bmj: new initiatives Tony Delamothe web editor bmj bmj/misc/talks

1. bmj.com: new initiatives Tony Delamothe web editor bmj.com http://bmj.com/misc/talks tdelamothe@bmj.com

2. Where I stand Traditional paper journal ? Traditional electronic journal 1995 2000 ? The paradigm breaks down

3. Early lessons • The gap between idea and robust implementation on the web is as long or longer than elsewhere • Listen to your customers

4. The common trajectory electronic paper

5. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Walden, Thoreau

6. New solutions for old frustrations • Letters to the editor • Papers • The distance between us • Peer review

7. The mystery of decision making at the centre ? Yes, if No unsolicited solicited tdelamothe@bmj.com

8. Moving from black box to jellyfish Yes, if No ? unsolicited solicited tdelamothe@bmj.com

9. Theme issues chosen by readers • Global voices on the AIDS catastrophe • War 2002 • Evaluating the quality of health information on the internet • The limits of medicine and the medicalisation of human experience • Road traffic crashes • Neurodegenerative diseases • Doctors' well being • What is a good doctor and how can we make one • Managing chronic diseases • Doctor-patient communication and relationships • What doesn't work and how to show it tdelamothe@bmj.com

10. Transferring power This is meant to be a cautionary tale. I choose to read it the other way. “Perhaps the chief lesson of the whole story [is] the capacity of the internet to transfer absolute power to the consumer…. “For years now, companies have been complaining quietly of their loss of influence over their customers. It may be, of course, that as the internet matures, they will be able to reassert themselves. If not, the tech frenzy could turn out not so much to have exaggerated the internet's promise as to have missed the danger it poses.” FT’s review ofDot.com: the greatest story ever sold

11. New solutions for old frustrations • Letters to the editor • Papers • The distance between us • Peer review

12. Peer review and our dance of the seven veils • Revelation of reviewer’s identity to a co-reviewer • Revelation of reviewer’s identity to the author (led to signed reviewer’s opinion from 1999) • Revelation of reviewer’s signed opinion to the entire world

13. Peer review: who needs it? The eprint server free, full text, fast vs slow, expensive, and peer reviewed

14. Exploiting new possibilities • Organization/discovery of material • Alerts (including email a friend) • Tracking behavior • New material/new platforms

16. Email a friend

17. Tracking behavior • Email a friend • Hit parade • Annual online questionnaire (see About us on bmj.com)

18. Exploiting new possibilities • Organization/discovery of material • Alerts (including email a friend) • Tracking behavior • New material/new platforms

19. With increasing divergence, which is “the” journal? electronic paper

20. Complementarity Remember, paper currently beats electronic for: • readability • portability • durability • cost Conclusion: we should exploit the best of both media

21. “Despite the availability of the electronic journal, I want to keep receiving the paper journal” (BMA members, 2001)

22. Free: the upsides • Readership • Manuscript submissions • Impact factor • Site traffic • Influence

23. Readership: nearly doubled in 4 years paper (120 000)electronic (116 000) Overlap 16 000

24. Manuscript submissions Non-UK submissions

25. Free: the upsides • Readership • Manuscript submissions • Impact factor • Site traffic • Influence

26. Average traffic ratingSource http://www.alexa.com • NEJM 9411 • BMJ 13040 • Lancet 30 538 • Annals 133 507 • JAMA 830 647

27. Free: the downside(?)

28. Looking ahead ? 1995 2000 ?

29. Looking ahead ? 1995 2000 ? the forms may change but the aims of scientific publication remain the same

30. What were scientific journals for? • The permanent record • The glue to keep a community together • “Communication” • To make money?

31. The purpose of journals: looking ahead Paper is brief and beautiful and I love it, but it’s a wholly inadequate medium to conduct the conversations that humanity has to have. What were journals created for in the first place? To enable knowledge creation by conversation, except that every exchange took six months. What we need is much more proficient knowledge creation. - Bela Hartnavy, 1996

32. Understanding what’s happened to journals using the model of automation • Electrification • Enhancement • Evolution • Valerie Florance, 1996

33. New paradigm for problem solving: tapping into the collective intelligence made possible by the internet “The power of bringing together the right minds around a subject in an on-line dialogue, well facilitated, well deliberated, I think has enormous potential to help us get through issues that we’ve never solved before. You seethis embodied in the open source model for software creation. But that same model could apply to policy issues, social issues, educational issues.” - Mario Morino (transcript at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/onceandfutureweb/database/secc/case3.html