Building an Attractive National Knowledge Resource Database
——Experts talk about how to get out of the dilemma of knowledge sharing by CNKI
The scholar wins the CNKI case, causing a thousand waves in the academic circle.
From paying attention to the case itself, to discussing the relationship between responsibilities and rights among authors, journals, and database platforms, this newspaper has made continuous reports on it.
Today, with the explosion of information and more and more developed technical means, knowledge sharing is facing a "dilemma": the payment of high-level academic resources is too high, and the quality of free resources is too low.
In this regard, many experts suggested that the government should lead the construction of a national knowledge resource database to solve the problem of blocking knowledge sharing.
What problems should be paid attention to in the construction of national knowledge resources database, and what experiences can be used for reference?
How to increase the attractiveness of open access knowledge sharing model?
It has become a hot topic in academic circles.
Journal articles are also national resources
Some people accept CNKI's indemnity, apology and partial price reduction, but some scholars believe that in the era of knowledge sharing, academic literature has been shelved by enterprise platforms and become expensive commodities, which is the opposite of the information age.
Liu Chuang, deputy director of the Academic Journal Center of the Institute of Geographical Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the editorial department of the Journal of Global Change Data (Chinese and English), said: "The various problems exposed by CNKI remind us that it is time to make up our minds to build a journal with academic papers as important content. National knowledge resource database and sharing platform."
This predicament has occurred before.
"Since the 1990s, my country's scientific and technological community has concentrated on solving two strategic problems: first, scientific data is a national strategic resource, and the country should manage it; Taking the path of public welfare? In the end, we chose the path of public welfare sharing of scientific data." Liu Chuang introduced.
In 2002, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance and other departments intervened and began to build a platform for basic scientific and technological conditions. All data in scientific research projects were submitted by scientific researchers to promote the open sharing of scientific data in an orderly manner.
Up to now, my country has built 20 national scientific data centers, including the National High Energy Physics Science Data Center and the National Earth System Science Data Center.
"Scientific research results include scientific research data and scientific research papers. If scientific research data needs to be collected and protected, then journal papers are not only the main body of knowledge dissemination, but also a national resource." Liu Chuang said.
Fan Yongkun, an associate professor at Northeast Normal University, observed that primary and secondary school teachers who wanted to do research encountered the embarrassment of not having permission to download papers. "Most primary and secondary schools have not purchased CNKI services."
"Just like the government builds roads, parks and libraries, everyone can enjoy non-competitive, non-exclusive, non-profit basic public services." Fan Yongkun said, "Document service and management should not be overly centralized, the national knowledge resource database The establishment of the database can avoid the dominance of some databases and promote the popularization and sharing of resources.”
Find a balance between public welfare and business
Currently, the U.S. Library of Congress website is free to anyone of any age, and researchers can search and download materials.
Fan Yongkun said: "Some domestic universities or scientific research institutions have received government funding, but many scientific research papers lack formal channels for free download."
"Database construction requires sufficient patience. Even if the government leads the construction of the database, it is very difficult to establish all the system-wide data content in a short period of time." Fan Yongkun once participated in the database construction of the China Professional Degree Case Center of the Ministry of Education .
"Behind a competitive database, there must be strong technology, management team and capital investment. This is the basic premise and the reason for the rapid development of CNKI," he said.
At present, many databases have their own characteristics or advantages. The digital platform for the collection of books can find the electronic version of most of the library's books. The New Oriental Multimedia Learning Library is suitable for those who go abroad to learn English.
How should the national knowledge resource database be positioned?
"Pay attention to distinguishing between basic services and special services." Fan Yongkun believes that basic service functions should be available to all users, and solve users' public, basic and inclusive needs for document query and download, and should be free, convenient, and affordable. Equal features.
For the special needs of some users, such as the dissertation check service, personalized literature analysis, etc., "a certain service fee can be charged according to regulations."
Fan Yongkun said: "The national knowledge resource database must also have an open market awareness. It cannot be 'abandoning food because of choking' because of charges, nor can it be 'taken for granted' for free."
Rui Jianjiang, a professor at the School of Information Management of a "double first-class" university in the east, believes that due to the lack of commercial competition and market driving, the supply of public knowledge products is prone to "overfilling", resulting in problems such as flooding of low quality, lack of supervision and service delays.
In the past, during the construction of some public knowledge data platforms, there have been some "indiscriminate libraries" and "dumb libraries" with low quality, poor service and low utilization rate.
Rui Jianjiang said: "We need to take similar infrastructure pricing measures, form a filing and price control plan, and find a good balance between public welfare and commerciality."
Dominated by open access, tolerates paid usage
数字出版在西方起步较早，商业化路径清晰，爱思唯尔等国际知名数字出版平台异军突起。刘闯介绍：“面对数字出版巨头的包围，日本曾面临和我们目前类似的情况。”
1998年，由日本科学技术振兴机构开发建成“日本科学技术信息集成系统”(以下简称“J-Stage”)，收录了日本各科技学会出版的文献，学科分为数学、通信与信息科学、综合、物理、自动化等。
截至2022年1月，J-Stage收录了25个领域的3453种期刊、会议文献、研究报告等共约530万篇文献，其中86%的学术期刊、95%以上的学术论文是全文开放获取。
在刘闯看来，J-Stage的做法可以理解为，日本政府资助建设以学术期刊为重点、以开放获取为主导、容忍付费使用并向全世界开放的国家级、公益性知识服务平台。“日本诺贝尔奖得主层出不穷，与其开放存取的知识共享环境不无关系。”刘闯说。
2012年，中国社科院建立了国家哲学社会科学数据库，推进学术资源的公益使用、开放共享，公众可以免费下载国家社会科学基金项目的论文成果。该数据库于2013年正式上线，但其影响力仍然无法和知网相比。
《国家哲学社会科学文献中心学术期刊数据库用户关注度报(2019年度)》显示，该中心上线数据近2000万篇，累计点击量近7亿次，下载量超过3200万篇。
“每篇论文下载量平均为1.6次，这个数量几乎可以忽略不计。”在某新闻传播类期刊主编曾小伟看来，“从行业内部看，篇均100次即为‘低下载量’，优质期刊篇均下载量，一般从数千到几万不等。”
曾小伟所供职的期刊是优质期刊，同时被知网和国家哲学社会科学数据库收录。对于该刊单篇论文下载量来说，曾小伟的心理预期是“1000以上”。
“本刊内容在知网上的下载量大多高于国家哲学社会科学数据库十倍以上。”曾小伟介绍，目前，知网与该刊采用的是“双免费”的模式，知网无须向期刊付费，以获得优质内容；期刊也无须向知网付费，以换取网络传播权。
在知网风波中，相较于一边倒的舆论，曾小伟有不同意见：“相比上载该期刊论文内容，知网设计了专门的提交平台，通常情况下，两天就可以完成‘论文上网’。但是，向国家哲学社会科学数据库提交论文，只能使用普通邮件，论文通过邮件传过去，一周后才有回复。有的时候，‘论文上网’需要半个月时间。”
“此外，知网还有一个庞大的同行匿名评审专家库，在帮助期刊特别是弱小期刊上，作用很大。”曾小伟认为，数据库容量大小、用户数量多少、界面是否友好科学，市场服务和竞争意识起着极为重要的作用。
影响因子决定吸引力
2014年6月，刘闯和同事们建成全球变化科学研究数据出版系统，出版了1000多个科学数据集、400篇论文，汇集了近40万篇论文，全部在知识产权保护原则下开放共享。
如果数据库建成，如何吸引学者主动上传作品，愿意将其视为学术分享平台？这是所有数据库运营者都会遇到的问题。
凡勇昆说：“数据库建设不能只搭建平台，而不打造平台。如果筹建国家知识资源数据库，要对影响因子作出明确规定，引导作者、期刊主动在这个平台上共享知识。”
学术交流不仅包括学术知识传播，还包含学术评价等多重机制。芮建江说：“大家对知网的依赖度高，是因为其建立了一个学术评价体系，很多作者和期刊以被其收录、引用、下载的结果，来衡量学术影响力。”
刘闯建议：“在顶层设计上，应鼓励期刊论文上传国家知识资源数据库，并纳入‘卓越计划’等国家评价系统中。”“卓越计划”是在中国学术期刊领域具有导向性的国家计划，由中国科协、财政部等七部门联合实施，最终遴选出近300种领军期刊、重点期刊等。
优质平台具有评价导向，更容易聚集优质资源，其中影响因子无疑是驱动因素。芮建江表示：“在国家知识资源库建设上，要逐渐形成科学的评价体系，以增强平台吸引力，确保高质量知识论文不断涌现。”
(本文部分受访者采用化名)
(本报记者 陈鹏)