The Unpublishing of High Energy Physics

1
The Unpublishing of High Energy Physics

• Travis Brooks
• SPIRES Scientific Databases Manager Stanford
  Linear Accelerator Center

2
What is SPIRES?

• Bibliographic database of over half a million
  High Energy Physics(HEP)-related articles
• Citation searching and tracking for e-prints and
  journals
• First website in U.S.
• Over 25,000 searches a day
• Mirrors in 5 countries
• http//www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/

3
Unpublished Research

• I am a former HEP theorist so the words
  unpublished research call to mind immediately
  the eprint arXiv.org and its use in High Energy
  Physics (HEP), especially theory
• HEP theory is a relatively tight community of
  over 1,000 scientists

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hep-th (Pr)eprints a Timeline

• Prior to 1974 preprints sent by mail to select
  groups
• 1974 SPIRES indexes preprints, allows more
  general distribution, retrieval
• 1991 arXiv.org (then LANL) allows immediate
  universal electronic access to full-text of
  preprints
• Preprints become eprints
• Posted by author, no content review
• Demise of all HEP journals predicted

5
Current use of hep-th

• Studied hep-th from 1997-2001
• 17,000 papers
• 13,000 eventually published in Journals
• 1,000 in conferences
• 3,000 remain eprints only

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A New Type of Publication?

• Over these 6 years hep-th has remained stable as
  a mature arXiv.
• Over 90 of papers published in Phys. Rev. D were
  submitted to arXiv

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Topics

• How do HEP theorists use eprints?
• From a statistical view
• From a physics researchers view
• Implications and reasons for success of eprints
  in HEP theory
• Issues and opportunities in HEP experimental
  research

8
Cite Counts

• Much research has been done using citations as a
  measure of eprint usage
• Citations are important as a measure of what the
  scientists read
• They are also a mark of quality
• The author believes this work to be important
  enough to revise, extend or improve upon its
  ideas
• Citations show where the action is

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Cite Counts II

• It has been seen that cites to HEP and related
  eprints from journals are high and rising (Brown
  2001, Youngen 1998, others)
• hep-th eprints are similar quality (as measured
  by cites from all sources) as average journals
• Impact factor similar (Fabbrichesi and Montolli,
  2001)

10
Time series of cites

• Brody (2000) has examined the time series of
  citations within the arXiv
• SPIRES allows citation tracking to an article
  through its life as an eprint, then as a journal
  article, making no distinction
• This reflects the HEP scientific culture

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Why Citations over time?

• When (in a papers publication journey) does most
  citing occur?
• Plot the number of citations a published hep-th
  article receives per month after its arXiv
  submission
• 8000 published papers in sample
• Includes citations from journal papers and arXiv
  papers (essentially the same set)

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What do HEP theorists read?

• Wherever the citation peak is, that is when the
  most exposure occurred
• Citations show that the work was not only read,
  but taken seriously
• If HEP theorists treat unpublished eprints
  differently than published, peer-reviewed papers
• One would expect to see higher citation rates
  after publication

13
They read eprints, not journals

• Journal lag time roughly 6 months
• Citation peak occurs after eprint release, not
  journal release
• HEP Theorists dont care whether an article is
  published or not when citing it
• Invisible bump in citations at journal release

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From a HEP theorists perspective

• You read the arXiv papers to find out the latest
  scientific information
• You base your work on what you read in the arXiv
• Scientific priority given by arXiv time stamp,
  not journal submission date
• You dont notice if it is published

15
Peer Review?

• This dependence upon the arXiv is not the loss of
  peer review
• All hep-th articles are posted for all of your
  peers to see!
• Put shoddy work out there for all to see, it is
  known
• Post uninteresting incoherent ramblings, it is
  ignored

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Why do they still publish?

• Only a few articles remain unpublished forever
• For the record, or more likely, for the
  tenure/search committee
• Respected, tenured authors may not publish at all
• Dr. Edward Witten has 9 papers with over 50
  citations that are not published in conferences
  or journals

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HEP theorists viewpoint

• arXiv is for daily (journal like) communication
• Journals are for archival value
• Overheard about a paper not sent to hep-th
• He didnt publish it, he just sent it to Phys.
  Rev. D
• Eprints are really published literature now

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Why HEP Theory?

• No proprietary/patent issues
• Papers can be verified by hand, by any
  knowledgeable reader
• Work is like a continuing dialog, each paper
  sparking new, creative ideas

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Same basic style

• Note that the basic publication style has not
  really changed
• HEP Theory has not moved away from papers written
  by a few authors to more complex
  technology-enabled collaborations

20
HEP Experiment

• HEP experiment has had more radical changes in
  working style
• Pushing pre-publication scientific collaboration
  to new levels
• Close to 1000 authors on a paper

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Experimental Data

• Worldwide data processing grid
• Worlds largest database (over 600TB) from one
  experiment
• Unpublished, how is it maintained?
• Will it persist as useful data?
• Current solution is to publish 2 year summary
  paper of all HEP data
• Web, db, and maybe raw data may change this

22
Conclusions

• hep-th eprints are an incredibly successful tool
• Filling many traditional journal roles
• Still a traditional publication model, simply a
  different medium
• Opportunities for truly different uses of
  unpublished research in HEP experiment