Partnerships in a Changing World

Future Relationships between Publishers, Academic Libraries

and Scientists

Aim: Value

Value as the aim

Value:• always defined by customer• If “added” but not “perceived”, it cannot be recovered• Proposition is complex

Value of Intellectual Property:• Premise: Copyright is of corporate & individual benefit• Paradox of IP: intangibility/non-depletability• Exceptions: Berne Convention, fair-dealing• IP, Value and Price

Move to network models Move from Goods to Services

Strategy, part one: Adding value

Value is added in a process

Looking at the Value Chain when describing business models:

Each player contributes value…

… in a complex process

As technologies change…

…every part of the value chain is affected

Strategy, part two: Adding value through partnership

Database publishing:The Alliance for Cellular Signaling

• Consortium of US cell biology groups (7 labs plus a bioinformatics centre and an editorial office)

• A 10-year effort to characterise the internal signaling mechanisms of mammalian cells

• $100m from NIGMS grant plus pharmaceutical, biotechnological and philanthropic organisations

The Signaling Gateway

Hardware & software hosted atSan Diego Supercomputer Center

Molecule Pages

AfCS Data

Center

Signaling Update

Home,Info & News

News & comment written and commissioned by NPG editors

• Facts and figures on major cell signaling proteins (3,500+)• Continually updated by selected experts (~1000)• Peer-review run by NPG

• Repository for raw experimental data from AfCS labs• Tools for viewing and analyzing data (online & offline)

The Molecule Pages

• Comprehensive, structured data for 3,500+ proteins involved in cellular signalling

• Some information automatically fed in from other online databases and updated monthly

• Other information entered by selected expert authors and updated annually

• Author-entered information to be peer-reviewed in a process run by NPG

• Will be fully citable as formal publications using DOIs and will be listed in PubMed

The Data Centre

• Half a terabyte of high-quality, internally consistent experimental data

• Includes ligand screens, yeast two-hybrid experiments and large microarray data sets

• Supplemented with detailed written reports on procedures and protocols

• Results published as soon as they are gathered – AfCS staff have no priority

• Also includes plasmid, antibody and other databases – reference works for bench scientists

Signaling Gateway innovations

• Best of both worlds: Dynamic and continually updated but also peer-reviewed and citable

• Open data sharing promotes collaborative analysis and discovery

• Open-access business model

Value-added through:

• Shift in roles: Publisher also content creator

• Publication: co-selection, co-aggregation, co-investment

• Development process: collaborative

• Access: collaborative manufacturing and technology development, automised customer service, open access

• Marketing: co-branding, user needs defined by community

The Signaling Gateway value chain

Aim: Add value

• Define value proposition• Define partnership and actively seek for the right partners• Develop the product with the end user involvement• Use your and your partners core competencies• Don’t duplicate efforts but compliment eachother• Don’t be proactive for the sake of it