Abstract: World-wide collaboration in high-energy physics (HEP) is a tradition which dates back several decades, with scientific publications mostly coauthored by scientists from different countries. This coauthorship phenomenon makes it difficult to identify precisely the "share" of each country in HEP scientific production. One year's worth of HEP scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals is analysed and their authors are uniquely assigned to countries. This method allows the first correct estimation on a "pro rata" basis of the share of HEP scientific publishing among several countries and institutions. The results provide an interesting insight into the geographical collaborative patterns of the HEP community. The HEP publishing landscape is further analysed to provide information on the journals favoured by the HEP community and on the geographical variation of their author bases. These results provide quantitative input to the ongoing debate on the possible transition of HEP publishing to an Open Access model.
More on the OA connection from the body of the paper:
These results are particularly relevant as they constitute a quantitative basis for the ongoing debate on the possible transition of HEP publishing to an Open Access model. No assessment of the economical implications of such a transition is possible without clear and uncontroversial data on the contributions of different countries to HEP scientific publishing, which is presented here for the first time....
The finding that 83% of HEP articles are published in just six journals and that 87% of the articles appear in journals published by just four publishers is particularly interesting. It demonstrates that the number of partners to be engaged with in a debate on a change of the HEP publishing model is relatively small. The worldwide collaborative patterns in HEP, which are quantified in this article, suggest that once a limited number of countries embrace an Open Access publishing model, a “domino effect” likely to spread this policy to other countries, through coauthorship links. Last, but not least, the assessment of the relative contribution to the worldwide production of HEP scientific results which takes into account the coauthorship phenomenon, presented in Table 2 and Figure 4, might constitute the basis for a model where each country or institution would contribute with their “fair share” towards the financial cost of Open Access publishing....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/29/2006 01:20:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
