København 22.4.2006 Giuliana Zotta Vittur Enrico M. Balli SISSA A success story in electronic scientific publishing.

København 22.4.2006

Giuliana Zotta Vittur

Enrico M. Balli

SISSAA success story in electronic scientific publishing

SISSA: the Miramare Campus

Founded in 1978, it is focused on two basic missions:

• promotion and development of culture and scientific top-quality research in the fields of physics, mathematics and neuroscience;

• training of young graduate students in pure and applied research, also for university teaching career.

SISSA

SISSA

Thanks to a small and flexible structure, SISSA is able to continually reshape its teaching and research programs to meet new scientific challenges and to attract substantial private and public research funds.

SISSA: the smallest university in Italy

Budget € 41,350,000

PhD Students 200

Master Students * 33

Professors 49

Researchers 19

Employees 84

Buildings sqm 11,889

* Master in Science Communication

10 m

SISSAInternational School for Advanced

Studies

The Research Sectors

Astrophysics

NeurobiologyHigh Energy Physics

Statistical and Biological Physics

Condensed Matter Theory

Cognitive Neuroscience

SISSA Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati

Functional Analysis and ApplicationMathematical Physics

Scientific publishing


• 17° Century: first journals• 19° Century: peer review• After WW1: proliferation of journals• After WW2: book publishers enter the

market• 1980-1990: concentration of journal

publications in a few large companies • Big circulation of preprints



Costs for libraries:

• More than 2 billion euros per year in subscription fees

• Shelves• Buildings• General costs



A good business for a publisher:



Technological innovation:

• Availability of electronic formats for papers (TeX)

• Availability of electronic media to distribute preprints (e-mail)



Creation of archives:

• 1991: Los Alamos National Laboratories (physics)

• 1992: SISSA (physics)



Further technological innovation:

• 1991: World-Wide Web standard released by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN

• 1993: alpha version of Mosaic released by Marc Andreessen at NCSA



The story goes on:

• 1996: SISSA creates JHEP, the first electronic, online only, Open Access Journal

• “A journal by scientists for scientists “



Author Editor Referees

Editorial Office

WJ Software (+ Internet)

DB

Submission Report

Evaluation

Published!



The success of JHEP in numbers:

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Submitted

Accepted



Impact factor (ISI) in 2004:

JHEP 6.5

Nucl Phys B 5.3

Phys Rev D 4.6

Physics Letters B 4

Eur Phys J C 3.6



The success of JHEP became a problem:

• The number of published papers brings a huge increase in organization and costs (people, editorial services, telecommunications, servers…)

• Failure of the sponsor-based system• A new financial model is needed



Partnership with IoP (Institute of Physics, UK):

• 2000: The subscription model (low price, open access for developing countries)

• 2002: JCAP (Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)

• 2004: JSTAT (Journal of Statistical Mechanics)



Success, again:

0

100

200

300

400

2002 2003 2004 2005

Submitted (J cap)

Accepted (J cap)

Submitted (J stat)

Accepted (J stat)



Impact factor (ISI) in 2004:

JCAP 7.9



The story goes on:

• 2004: New Open Access Journals (Jcom, PoS)

• 2005: CERN task force on Open Access

• 2006: JINST (Journal of Instrumentation)



Sissa Medialab:

• A spin-off company founded at the end of 2005

• 20 people in three areas (Journals, IT, science communication)

• Continues the tradition started in 1991

Journals by scientists for scientists


København 22.4.2006 Giuliana Zotta Vittur Enrico M. Balli SISSA A success story in electronic scientific publishing.

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