Fatima Abedi has asked the differences between the following types of scholarly publication channels (3rd message in LIS-Forum digest Vol. 81 issue 26).
Let me explain them in brief terms.
Pre-prints: The results of research are usually published in peer reviewed journals, where the research reports undergo peer review by the experts in the field, before publication. This process is time consuming. Hence other scientists will come to know about the research very late only. To avoid this delay scientists wish to publish their research results before peer review. This will help in the immediate and early feedback from the peer scientists. This will also help the scientists to revise and prepare the article for submission. The task of publishing of pre-prints are usually undertaken by the research institutions themselves. So the research reports which are published before peer review are called pre-prints.
Peer reviewed articles: Journals carry research reports. But the reports are not published directly by publishes, rather they were sent for review by the experts in the field for their opinion. These experts are the peer reviewers. Publishers take into consideration the opinion of the peer reviewers before allowing the article/research report to be published in their journal. If the reviewers ask revision the authors are told to revise their articles accordingly. Such articles which had undergone review are called Peer reviewed articles.
Published Journal articles: They are nothing but the articles which are published in the journals.
Open access journal articles: Open Access is a relatively new concept. The work of creating new knowledge, the peer review process and then the consumption of that knowledge is carried out by the academic and research community consuming large amount of taxpayers’ money. But the huge amounts the academic and research institutions spent for journal subscription is channeled to the publishers just for publishing those articles. More over the cost of journals have increased when the libraries are facing financial crisis due to shrinking budgets. Hence libraries in developing countries are not in a position to subscribe even to those journals which are very essential for them. The irony is that the institutions which produce the knowledge are not able to see what they produce. Hence scientists all over the world have thought of a new method of scholarly communication. This is called Open Access. They thought of publishing their articles in online journals and institutional repositories which allow free access. The Internet has helped a lot to attain this goal. You can see around 4000 free open access journals linked in a website with the URL www.doaj.org
I hope the explanation given above would be enough. It is very good that you have asked such a question over this forum. Based on this information find more details and try to learn more.
Dr GOPAKUMAR V.
Chief Librarian,
University College,Palayam,
Thiruvananthapuram,
PIN 695 034.
Mobile No: 09447056713
