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Peer Review: Scientiﬁ c Publishing: Disruption and Semantic Build-Up

Frank Hellwig Abstract A new technology paired with a viable business model will have disruptive impact on incumbent companies in a specifi c market, if they do not re- evaluate and update their business models accord- ingly. As the Internet matures, Semantic Web technologies enable applications for meaning- based and dynamic fi ltering and processing of information, which has a disruptive impact on sci- Frank Hellwig is studying Publishing at Oxford entifi c publishing. Brookes University (MA) and Leipzig University of This article calls for publishers to adopt seman- Applied Sciences with a focus on scientifi c publish- tic technologies and emphasises the “need to in- ing. He has worked in digital publishing, for a journal clude a semantic strategy in their business models” subscription agency, in book retail, event manage- (Hawkins 2009). With a focus on journals as the ment and development aid in Germany, UK, France ‘cash cow’ of scientifi c publishers, it assembles de- and Bangladesh. bates about disruption and general tendencies in scientifi c publishing. An introduction to Semantic E-mail: [email protected] Web, Text Mining and Semantic Publishing is given a s well a s va riou s examples of product development s, company partnerships and acquisitions related to semantic technologies. Finally, different ways of acquiring semantic annotation data and fi nancial aspects of semantic enhancements are discussed.

Keywords: scientifi c publishing, science, semantic web, linked data, natural language processing, text mining, business, disruption

Disruptive Innovation According to Clayton Christensen (2008), disruptive innovation makes a product simpler and more affordable. Disruptive innovation comprises an enabling technology and a business model that can deliver this solution more cost effectively. Such innovations have disruptive effects on established companies, as managers tend to compare investing in a new business model (full cost) with leveraging what is already in place (marginal cost). This caus- DOI: 10.1163/095796509X12777334632744 es them to think that business model innovation

is not attractive. New entrants in contrast, with- therefore reduced revenues, to the primary journal out a comparison, create what needs to be created publishing market” (ibid). Although signifi cantly (Christensen 2008). mitigated by increasing R&D spending in the event Concerning the implications of the advanced of widespread take-up of Open Access, market val- process of scientifi c literature becoming available in ue will shrink by an estimated 57 per cent (ibid). digital formats, Bruck (2008) mentions P2P networks, Open Access / open archive publishing and inter- community trading as “challenges“ for publishers. Scientiﬁ c publishing Cope and Kalantzis (2009) in Signs of epistemic is shifting from selling disruption: transformation in the knowledge system of the academic journal describe “disruptions of schol- static pieces of content arly work“. For example, they suggest that pre-pub- toward access-centred lications erode the signifi cance of publications. In some areas, conference proceedings, for their im- models for dynamic mediacy, and reports become more important than content in multiple journal articles, and authors and institutions insist that articles be published in their own institutional formats coupled with repositories or on personal websites – “legally or il- value-added services. legally, with or without reference to the publishing agreement they have signed” (ibid). Cope and Ka- lantzis identify as further drivers of disruption that Michael Nielsen (2009) in his article Is scientifi c knowledge these days is produced by a whole host publishing about to be disrupted claims “that scientif- of organisations, and more knowledge is produced ic publishing is in the early days of a major disrup- within the networked interstices of the Social Web tion” and that “those publishers that don’t become where amateurs mingle with professionals. technology driven will die off”. David Bousfi eld (2009), Vice President and Lead Michael Clarke (2010), asking why scientifi c pub- Analyst of research and advisory fi rm Outsell, lishing has not been disrupted already, examines mentions the fi rst of four “disruptive forces“ for the the potential for disruption by listing fi ve functions STM market as Open Access. He notes: “Spring- of journals. He asserts that beyond dissemination er’s purchase of BioMed Central and the launch and registration, for which journals are no longer of Nature’s Communications [journal] both repre- needed, there are three additional functions that sent signifi cant landmarks in the adoption of this journals serve which have developed over time: disruptive business model by for-profi t publishers.” validation, fi ltration and designation. The Open Access “business model that has in- Regarding validation Clarke writes: “To date, no fected mainstream STM publishing is working its one has succeeded in developing a literature peer- way through legal, tax, and regulatory content, and review system independent of journal publication”. also permeates the co-creation of news and mar- Concerning fi ltration, various new tools, instead of ket research” (Stratigos et al. 2009). Also, funding replacing journals, “rely on the fi ltration provided institutions increasingly demand an Open Access by journals” (ibid). Clarke continues: approach (Lunn 2010). While there is the possibility that recent seman- By number of articles Open Access penetra- tic technologies will be able to provide increas- tion is estimated to be 9.8 per cent, and the cur- ingly sophisticated fi ltering capabilities, these rent Open Access market accounts for 3.3 per cent technologies are largely predicated on journal of the total journal publishing market, growing at publishers providing semantic context to the 11.3 per cent per year (Pollock 2009). “It [Open Ac- content they publish. In other words, as more cess] represents a less benign model to publishers, as sophisticated fi ltering systems are developed – it breaks the monopoly of ownership of must-have they tend to augment, not disrupt, the existing units of content and will bring price elasticity, and journal publication system.