別に寝相が悪いことを話題にしようというわけではない。citationを増やすことによって、インパクトファクターを稼ぐことに熱心な研究者が、Onlie-open journalの出版社の強力なサポーターになっている現代の世相は、すでに10年近く前から予見されていた。でも、当時はまだ、発足したてのBioMedCentralが、これほどまでに隆盛を極めるとは誰も思っていなかった。
我々は10年足らず先のことも、予測できないのだ。3ヶ月先の長期予報さえも満足にできないのに、地球温暖化なんて、誰が信用するものか。
Visibility of research: FUTON bias The Lancet, Volume 360, Issue 9341, Page 1256, 19 October 2002
This bias I propose to call FUTON (Full Text On the Net) bias. It will
not affect researchers who are used to comprehensive searches of published
medical studies, but it does affect staff and students with limited experience
in doing searches. This bias may have the same effect in daily clinical
practice as publication bias1 or language bias2 when doing systematic reviews
of published studies.
I also believe that the FUTON bias will affect the standing of medical
journals, since full-text journals on the internet are more visible and
may be cited more frequently in the future than the traditional print journals.
Publishers of medical journals should feel encouraged to make the content
of their journals available as full text to avoid losing out to their competitors.
This trend will gain further strength if the journals that make preprints
available on the internet or publish internet-only versions of reports
are taken into account.