Society

China to advance digital publication of science periodicals

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-04-08 11:10

BEIJING - The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) plans to increase investment in advancing the digital publication of the country's leading science periodicals in the next five years, with the goal of enhancing their influence at home and abroad.

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CAST, which comprises 198 affiliated national-level societies in various sectors of science and technology, aims to build a comprehensive digital platform for its more than 1,000 science periodicals between 2011 and 2015, said a CAST report issued on Thursday.

Consisting of an online distribution system, a database that contains full texts of published theses, and an online editing system, such a platform will facilitate wide and rapid dissemination of Chinese research achievements, the report said.

The association said the move will increase the exposure and impact of China's science magazines internationally by minimizing the gap in digital publication levels between domestic and foreign science periodicals.

In the next five years, CAST also plans to cultivate English-language science periodical brands that have high reputations abroad.

In 2010, of the 1,003 science and technology periodicals that CAST oversees, some 70 are published in English. These make up about one third of the total number of China's English-language science periodicals.

Noting that the international influence levels of many domestic English science journals, as measured in citation frequency, have lagged behind the average levels of international peers, the CAST report urged stepped-up efforts in raising the quality of domestic periodicals.

Further, it vowed to make more efforts toward attracting excellent articles from domestic and foreign contributors.

The association also urged better cooperation with foreign periodical publishing organizations with the goal of promoting China's science publications through their distribution channels.