Pre-Planning of the Second phase of The Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and informatics, JSCI

Our purpose in this document is to inform about the objectives we have for the second phase of the The Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, JSCI (www.iiisci.org/Journal/sci), in order to get feedback as input for the final planning of the second phase of the journal. The main objectives of this second phase are the following:  To increase the readership of JSCI.  To broaden the spectrum of the authors who would be able to publish their articles in the journal.  To identify the publishing model that would make feasible the self-financing processes of web-based submissions, reviewing, and publishing processes. Objectives of the first and the second phase of JSCI In its first phase (2003-2012, 10 volumes, 61 issues), JSCI published the best 15%-25% of the papers presented at the conferences organized by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, IIIS (which means about the best 5%-15% of the articles submitted to these conferences) with no additional cost for their authors. This policy assured the publications of high quality articles which are a necessary condition in providing a quality service to the readers of the journal. And, since the financial support of JSCI has been provided by the IIIS (www.iiis.org/iiis), the electronic version of the Journal has been a Full Open and Free Access one, which is highly desirable to increase its readership level and to better serve the Common Good. The basic objective of JSCI in its first phase has been to get consolidated and to continuously publish 6 issues a year for 10 years (61 issues with an average of 15 articles per issue). This main objective has already been achieved. One of the main objectives of the second phase is to increase the readership level in order to increase its impact factor. The high quality articles published by the Journal (best 15%-25% of the papers presented at IIIS’ conferences) is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for increasing the impact factor of JSCI. It is also necessary an adequate readership level. The first phase of the journal was basically oriented to achieve the necessary conditions of quality, continuity and consolidation, and its second phase will basically be oriented 1) to increase its readership level in order to achieve an adequate impact factor, and 2) to be self-financed. Means to Increase the Readership of the Journal There are several means to increase the readership level of JSCI, but resource constraints do not allow choosing all of them at the same time. Consequently, it is advisable to ask the stakeholders of the journal for their participation in the identification and prioritization of the most adequate means for increasing the journal readership level and, consequently, its impact factor. The following means are among those which should be considered in the achievement of the JSCI’s objective in its second phase. 1. To apply to the inclusion of the journal in aggregators’ databases and other indexes and journals directories. Up to the present JSCI has been indexed by Cabell, EBSCO, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and in Google Scholar. Indexation by other means will be sought. Example for future indexations are: Computer Science Index, Communications Abstracts, Intute: e-journals search engine, InSpec, Information Science and Technology abstracts, Scholarly electronic Journals, DoIS, LISA, PAIS, eGranary Digital Libraries, etc. 2. To register the JSCI in a harvester, and prepare meta-data for the articles included in JSCI so that they can be harvested and searched. The Harvester of the Open Archive Initiative (OAIster), and its Open Access Index, is a good example. The steps for more indexations and harvesters registering will be made incrementally according to the available resources. Toward a Financially Self-Supported Journal The International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, IIIS, has been providing JSCI, along its first phase period (2003-2010), with the best papers presented at the conferences organized by it, as well as the financial support required for editing, producing and distributing the journal. About 200 libraries had received, in the past, printed copies of JSCI as complimentary subscriptions and IIIS has been providing the support for this operation, including printing and shipping & handling of initial 35 issues. The business model of JSCI has been, since its beginnings, a subsidy model, where the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS) subsidized the 100% of the editing, production and distribution costs. One of the main objectives in the second phase of JSCI is to decrease en 50% its reliance on what IIIS has been providing, and to be selfsupported in a third phase. On the other hand, since the first issue was published, in February 2003, an increasing number of potential authors submitted papers not previously presented at IIIS conferences, for their possible publication in JSCI. Consequently, the publisher of JSCI has been, since then, trying to conceive a publishing model that would allow the publication of these papers in such a way as:  to be financially self-supportive,  to maintain a Full Open Access of most of the articles published in the electronic version of the journal, and  to maintain a hybrid policy, i.e. to produce both the electronic and the printed versions of the Journal. On-demand based policy oriented the last three years for printed copies production. The challenge for JSCI in its second phase, which is oriented to the publishing of papers not previously presented at conferences organized by the IIIS (and selected as the best papers), is to find (via self-financing) the means for electronic publication of new papers not selected as the best papers of those previously presented at IIIS conferences. All articles directly submitted to regular issues of JSCI will have at least three doubleblind reviews and 2-3 non-blind, non-anonymous reviews. To obtain the advantages of both double-blind and non-blind, open reviewing, and to avoid the disadvantages of both of them, each method will be a necessary condition for the acceptance of the paper, but none of them, alone will be a sufficient condition. Consequently, a submitted article, to be accepted, should be recommended by both the double-blind reviewers as well as by the non-blind, non-anonymous reviewers. Submitting authors should suggest the names of at least 2 reviewers for the non-blind, non-anonymous review of their papers. More details on this issue can be found at “JSCI Editorial Peer Reviewing Methodology” (www.iiisci.org/journal/sci/Methodology.pdf). Special Issues of JSCI might have different reviewing methodologies. Some of them, for example, might have two reviewing cycles: one oriented to extended abstracts and another oriented to the final version of the papers which extended abstracts were accepted. The Article Processing Charge (APC), for all papers selected for publication, to be covered by the author or his/her institute will initially be $250 in order to partially cover the processing and production costs of the publication. Several studies have shown that journal publishing costs are in the range of $500-$3000 depending on (1) the publisher kind (for-profit and not for-profit), (2) the level of extra funding (grants, etc.), (3) the additional revenues that the publisher has (publicity, number of subscriptions, etc), (4) the kind of publishing media (electronic, printed or both), and (5) on the business model (based on subscription, Full Open Access, Optional Open Access, hybrid, etc.). The following are some examples: BioMed Central: £750 (about $1,480) Blackwell: online open £1,250 (about $2,470) Oxford University Press: Oxford Open: £1,500 (about $2,960) Public Library of Science: PLoS: $1,500 Springer: $3,000 More details can be found in our short review on this issue: Costs, Prices, and Revenues in Journals Publishing (Callaos, 2011) (http://www.iiisci.org/journal/sci/Costs.pdf), and in the references that were included it. In a potential third phase of JSCI publishing process The Article Processing Charge (APC) will be $450, which would be a low one, as related to most Full Open Access journals, because the financial support provided by IIIS and because authors are and will be asked to take responsibility of the copy editing and the proofreading of his/her article. JSCI will provide the author with the conceptual editing made by the article reviewers. In reciprocity to the authors’ contribution and partial subsidy of the publication costs, JSCI will: 1. Publish the article in the electronic journal with Full Open Access 2. Publish the article in the printed version of the journal. 3. Provide a complimentary subscription, of the printed product, of at least one year, or six issues, to the library of the university or research center at which the publishing author is affiliated. This complimentary subscription means that the organizations of the authors will be getting back their partial subsidy via free subscription to the journal. Additional printed copies will be provided with a discount of 50% to the authors of the journal. Authors whose institution library already is a subscriber of the journal will have a 40% of discount on their Article Processing Charge (APC) The cost of institutional subscription is a yearly fee of $480 which includes a volume of six issues, and it will be about $800 if the journal goes to a monthly publication (12 yearly issues per volume). In any case, the subscription cost will be about $0.75 per page. The individual subscription yearly fee, for the current format (six issues, of about 100 pages, per year) would be $240. Additional Enhancements that might be included in JSCI’s Second Phase Based the feedback provided by the stockholders the following enhancements could be added to the JSCI’s functionality. The decision about their inclusion and the order in which it will be done will depends on 1) the stakeholders’ opinions and 2) the resource restrictions.  Post-publication comments and feedback. Readers of a paper would be able to provide feedback to its author(s) and/or make comments on the article that might benefit other readers and probably its author(s). Each article would be the base or the focus of an electronic forum related to the content of the article.  Permanent Archiving. Archiving in the paper (printed copies) world is mainly done by two means: 1) official deposit libraries (usually national libraries) through a worldwide system, based on global arrangements supported by IFLA and UNESCO; and 2) numerous collections in individual libraries all over the world. This paper (printed copies archiving is the principal reason why JSCI had a printed version that had been freely distributed in the initial 6 years, via complimentary subscriptions to the research libraries of JSCI’s authors. Electronic Journals with no corresponding printed version might be volatile, perishable or non-permanent. Consequently, several initiatives have been taken, in order to provide some level of permanence to electronic journals. Examples of these initiatives are Stanford’s LOCKSS projects, JSTOR, Digital information Archiving System (DIAS), Open Archiving information System (OAIS), etc. An electronic permanent archiving of JSCI will provide more certainty to its authors with regards to the permanence of their respective articles and more certainty about a universal accessibility to the published articles in case of an unforeseen non-continuity or perishability of the journal. An electronic permanent archiving of JSCI will also remove the reason for the production of its printed version.  WebCite Archiving of all articles published in JSCI journal, so that they are preserved and accessed via alternative URL. WebCite is a system controlled by citing and cited authors, editors and publishers, which enable long-term digital preservation and citability of any kind of internet-accessible object. Accordingly, JSCI’s authors and readers would be able to cite each article by means of two URLs: current JSCI’s URL and WebCite’s URL. A WebCite URL preserve the web page content for the reader in case of any kind of instability regarding the original URL (providing readers with stable access to the content of the journal articles) and providing authors with a higher level of certainty about the permanence and stability of their published article