Great opportunity to give feedback to ESA on Open Access & the future of publishing

I really enjoyed the recent Collins et al. piece on the future of open access and publishing within ESA – ESA and Scientific Publishing—Past, Present, and Pathways to the Future. At the end of the piece, there is a call for feedback on all of this, and it is something that we all well should ponder – and consider responding to.

Thanks to Scott et al. for being open with Ecologists, and giving us a forum to send them our thoughts. I’m excited about this dialogue!

Invitation for input

We invite you to contribute your ideas about ESA’s publishing and other initiatives. What issues do you believe need to be on the table? What are your concerns and hopes for the changing dynamics of sharing scientific research results? In what ways do you think ESA can best continue to serve the community?

Current ESA programs that benefit from the Society’s existing business model include its policy activities, such as bringing ecological information to policymakers through briefings, meetings, and letters, keeping members informed of relevant policy issues, broadly sharing ecology through press releases, podcasts, blog posts, and other social media, supporting young ecologists, ecology education and diversification of the discipline, and providing workshops and science conferences to address ecological and environmental issues.

What do you see as ESA’s most important role? What areas do you see as less important and why? Do you have specific suggestions for other models that ESA could explore that would enable it to continue supporting existing programs that members value? What would be the best possible outcome for the ecological community in the face of changing publication modes and information sharing?
Please send comments to pubsfeedback@esa.org

Agenda for Meeting 2

Wednesday:
1) Overview of goals (review)
2) Review of progress (everyone be ready to give a 5 minute status update)
3) Mark Talk about ESA meeting
– How can we take advantage of Collins being president
4) Chris talk about the IEE Special Issue
5) Discuss the survey questions and nail it down. Then Chris hits send.

Thursday:

The Eco-Preprint-Commentary Project
– Ed presents what has been done (morning)
– Open discussion on the project

Afternoon, small groups
-designing a post-use survey for the preprint server
– devs continue work based on morning discussion

Friday
Morning
– plenary bringing survey and devs together, make sure goals are aligned

Afternoon small groups
– devs continue work based on morning discussion
– Strategize roll-out of project and assign roles

Saturday
– final presentation by developers
– Strategize roll-out and Science Online presentation
– Discuss future administration of project
– Discuss funding of future OpenPub efforts

Survey for EiCs of Ecological and Evolutionary Journals

Hey, all, here is the survey I’d like to send out to the EiCs of ecological and evolutionary journals listed here (I have a few more to fill in – or fill them in yourselves).

This survey will clarify policies across journals, and the last question will look at attitudes of the EiCs themselves. It’s VERY simple. Carol, if there are things you think I should modify, I’m happy to do so. Let me know, and I’ll send it out in the New Year! This should clarify a lot of confusion.

ESA Now Accepts Preprints from ariXiv and the like

Great news! ESA has changed their journal policy to now accept submissions that are on arXiv or other preprint servers. The news was tweeted by Scott Collins, ESA President.

This represents a great move – both for the responsiveness of ESA and as a signal that it’s time to move forward with building a preprint culture in Ecology to make us a faster, more nimble field of discipline. See some fantastic comments along these lines from IPhilippe Desjardins-Proulx

ESA Changes Pre-print Policy to Exclude arXiv and Other Repositories

Over at his blog, Ethan White has a good recap of the whole ESA not accepting manuscripts that are on arXiv or other preprint servers. Worth checking out for the full story. ESA has now changed their policy to state:

“Likewise, if a manuscript is posted in a citable public archive outside the author’s home institution, then we consider the paper to be self-published and ineligible for submission to ESA journals.”

UPDATE in 8/2012 – From talking to several members of the ESA publications committee, it looks like this will change. A formal vote is needed, and will happen soon – so stay tuned!