Francois Sauer

The death of biomedical journals

The musky scent of aging paper in our medical libraries still evokes an atmosphere of scholarship. But the cloistered peace of the stacks is increasingly punctured by the faint sounds of the coming revolution: the clicks, beeps, and whirrs of computers linked to the internet. For whom do they toll? Are they the death knell of biomedical journals as we know them? Or are they the pealing spire of the global village summoning health scientists to the electronic commons to share the harvest of knowledge? We are at a watershed in biomedical publishing. For some time the costs of paper journals have been mounting and the budgets of health science libraries contracting, while the number of have nots in poorer countries clamouring for access to medical literature has been growing.1 But now the information technology explosion that revolutionised banking and the airline industry is at the gateway of the biomedical community. As the hard copy journal system has started to decay, there has been an information technology explosion that, some argue, will completely transform the exchange of information in the biomedical community. The current process of biomedical publication expanded in the late 1800s. The approaches towards delivery of information to the scientists have changed little during the 20th century: mailed journals, textbooks, and scientific meetings. Transmitting information through the journal system can be likened to the use of the Addressograph in the 1950s for producing mass mailings, or the vinyl records that we all remember. New technology came in to produce the mailings more effectively and to “deliver” music to the consumers. Within a short period the Addressograph and the record player became virtually extinct. We believe that biomedical journals as we know them will become extinct in the next few years as the result of the development and …

Papyrus to PowerPoint (P 2 P): metamorphosis of scientific communication

Scientific communication is in the process of metamorphosis. Will it change into a dung beetle or into a beautiful butterfly? Here is one possibility that some might argue is as frightening as Kafkas story > “As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous bug.” > > Kafka, Metamorphosis In 1995 we questioned the hallowed tenets of paper journals. We wrote a series of articles, beginning with “The death of biomedical journals,” suggesting the death knell for paper journals.1–3 Delamothe echoed our conclusions that “The burgeoning world wide web … makes it inevitable that new systems of disseminating research will replace or at least supplement journals.”4 ![][1] #### Summary points Traditional peer reviewed journals are becoming obsolete We are experiencing a dramatic metamorphosis of the tools of scientific communication The prima lingua of scientific communication is PowerPoint Our search for the optimal information exchange method in science leads to P2P The response was Kafkaesque, reminding us of the quote from Penal Colony “It is an exceptional apparatus” so do not question it. The “journal” apparatus shows that little of the fibre of journals has been scientifically evaluated. Are journals an efficient, scientific, “just in time” process? It is impossible to answer. For 300 years there has been no evidence based evaluation of the journal process. For example, there is virtually no research on the quality of learning from journals, whether IMRD (introduction, methods, results, discussion) optimises learning, or if traditional peer review is the best system. To quote Goldbeck-Wood, “But if peer review is so central to the process by which scientific knowledge become canonised, it is ironic that science has little to say as to whether it works.”5 This applies to all phases of the journal process. Is a metamorphosis in … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

The Need for a Global Health Disaster Network

When a disaster occurs, a major difficulty is knowing where to find accurate information, and how to help coordinate efforts to share accurate information in a quick and organized manner. The establishment of a global information network, that is in place before a disaster occurs, could link all the communication efforts for relief. We propose that a Global Health Unit for Disaster and Relief Coordination be set up as part of the Global Health Network, utilizing the Internet as its backbone. This Unit would establish the links for the disaster information mosaic.

Towards an internet civil defence against bioterrorism

Approaches towards the public-health prevention of bioterrorism are too little, and too late. New information-based approaches could yield better homeland protection. An internet civil defence is presented where millions of eyes could help to identify suspected cases of bioterrorism, with the internet used to report, confirm, and prevent outbreaks.