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✪ Zhu Jian: Editorial Department of Journal of Nanjing University
Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China imposed a fine of 50 million yuan on CNKI in accordance with the Cybersecurity Law, the Personal Information Protection Law, and the Administrative Punishment Law, which is once again on the cusp of public opinion since Professor Zhao Dexin sued CNKI for infringement at the end of 2021 and CNKI punished CNKI with the Anti-Monopoly Law by the State Administration for Market Regulation at the end of 2022. Some commentators pointed out that CNKI, as the only institution in the Chinese academic literature network database service market in China, has a far-reaching impact on China's academic system. So, how to correctly evaluate the merits of CNKI?
This paper points out that CNKI's monopoly on the digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals lies in the fragmented structure and decentralized layout of Chinese academic journals, so that it is impossible to independently build an aggregation platform necessary for digital transformation, and CNKI solves this thorny problem. The key points of CNKI's model are: to establish CNKI's identity as an independent publishing subject for the digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals, obtain data sources at the lowest cost, and shield journals and their authors from digital publishing and dissemination, and erase the imprint of journals in the database as much as possible to highlight the image of being the only "big journal" in the library, and at the same time transfer the risk of infringement to the included journals through agreements, and then firmly lock academic journals and their authors in the role of providing data sources cheaply or even free of charge with derivative functions such as academic evaluation. This allows you to enjoy the exclusive benefits of digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals.
The author pointed out that after 20 years of running-in, CNKI has become the only communication channel for many academic journals, and the academic journals in the system and the market-oriented CNKI each take what they need and get their own place, and have formed a relatively stable relationship of both prosperity and loss. However, there is a hidden crisis behind this: under the CNKI model, the problems of a large number of isomorphism, lack of systematization, and separation from disciplines and academic communities of academic journals have not only not been solved, but have become more serious due to the disappearance of journals on CNKI platform. The professionalization, digitalization and cluster transformation of academic journals, which have become the trend of the world, have slowed down or even stagnated significantly in China due to the emergence of CNKI. To this end, the top-level promotion of cultivating world-class academic journals actually sends a signal that the journal system is changing, the foundation of the CNKI model is shaking, and the CNKI model, which hinders the development of journals in the era of digital networking, is bound to become an abandoned "". Therefore, if CNKI wants to win in the future, it is time to consider how to get out of the CNKI model.
This article was originally published in Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 2, 2022, originally titled "Ten Treatises on the Relationship between CNKI and Included Journals and Their Authors: Starting from Professor Zhao Dexin v. CNKI Infringement Case", the original text is 35,000 words. This push is an abridged version (13,000 words), transferred from the "Institute of Comprehensive Evaluation of Chinese Literature and Social Sciences". The article only represents the views of the author and is for the reader's reference.
Ten Essays on the Relationship between CNKI and Included Journals and Their Authors: Starting from Professor Zhao Dexin v. CNKI Infringement
▍ A topic raised by a lawsuit
At the end of 2021, the conclusion of an intellectual property lawsuit caused a sensation in the academic community and attracted widespread attention from all walks of life, that is, Professor Zhao Dexin, an 89-year-old retired teacher and economic historian of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, sued CNKI for infringing its intellectual property rights. Professor Zhao Dexin filed a lawsuit against CNKI's inclusion of more than 160 of her papers, and sued CNKI's owner, China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition) Electronic Magazine (hereinafter referred to as "CD-ROM Electronic Magazine", or "CNKI" when there was no ambiguity, to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
From May to December 2021, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court successively rendered final judgments on these lawsuits after hearings. Professor Zhao Dexin's claim that CNKI's inclusion of her papers without her consent was infringing was supported by the court, and she was compensated (totally) more than 700,000 yuan. The CD-ROM version of the electronic magazine is an outright loser, not only must pay the full amount within the time limit set by the court, but more importantly, its defense reasons are not accepted by the court, and the infringing nature of its behavior has been determined by the court.
From this point of view, it seems that Professor Zhao Dexin won a complete victory, but he was not completely satisfied with the result, and the biggest dissatisfaction was that CNKI removed all his papers after the verdict. Professor Zhao realized: "(The paper is removed), my academic dissemination rate will decrease," and he is more aware of the serious impact of CNKI's "removal" on ordinary scholars, especially young scholars who have not yet achieved fame. Professor Zhao understands that if he is the winner in the game with CNKI, then his success is difficult for other working scholars to replicate, and the reason is not only CNKI.
Just look at a fact to understand this: in academia, CNKI has existed for 20 years, and in the past 20 years, at least in the past 10 years, except for a very small number of people like a doctor who do not know what CNKI is, who does not know CNKI, and who has not used CNKI? Who doesn't know that their articles will be indexed by CNKI as long as they are published in journals, or even before the journal is printed? How many scholars have received requests for inclusion from CNKI and paid remuneration? But how many scholars like Professor Zhao Dexin have sued CNKI to protect their intellectual property rights? The answer is simple: it's not that you can't win a lawsuit, but in order to fight a lawsuit, in addition to paying legal fees, you may also have to catch up with your own academic future, which is not worth the loss.
So, can CNKI sit back and relax? In fact, since CNKI became famous, there are always some "good things" authors who can break through the constraints of the scientific research system or simply not in the scientific research system to file infringement lawsuits against them, in these sporadic but continuous litigation, CNKI has lost almost all the lawsuits, but they are still within the scope that CNKI can bear (endure), so for such a result, CNKI has always been low-key and paid for the removal. In the author's memory, for example, after the judgment of Zhao Dexin's v. case, CNKI issued a special explanation on the homepage of its official website in the name of "China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Version) Electronic Magazine", publicly apologizing to the plaintiff, and saying that it would actively clean up the aftermath, which was the first time. It can be seen that CNKI is also aware that the severity of this incident has exceeded all previous similar lawsuits, which may bring some unpredictable consequences. As a large publishing and communication company with a history of more than 20 years, which needs to deal with all parties, sign various agreements, has an annual turnover of more than 1 billion yuan and has many competitors, how can it be possible to take legal issues lightly, and how can it not guard against vicious competition? What is the reason why CNKI cannot avoid the infringement lawsuits one after another and repeatedly loses the lawsuits? After Professor Zhao Dexin's lawsuit this time, will CNKI release a big move to prevent such a lawsuit from repeating itself? How will this turmoil affect future academic publishing and academic dissemination? To answer these questions, we need to start with the establishment of the "CNKI model".
▍The origin and characteristics of CNKI model (1) The birth of CNKI and the establishment of CNKI model
The so-called "CNKI model" refers to the new mode of digital publishing and dissemination composed of a series of cooperation rules, product forms, communication units, communication paths, production processes, profit models, distribution schemes and derivative products designed and implemented by CD-ROM electronic magazines to build and operate CNKI.
CNKI, formerly known as "China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition)", was founded and produced by the "China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition)" electronic magazine agency established in the mid-1990s. In 1999, CNKI came out. It is the introduction of Internet technology that makes the transformation of the CD-ROM version to CNKI like a butterfly that breaks through the cocoon and soars into the sky. CNKI's most important transformation of the CD-ROM version is twofold: first, the dissemination unit is changed from a CD-ROM that gathers multiple journals to a single paper made by dismantling the journal; Second, the communication platform has changed from the physical dissemination of optical discs to the online dissemination of aggregated data platforms.
(2) CNKI model and the relationship system it constructs
The advent of CNKI has had a profound impact on academic communication, academic journals and even academic research. All this is inseparable from the creation and implementation of CNKI model.
CNKI mainly has the following six groups of relationships. (1) CD-ROM version of electronic magazine and CNKI (database): the relationship between independent academic journal digital publishing entities and their (only) publications; (2) CNKI and the journal: the cooperative relationship between two independent publishing entities, the journal provides the data source (the original data of the author's work in the printed version), and CNKI completes digital publishing and network dissemination; (3) CNKI and authors: the cooperative relationship between the publishing entity and the copyright owner of the document, but this is set as an indirect relationship, CNKI does not directly contact the author, but obtains the author's authorization through the editorial office of the printed version of the author's work, and publishes and disseminates his work digitally; (4) CNKI platform and digital publishing: CNKI is not only a digital publishing platform, but also a digital journal, and the only journal on the platform, which edits, publishes and disseminates in the form of an information aggregation platform; (5) Communication unit and transmission path: a single document (paper) disassembled by a journal is the smallest dissemination unit to achieve network dissemination (paid online reading and downloading); (6) Derivative products and knowledge services: academic evaluation system, plagiarism check system, translation system, etc., mainly serve academic management, and provide knowledge services to academic journals and academic research. As a result, CNKI model has built a tight relationship system.
From the perspective of editing, publishing and dissemination of academic journals, such a relationship system has the following main characteristics. First of all, CNKI takes over the digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals; Secondly, CNKI transferred the responsibility of obtaining authors' authorization in the agreement with the participating journals; Thirdly, CNKI's library building mode and dissemination path are independently designed by electronic magazines, which also corresponds to its self-positioned identity as a publishing subject. Finally, CNKI has set a precedent for academic evaluation by market-oriented journal databases.
(3) CNKI moving towards monopoly
In this way, CNKI began the journey of entering academic communication. With the purchase of packages by universities and scientific research units, the use of CNKI is becoming more and more popular among researchers, when reading journals become reading libraries, and the basic unit of dissemination changes from journals to single papers, databases such as CNKI gradually monopolize the digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals.
It can be seen that the key point of CNKI's model is to establish CNKI's identity as an independent publishing subject specializing in digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals, obtain data sources at the lowest cost, and shield journals and their authors from digital publishing and dissemination, and erase the imprint of journals in the database as much as possible to highlight the image of CNKI as the only "big journal" in the database, and at the same time transfer the risk of infringement to the included journals through agreements. Then, with derivative functions such as academic evaluation, academic journals and their authors are firmly locked in the role of providing cheap or even free data sources, so that they can exclusively enjoy the benefits of digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals. The design is perfect, but one element is missing: fairness. No matter how strong the risk consciousness of the designers of the CNKI model, an unfair system itself is the greatest risk.
▍The merits of the CNKI model are right and wrong
(1) The merit of the CNKI model
The evaluation of the merits of CNKI model cannot be separated from the specific historical environment, and the temporal and spatial coordinates should be placed in China at the end of the 1990s, that is, when CNKI was founded. At that time, the Western large-scale academic journal publishing groups that had already completed the professional, systematic and cluster construction had a relatively mature digital transformation model, but the Western model was difficult for China to apply, to a large extent, because the structure and layout of journals caused by China's academic journal system were different from those in the West, and there was no large-scale professional publishing company and systematic academic journal cluster like the West, and the main body was a small and micro-journal with a scattered layout, mutual disconnection, and fragmentation (most of them only published one or two journals). It is impossible to build a large database online platform that gathers many journals on its own, so the digitization of academic journals must find a new way to create a new model suitable for China's national conditions. In the absence of ready-made precedents to follow, CNKI's model is a big deal, and its goal is to create a giant unified platform to collect all academic journals and even all academic literature with communication value for digital publishing and dissemination.
In fact, in terms of the number and types of documents in the warehouse, CNKI's goal has been basically achieved, and it can be called unique in the world, and its literary value is naturally undoubted. This should be attributed to the strategic vision of CNKI's founders leading peers, occupying the forefront of technology application in a timely manner, creatively designing CNKI model, successfully changing the basic pattern of academic communication, greatly improving the efficiency of academic communication, and the positive significance of this change at that time is also undoubted, although it is inevitable to have the limitations of the times.
(2) The birth of the CNKI model and the establishment of the CNKI model
This is first of all thanks to the CNKI model to create a super-large-scale academic information highway network far beyond the dissemination efficiency of paper academic journals, so that the creators and users of academic information can not stop tasting its benefits, and journals have no choice but to drive on this highway whether they are willing or unwilling. This gives CNKI the function of regulating the roles and interrelationships between authors, journals, readers and CNKI.
Secondly, thanks to China's unique academic ecology. CNKI mode has been basically unimpeded in the past 20 years, which is inseparable from the irrationality of the academic journal system and scientific research system and the alienation of the academic evaluation mechanism. The fundamental reason why CNKI can monopolize the digital publishing and dissemination of academic journals lies in the fragmented structure and very decentralized layout of academic journals under China's academic journal system, so that it is impossible to independently complete the construction of the aggregation platform necessary for digital transformation, and CNKI model has successfully solved this thorny problem, taking over the digital publishing and dissemination of almost all academic journals, and monopolizing digital publishing and dissemination is logical. The relationship between the scientific research system and academic evaluation mechanism and CNKI may be more clearly seen from the derivative function of CNKI. CNKI's derivative functions have two characteristics: First, most of them do not directly serve academic research, but more to meet the needs of scientific research management of administrative power under the current scientific research system and academic journal system. Second, most of them are given away for nothing, not only do not make money, but also burn money to make and promote. To put it bluntly, I still hope to exchange this for the blessing of executive power.
(3) The transgression of the CNKI model
CNKI's problems in intellectual property rights are seen by everyone, which was actually a question of how to choose in the face of historical opportunities when CNKI was founded, and the resources held by the CD-ROM version of the electronic magazine in the late 1990s were not symmetrical compared with the grand blueprint it wanted to achieve, and the rights and interests of authors were inevitably ignored or even directly ignored. If some of CNKI's operations 20 years ago were really unavoidable, or excusable, then after completing the original accumulation, achieving a certain scale and obtaining huge profits, still ignoring the rights and interests of the author and allowing infringement to occur, it is not only a historical limitation that can be explained.
In fact, the negative effects of CNKI mode are much more than these, which will continue to be analyzed below.
▍The game between CNKI and the author (1) Special "buyer" and "seller" relationship
Due to the peculiarities of academic journal publishing, the two roles of authors and readers are actually the same group of people, that is, scholars. In other words, the seller (CNKI) sells the "goods" produced by the buyer (scholar) to the buyer, which makes the buying and selling relationship a little complicated. Professor Zhao Dexin plays both CNKI's role as a data source and a consumer. When he has to pay to download his works after not receiving any payment from CNKI, "unfair" becomes a strong feeling.
It is said that every author should have the same feelings as Professor Zhao Dexin when logging in to CNKI as a reader to download works, but why are not many scholars angry and suing CNKI? The most important reason should lie in the following two aspects: on the one hand, CNKI has changed the pattern of academic communication, making literature collection, retrieval, reading and use much easier and simpler than the paper era, and even academic research methods and methods have undergone some changes. On the other hand, such revolutionary changes have made the connection between scholars' personal academic research and academic influence and academic communication efficiency have never been as close as today, and in the balance between safeguarding copyright and expanding academic influence, the balance in scholars' minds has gradually shifted to the latter, and the scientific research system and evaluation mechanism have strengthened the value of academic communication.
(2) Difficult to overcome hurdlesHowever, with the country's increasing attention to intellectual property protection and the increasing awareness of authors' copyright, CNKI will face severe challenges if it wants to continue to exist and develop as an independent publisher of academic journals. In addition to the issue of independent information sources, CNKI must also overcome a hurdle: as an independent publishing entity, paying remuneration to authors is the obligation and responsibility of publishing entities expressly stipulated in the Copyright Law. Although most scholars regard Professor Zhao Dexin's road to rights protection as a daunting path, this does not completely rule out the possibility of a group lawsuit against CNKI. In particular, if CNKI restores Professor Zhao Dexin's works to the shelves, it will undoubtedly dispel the concerns of many authors who want to sue but are worried about their works being removed, and will inevitably increase the risk of CNKI encountering mass litigation. If such a risk really arises, and the plaintiff can win like Professor Zhao Dexin and be compensated according to similar standards, then once the number of people in this "group" or the number of works involved in the case exceeds a certain threshold, CNKI can not afford to pay, and there is no doubt that it will go bankrupt. If CNKI loses the lawsuit and goes bankrupt, and none of the other databases survive due to similar lawsuits, then China's academic dissemination will go back 20 years, who can afford such a price? From this point of view, Professor Zhao Dexin's success is also impossible to replicate for more people, and once a large-scale group lawsuit occurs, it will inevitably become a zero-sum game without any winners. (3) Dilemma
The author predicted as early as ten years ago: "In the initial stage, the journal database used almost plundering to obtain the paper data of each journal at a very small cost, completing the original accumulation, but also leaving hidden dangers, and the failure to properly solve the copyright protection problem has become a time bomb on its development road." "CNKI's twenty years have been accompanied by this ever-growing "bomb" all the way, and the difficulty of eliminating it has become more and more difficult.
As a result, the issue of author authorization has become the sword of Damocles hanging over CNKI's head, and CNKI will once again face a dilemma: should it reform the CNKI model, such as increasing the remuneration given to authors to obtain authors' authorization, at least understanding, or without changing CNKI's model, by enhancing user stickiness to reduce the probability of authors filing infringement lawsuits?
▍The game between CNKI and journals (1) The role of the included journals is positioned in the CNKI mode, and the role of the journal is positioned as follows: first, the provider of CNKI data; The second is to obtain authorization for CNKI to agree to use its works for CNKI. These two roles play a very important role in the smooth and legal operation of CNKI. CNKI itself cannot produce the original data of journal papers, so it has to rely on journals to provide them, but if the journal submits the original data of the author's work to CNKI for inclusion, and CNKI provides paid downloads and reading to non-specific readers, it is beyond the scope of fair use and requires special authorization from the author. If the agreement to obtain this authorization is signed by the journal on behalf of CNKI, then this requires all CNKI journals to sign a copyright agreement with the author for each paper they publish, including copyright license, transfer license, remuneration and standards. (2) Negative response of journals
In fact, almost all journals are included in CNKI after signing a cooperation agreement with CNKI, including the terms of authorization of authors to CNKI, so do the journals strictly fulfill the agreement? The answer is easy to find from a series of judgments in Professor Zhao Dexin v. CNKI: although various journals that publish more than 160 of Professor Zhao Dexin's papers have signed agreements with CNKI, the authorization agreements that these journals should have signed with authors have probably never existed.
Why is this happening? This cannot but mention the generally negative attitude of the journals in cooperation with CNKI, the typical manifestation is that after the original data of each issue is handed over to CNKI, the follow-up behavior of CNKI is basically ignored, let it go, as for acting as a trustee to sign copyright agreements with authors on behalf of CNKI, except for a small number of journals that have always insisted, most journals either never do it, or give up after doing it for a period of time.
(3) Reasons for the negativity of the journal
When a publishing entity is positioned for another publishing entity, negativity is inevitable, and CNKI's low-priced format agreement for journals is a sign. Why are journals willing to sign it? On the one hand, this is because most academic journals do not have the qualifications and identity of market entities, and rely on administrative appropriations rather than distribution income to maintain the operation of journals, and it is more important to obtain reliable distribution and dissemination channels than to increase distribution income; On the other hand, when CNKI was founded 20 years ago, most journals did not have a clear sense of copyright (copyright), but the necessity of digitization was real. It can be seen that journals are in fact passive or passive as both data sources and commissioners.
Responsibilities will only be fulfilled seriously when they are equal to rights, and how the journal responds to the role of the commissioner, after experiencing several rights protection lawsuits filed by authors, CNKI cannot be unclear, but there are many concerns about suing the journal for legal responsibility, because even if the court supports it, it can only recover the fees paid to the journal, and at most some punitive damages, which may not be as good as the court calculating CNKI's standard of compensation to the author, and winning the lawsuit is meaningless; On the contrary, it will provoke resentment and resistance in journals, and even jeopardize the stability of data sources. Therefore, accountability to the journal has never happened.
If the game between CNKI and authors will tend to be zero-sum, then CNKI and journals have established a certain tacit understanding through complex games: the boundary between paper publishing and digital publishing is divided, and journals and CNKI occupy one side and do not interfere with each other; The journal submits the raw data to CNKI, but will not really take responsibility for it; CNKI opens digital communication channels for journal literature (papers), and the journal allows CNKI to monopolize the operation and interests of digital communication, and CNKI bears the actual responsibility.
▍CNKI's crisis solution
The touching and even shock of Professor Zhao Dexin's lawsuit to CNKI is self-evident, but the "Explanation on Issues Related to Professor Zhao Dexin's Lawsuit against CNKI for Compensation" has two points worth noting: First, although CNKI said that it apologized to Professor Zhao Dexin, the reason for the need to apologize was not that CNKI had violated Professor Zhao's intellectual property rights, but that it had "underworked"; Second, the reason for the "insufficient work" is not CNKI (but in the journal), CNKI is only a failure to observe the "flaws and loopholes" in the relevant links, emphasizing that the journal should share responsibility with CNKI.
So, what responsibilities do journals have? If the journal does not sign a contract with Professor Zhao Dexin and transfer the remuneration paid by CNKI, it is a breach of contract of the enrollment agreement. Since the contract is signed, it is natural that you should be liable for the breach of contract. But so far, none of the original journals of the 160 articles that Professor Zhao has sued for infringement have come forward, and CNKI seems to have stopped and has not really pursued the responsibility of these journals. So, things are not as simple as they seem.
In fact, it is impossible for CNKI's legal department to formulate the format of the compilation agreement not to understand that what they asked the journal to sign is an agreement that the latter cannot fully fulfill. In the format agreement proposed by CNKI, although there is a clause that the journal is responsible for obtaining the author's authorization, there is no specific agreement on the authorization of the author, and there is no word as to what conditions CNKI will provide to the author, what standard to pay remuneration, the time limit for authorization and other necessary conditions, but there is a "trap" clause that "Party B (CNKI) will uniformly hand over the copyright royalties of Party A (journal) and the author to Party A for distribution", how can the journal legally and fairly obtain authorization from the author? Under the framework of such an agreement, if the failure of the journal to reach a licensing agreement with the author is a "breach of contract" of the journal, then the "default" of the journal is inevitable, and CNKI can expect this inevitable occurrence when signing the enrollment agreement with the journal, and it is also fully aware after signing, but has always adopted a permissive attitude. It can be seen that probably even CNKI will not believe that journals can complete this impossible task.
So what's the point of writing into the agreement that the journal is responsible for obtaining authors' licenses? A more reasonable explanation should be: the designer of CNKI model actually directly directed such a game (gambling): author rights protection is inevitable, the bet is that the scale of rights protection will not exceed the threshold that CNKI can bear, under this premise, the journal in the compilation agreement to obtain the author's authorization clause is actually a pretense, if CNKI at some point due to the author's rights protection and into the vortex of public opinion, such as Professor Zhao Dexin's lawsuit caused public opinion, with this inclusion agreement, the journal is a "back-pot man" to deal with public opinionBut it's unrealistic to actually hold journals responsible. After the case brought by Professor Zhao Dexin, CNKI is likely to further take advantage of the psychology of journals and authors not daring to withdraw from CNKI, force journals, let journals further pressure authors, and sign licensing agreements with extremely low remuneration. However, this can neither change the fact that CNKI has violated the rights of journal authors in the past, nor will it change the nature of the relationship between CNKI and journal authors in the future, as long as the unequal relationship exists, the crisis caused by authors' rights protection will surely reappear. However, this cycle will not continue indefinitely, and there will always be a day when the bet will collapse.
However, if the day of the collapse really comes, the agreement as a "guise" can also become a killer feature, since there is an agreement in black and white, and the breach of contract by the journal is also an ironclad fact (although there is a reason), CNKI can not guarantee that the matter of holding the journal accountable or even suing the journal will not happen. In this regard, the author reminded journal colleagues 15 years ago: "Each included journal faces a double risk of infringement and breach of contract: infringement for the author and breach of contract for the database. In the event of a lawsuit, the journal will be very passive, "I am afraid that no social science journal can afford to lose such a lawsuit."
▍Reflection on CNKI model
The root cause of CNKI's crisis due to authors' rights protection lies in the CNKI model, and the biggest feature of CNKI model lies in the coexistence of two publishing entities for the same publishing object. Academic journals occupy the publication of printed paper, while CNKI occupies digital network publishing, which is the foundation of CNKI's legitimate existence as a publishing subject, and the root cause of authors' rights protection must also be found from this.
(1) The origin of the coexistence of the two publishing entities
Since its birth, academic journals have undoubtedly been the traditional publishing body with the whole publishing process, and in the eyes of academic journals, CNKI is the same publisher as the post office bookstore that sells journals, but it specializes in issuing digital versions of journals. However, CNKI does not see it this way, CNKI does not position itself as an academic journal underwriter but as an independent "journal publishing unit", in Professor Zhao Dexin's case, CNKI did not defend itself as a contractor who only contracted a certain process of academic journals, but insisted that it was an independent publishing entity, and CNKI was essentially a "journal". CNKI's reply said: "China Academic Journals (Online Version) is a journal with approval documents and journal publishing licenses from relevant state departments, and its essence is the China Academic Journals Publishing Database database. In this way, there is a peculiar situation in which two independent and interdependent publishing subjects coexist with the same publishing object (the same paper).
(2) The consequences of the coexistence of the two publishing entities
For academic journals, when they hand over journal data to CNKI, they also hand over the subject identity of digital publishing and dissemination, and the loss of this subject identity may become a fatal defect for academic journals in the near future. Nowadays, the international competition of academic journals has completely shifted to the field of digital publishing, however, mainland academic journals are a different picture, although CNKI aggregates the raw data of small and scattered academic journals on a unified platform and realizes digital publishing and dissemination, but at the same time, it also ruptures the publication and digital publishing and dissemination of paper journals, and blocks the road of systematization, clustering and group construction of academic journals through digital transformation.
For the CD-ROM version of the electronic magazine (CNKI), in the CNKI mode, what they do is digital publishing and network dissemination, but if we agree that CNKI is a de facto publishing subject, then compared with another publishing body - the editorial office of academic journals, the process of this de facto publishing body is even more incomplete, and the most important procedures for journal publishing - receiving submissions, reviewing, editing, proofreading, are almost missing. This will inevitably lead to the almost fatal injuries of CNKI as a "journal": first, it is difficult to obtain data sources legally; Second, there is only one "big journal" (CNKI) on the platform, which runs counter to the goal of professionalization, systematization and clustering of academic journals; Third, the dissemination of "articles" as the unit will inevitably lead to disorderly dissemination, and the more data collected by the platform, the more chaotic it will be; Fourth, it cannot directly face the author's publishing subject, and its identity is difficult to obtain recognition by the system and academia.
(3) It is time for reflection
It can be seen that the reason why the two subjects can coexist is because the two sides draw a clear boundary and tacitly share the dividends of academic journal publishing, but such sharing is essentially a kind of repeated publishing, and the respective publications of journals and CNKI, the content, text, format, etc. are exactly the same, indicating that the digital transformation of Chinese academic journals is just a pot of raw rice, it is impossible not to cause waste of resources, and it is inevitable to infringe on the author. Professor Zhao Dexin's lawsuit is a protest against two publishing entities for repeated publications, while authors receive only one remuneration (remuneration for the journal). Of course, the more serious consequence is that the disappearance of journals in the field of communication will inevitably lead to the loss of living space in the era of digital networks.
However, so far, the CD-ROM version of the electronic magazine as the owner of CNKI seems to have little reflection on CNKI model, while academic journals, as the traditional subject of academic publishing, lack due research on the relationship between CNKI model, digital transformation and media integration. Nowadays, most academic journals are not very concerned about losing the status of digital publishing and dissemination subjects due to CNKI model, but will the coexistence of two publishing subjects continue for a long time?
▍The real challenge of CNKI model
(1) The relationship between CNKI model and academic journal system
So far, the biggest crisis CNKI has encountered seems to be the protection of authors' rights, but in the author's opinion, compared with this, the reform of the academic journal system is the real challenge that CNKI model will encounter.
In the CNKI mode, all the journals will be disassembled into a single document (paper), the reason for this, on the one hand, is of course out of commercial interests, on the other hand, in order to alleviate and cover the contradiction that academic journals are difficult to meet the needs of discipline development due to unreasonable structure and distribution, and the separation of editors and academic communities, which is the reason behind CNKI's deep support from administrative power departments and the "love" (love and hate) of many journals, especially small and medium-sized journals. Of course, CNKI has also obtained rich returns from the continuation of the academic journal system, and the biggest reward is to share the identity of the journal publisher with academic journals, and enjoy the benefits of academic journal dissemination without preliminary editing work.
After 20 years of running-in, CNKI has become the only communication channel for many academic journals, CNKI can be said to be closely related to the survival of most of the journals, the academic journals in the system and the market-oriented CNKI complement each other, each takes what it needs, each gets its own place, and has formed a relatively stable relationship between each other. However, behind this has quietly lurked a crisis: under the CNKI model, the problems of a large number of isomorphism, lack of systematization, and separation from disciplines and academic communities of academic journals have not only not been solved, but on the contrary, due to the disappearance of journals on CNKI platform, the pace of professionalization, digitalization and cluster transformation of academic journals that has become a world trend has also slowed down significantly or even stagnated in China due to the emergence of CNKI.
In the context of China's increasingly powerful comprehensive national strength and increasing international status, when Chinese academia urgently needs to "go out" to form world influence and compete for international academic discourse power, the drawbacks of China's lack of a professional, large-scale and systematic cluster of world-class journals and their dissemination platforms have fully emerged: what to compete with international academic journal publishing predators is to rely on a large number of isomorphic but single-handedly isolated academic journals that are still centered on paper publishing. Or does it rely on the information mixed, but there is no boundary, no independent information source of CNKI?
(2) Quiet changes in the academic journal system
In recent years, although the topic of academic journal system reform has gradually faded, the pace of reform has not stopped. In August 2019, the China Association for Science and Technology, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued the "Opinions on Deepening Reform and Cultivating World-class Science and Technology Journals", which clearly put forward the development goal of cultivating world-class scientific and technological journals, and the subsequent "China Science and Technology Journals Excellence Action Plan" made specific plans for the construction of world-class journals. In May 2021, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Prosperity and Development of Academic Journals", which extends the goal of cultivating world-class journals from scientific and technological journals to all academic journals, including humanities and social science journals.
Only by establishing a national-level academic journal system that follows the rules of academic research and academic journals, makes full use of the latest technology, and adapts to the world trend of academic journal development can there be a solid foundation for the creation of world-class journals, and China can transform from a large academic journal country into a veritable academic journal power. This involves each existing academic journal, and whether it can become a part of the future academic journal system depends on our choices today.
We may wish to compare the above documents with the CNKI model, and it is not difficult to find that the two have no intersection. When the CNKI model was designed, in the face of the problem of fragmentation of academic journals under the traditional system, it was unable to change the system, and could only dismantle the journals, and it seemed that the system problem would not exist without the journals. When dismantling journals becomes an indispensable means for CNKI to make profits, CNKI is firmly tied to the traditional academic journal system, and CNKI has also become an existence under the protection of the academic journal system.
However, if there are no journals, how can there be a strong periodical? Therefore, the reform of the academic journal system will eventually come, but in a different way. The series of measures proposed in the above three documents all mean a breakthrough in the current academic journal system, and the first thing must be the pattern of "equal division of the world" between the two publishing entities in the field of academic journal publishing and dissemination, which is a more fundamental and severe challenge to the CNKI model.
▍Opportunities that come at the same time as challenges
(1) Publishing enterprises have high hopes
A careful reading of the aforementioned documents of the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other ministries and commissions shows that large publishing companies have high hopes when deploying actions to cultivate world-class academic journals. "Encourage the introduction of enterprise forces to jointly run journals", "support large-scale publishing enterprises to explore collaborative periodicals and other models, and integrate journal publishing resources across regions, departments and disciplines... Create a number of academic journal publishing groups with strong communication influence. "This deployment is made because it has foreseen the difficulties that will be faced in the reconstruction of the academic journal system and the construction of world-class journals, as well as the possible role of large-scale publishing companies.
Among the goals of the action to cultivate world-class journals, the most important thing for publishing companies to participate in is probably the clustering and collectivization of academic journals. How to make the scattered academic journals professionalize and systematize while realizing clustering and collectivization, large publishing enterprises may be able to make unique contributions.
(2) Opportunities for CNKI
The same large-scale publishing enterprises, the cultivation of world-class journals to them is of different significance, most of the famous domestic publishing enterprises are mainly engaged in book publishing, most of them will not easily get involved in academic journal publishing. However, such an opportunity is very different for CNKI. In the final analysis, the CNKI model is only a product of the traditional journal system, once the system changes, if it cannot be changed, it will be eliminated by the system and the times, especially in the Internet era. CNKI also has resources and conditions that other domestic publishing companies do not have. The first is experience, the second is resources, the third is the market, and the fourth is professional talents.
(3) Bidding farewell to the CNKI model is the premise of seizing opportunities
The launch of the Excellence Action Plan is a landmark event, with 30 new journals created every year, which shows in a sense that the construction of the new journal system is quietly changing from transforming existing journals to starting from scratch or walking on two legs. With the increasing number of new journals with famous scholars as editors-in-chief and editorial boards embedded in the academic community, the basic pattern of academic journals will develop from quantitative change to qualitative change, and the goal of cultivating world-class journals will be achieved, that is, when many traditional paper journals that do not want to change are completely marginalized. At that time, even if there are still a large number of comprehensive journals in universities, they will most likely become campus publications for self-entertainment, and no longer have the attributes of an open academic platform.
The challenge to existing journals is actually a challenge to CNKI's model, after all, CNKI and the fate of most journals have been closely linked, if journals cannot be reborn, CNKI with journals as information sources will inevitably be marginalized. Therefore, even for its own future development, CNKI should find a path to digitalization, professional transformation, systematization and cluster development together with many academic journals. Since the launch of the Excellence Action Plan for more than two years, it has been steadily advancing, and the top-level design has also begun the planning of the construction of world-class academic journals and platforms that are professional, digital, systematic and clustered. For all this, as long as CNKI's model does not change, CNKI can only stand idly by. But this is not a side-by-side watch can be indifferent, every step of the progress of the excellent action is a bottom draw for CNKI. In the Excellence Act, editing to publishing to dissemination will inevitably move towards integration, and it is impossible to reproduce the coexistence of two publishing subjects; The protagonist of the new information aggregation platform must be a professional, systematic, and clustered academic journal, not a massive number of papers that are disassembled and stacked together. Once the new platform is built, it will definitely attract more excellent journals to join, and CNKI's high-quality resources will gradually be lost, not only the monopoly of academic communication is no longer possible, but also the profitability will be greatly weakened. By that day, at least in the field of scientific and technological journal communication, CNKI may still be there, but whether or not, the end of the situation of CNKI's domination may be about to enter the countdown. If the goal of cultivating world-class journals can be achieved on schedule, that day is not far away, and 2035 is only 13 years away.
It can be seen that the challenge is severe, but at the same time there is a rare opportunity to come with the challenge, for CNKI, where various risks are accumulating, this is a good opportunity to crack the source of the risk, get out of the CNKI model, and renew its vitality, of course, the premise is to bid farewell to the CNKI model that is incompatible with the action of cultivating world-class journals. Therefore, whether it can make use of its own comparative advantages, decisively seize the historical opportunity, and get out of the CNKI model is a test of the vision and wisdom of its decision makers.
▍Only by stepping out of the CNKI model can we win the future
(1) Two signals that cannot be ignored
Professor Zhao Dexin's case is a signal to remind CNKI that continuing to sacrifice the interests of authors may face risks that it cannot bear. The action of cultivating world-class academic journals launched by the top level actually sends a signal that the academic journal system is quietly changing, and the foundation of CNKI model is shaking. The system implements self-reform in order to eliminate shortcomings, and the CNKI model that obscures institutional problems and hinders the development of journals in the era of digital network is bound to become an abandoned "". Therefore, if CNKI wants to win in the future, it is time to consider how to get out of the CNKI model.
(2) The key to getting out of the CNKI model
The CNKI model has now become a complete set of systems to maintain the operation of CNKI, but no matter how complex the system has its core and key, in the complex system built by the CNKI model, the coexistence of two independent publishing subjects through tacit demarcation is the core and the key, all relationships run around this, huge profits are born, and all problems come from this.
As long as the two publishing entities coexist, neither the journal and CNKI can have a complete copyright on the journal from paper to digital version, and the more critical problem is to block the process of digitalization, professional transformation and systematization and cluster development of Chinese academic journals, thus running counter to the direction of world-class journal construction launched at the top, and the resulting crisis is more profound, and it is even more unsolvable when the two publishing entities coexist. Therefore, whether from the perspective of copyright protection or the development of periodicals, the integration of the two publishing entities is the general trend.
It's not too late to make amends. To get out of CNKI's model, the first thing to do is to seek a path to integrate the two academic journal publishing entities centered on paper and Internet publishing, respectively, and rebuild the relationship between CNKI and academic journals and their authors, as well as disciplines and academic communities. The second thing to do is to jointly build an integrated publishing and dissemination platform, jointly build a digital, professional and systematic academic journal cluster with complete copyright and brand image, and strive to integrate into the action of cultivating world-class academic journals.
(iii) Attempts begun ten years ago
Although the "series of professional journals of Chinese universities" is the idea and practice proposed ten years ago, it is still an effective way to realize the integration of the two coexisting academic journal publishing subjects today. The greatest value of this path lies in the digitalization, professional transformation and systematization and cluster construction of most journals, especially comprehensive journals of universities. The future fate of CNKI will largely depend on the status of these journals in future academic research and academic communication, so CNKI can and should fully participate in supporting such practices with CNKI's technology and platform, and complete the transformation of "professional full-process digital publishing platform".
(4) Fundamental solutions
Regardless of the channel, the integration of the two academic journal publishers is the trend of the times. We can't imagine that in the era of digital network, a country with a world-class academic journal cluster, its academic journal publishing needs to go through two types of publishing institutions that are not unified with each other, the former type of institutions are numerous, but one only produces one or two journals, still operating on paper, digital publishing has to be handed over to another type of institution to do, and when the journal comes out of the latter type of publishing institution, it is no longer unrecognizable, but faceless. Journals do not even have an image, how can they be called world-class, how can they participate in international competition, and how can they win academic discourse power for China?
Under such a general trend, CNKI and journals should be able to find common interests. In the face of the challenges that must be met, the integration of CNKI and academic journals is a "program" of strategic significance to deal with challenges. If the two publishing entities can move towards unification, the so-called "purpose", that is, the problems that plague CNKI and journals, can at least have a solution. First, the digital transformation of academic journals can really kick off; Second, an integrated full-process publishing and dissemination platform can be jointly created: Third, the disorderly dissemination of the platform caused by "articles" as the communication unit can also be replaced by the orderly dissemination of professional and systematic journal clusters: finally, authors submit papers to academic journals with complete copyright through the integrated platform, and the licensing problem naturally no longer exists.
In short, in order to achieve long-term and real success, CNKI must abandon the CNKI model in which only papers are not seen in journals under the coexistence of two publishing entities, and undertake the historical mission of digitalization, specialization, systematization, clustering, collectivization and internationalization of Chinese academic journals together with academic journals to achieve high-quality development.
This article was originally published in Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), Issue 2, 2022, originally titled "Ten Treatises on the Relationship between CNKI and Included Journals and Their Authors: Starting from Professor Zhao Dexin v. CNKI Infringement Case". Welcome to share personally, media reprint, please contact this public number.
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