioremediation) may also be glad to contribute to these increasingly high visibility, online publications. As these journals become mainstream they will evolve from local to international information resources.

The aim of the EPT initiative is to transfer the electronic publishing technology to the local publishers so that they become independent in the future. EPT has shown that technical procedures are rapidly learned and are low cost. The training so far has been mainly achieved through one-to-one exchanges via e-mail, since each publisher is at a different level of development with regard to Web formatting. In the case of some recent partners, hard copy material is scanned by Bioline; in most cases material is now supplied on disk or through e-mail. Increasingly, publishers have become Web-literate and can provide the whole of their publications in HTML format with digital graphics. All that is required for this work is good word processing software and Web browsers and 'know-how' (much of which can be found free on the Internet, if training is not available). Some publishers collaborating with the EPT have been trained by Bioline; others have independently learned the necessary Web-formatting skills. It is important to note that to prepare Web-formatted documents, full Internet connectivity is not necessary. The training has been an evolutionary process and the experiences of some of the partners in developing countries can be read from the EPT Web Site⁸.

All the publishers currently working with the EPT are scientific societies operating on a not-for-profit basis and publishing bioscience or medical journals. They have been pleased to incorporate their journals into an established not-for-profit site from which other journals/reports/newsletters of interest to biologists are also distributed. In the future, there will be a need to develop Web sites for other disciplines, or alternatively consider national/regional sites that may help strengthen the science base. Many non-profit sites attract very high usage (Bioline, for example, is accessed by some 60,000 unique Internet sites each year) and it is important that publishers in developing countries acquire the necessary skills that allow them to develop similar sites independently or in partnerships, as opportunities arise.

The economics of electronic publishing is in transition and where developing country publishers are concerned, it will be necessary to take the existing local needs into account when planning ahead. The costs of converting to the electronic medium are not great and many publishers have made the transition with their own resources or with small start-up grants. Scientific society publishers should not be alarmed by the high conversion costs quoted by some commercial publishers who have very high overheads and a stable of print publications to support. However, the costs of maintaining a distribution site, back-up, subscription management, user support and the formatting required to integrate material into the selected distribution system will always need to be met. In the shorter term, grants should be sought. In the longer term it can be expected that income will go some way at least to meeting these costs. It is difficult to plan too far ahead as the future may hold completely new publishing paradigms as new technology advances and the user communities' working habits change.

Developing country publishers should be aware of the international developments in publishing^9,10,11 and note the trend towards free Archiving of pre-prints and reprints, as already adopted by the physics and cognitive sciences and under discussion in the biomedical area ^12,13,14. During this transition period when a number of models are being explored, developing country publishers need to acquire the necessary technology and begin to establish partnerships with like-minded organisations so that they are in a good position to move in new directions as the publishing environment clarifies. Scientists in developing countries should also add to the cost/benefit equation the scientific added-value that can be conferred to publications by the full use of the Internet (hyperlinks to public domain databases such as EMBL, SWISSPROT, to bibliographic references, to individual research scientists and so on), converting the document into an interactive information resource or gateway. The use of the Internet as an alternative distribution mechanism only, without adding scientific value, contributes little, when the possibility now exists to revolutionise scientific publishing, improve content and provide equitable access. Developing country publishers will have an important role to play in this process.

The transition to electronic publishing can be speeded by the provision of more awareness of the benefits to publishers and to science in general (as already begun by the programme of British Council workshops¹⁵), by the identification of further journals interested in electronic publishing, by training, and the development of partnerships with like-minded scientific organisations, and by the consideration of ways in which journals can best be organised on the Internet (national sites, regional sites, disciplinary sites). Whereas some do not feel the provision of electronic technology to developing countries is appropriate at this time, the EPT believes that this condemns such publishers and scientists to the World Wide Wait. The progress of ICT infrastructure is impressive in some regions¹⁶ and many developing nations have very high standards of telecommunications in comparison to some developed nations. Other regions are still poorly served, but it should be noted again that the preparation of documents for the Web does not require full Internet connectivity, provided distribution partnerships with like-minded organisations are formed. The EPT has the experience to support these developments in the future in collaboration with others.

References and Web Sites:

[1] Electronic Publishing Trust for Development: http://www.epublishingtrust.org

[2] Bioline Publications: http://bioline.bdt.org.br/

[3] Tropical Database (Base de Dados Tropical, BDT): http://www.bdt.org.br/

[4] Letter to Nature from EPT, 'Closing the South to North Knowledge Gap' January 21st 1999, p 201

[5] Southern African Book Development Education Trust (SABDET): http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/sabdet/

[6] International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP): http://www.inasp.info/

[7] EPT Partnerships: http://www.epublishingtrust.orgpage4.htm

[8] EPT Reports: http://www.epublishingtrust.orgpage6.htm

[9] Centre for Instructional Technology Development e-pub Web Site: http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/epub/1997.html

[10] Nature Briefing, January 21st 199, pp195-200, Declan Butler, 'The Writing is on the Web for Science Publishing in Print'

[11] Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) initiative: http://www.arl.org/SPARC/

[12] E-Prints for high energy physicists, Los Alamos National laboratory: http://xxx.lanl.gov/

[13] E-Prints for cognitive sciences: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/

[14] NIH E-biomed initiative http://

[15] British Council: http://www.britcoun.org/

[16] Nature 1999, January 7th, p 10-11, 'Internet may help bridge the gap'.