Quality of grey literature in the open access era : Privilege and Responsibility

The privilege recently gained in the dissemination of Grey Literature (GL) through the widespread use of the Internet implies a new level of responsibility for GL authors and issuing organizations. In the past, in fact, only a limited number of copies were produced, generally in-house printed, and the target readers were very well focused and known beforehand. Now in the open access era, greater care should be assured not only to the scientific content of GL, but also to the respect of editorial standards to allow easy readability, understanding and retrieval of the document in the Internet. The differences in the editorial processing of GL documents versus articles published in open literature stress the uncertain borders existing between the two channels of publication. In particular, the different levels of technical editing, applied also to non-officially refereed documents, can be compared to the editorial process followed in conventional literature. The long experience in the production of GL by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the Italian National Institute of Health) allows reflecting on these issues related to GL production, circulation and use. Besides the authors' primary responsibilities, it is important to focus on the educational role of the editorial staff (inside the research institute producing also open literature), actively contributing to guarantee a better quality to all documents issued by the organization.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

"Uniform Requirements" for grey literature: proposal for the adoption of "Nancy style"

The production of a valuable and formally correct document is strictly associated with the existence and application of reference standards that should be commonly used within the community of all the possible authors. In the biomedical field everybody knows what are the Uniform requirements for Manuscript submitted to Biomedical Journals, better known as "Vancouver style". A short story of this "style" will help understanding why we are proposing a "Nancy style" for Grey Literature (GL). Vancouver was the place were a small group of editors of medical journal met in 1978 to reach an agreement for a common format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. Since then, these guidelines, which were initially based on the format of references to be included in the publication, have been developing in scope and also the number of journals using them is widely increasing. Today, the borderline between grey and open literature becomes less and less clear in terms of document online availability, therefore it seems particularly important to call the attention of all producers on the necessity to draw up a reference tool for writing and editing GL that now is mainly distributed through the Internet. This is particularly relevant in the absence of a proper ISO standard for the presentation of scientific and technical reports, the best sample of GL, since the valuable but not up-date ISO 5966, produced in 1982, was withdrawn, and not replaced by a new standard. Following the red thread of both the relevant editorial issues contained in the last edition of "Vancouver style" (October 2004, http://www.icmje.org/) and the basic principles of the ISO 5966, a proposal will be presented and discussed to reach an initial consensus on what might lead to the adoption of Uniform requirements for the correct production of institutional reports. This will be particularly useful now that open access is widely shared also by the GL community. The discussion and reflections to reach a consensus should include considerations on: - publishing and editorial issues (quality and copyright, new responsibilities associated with electronic publishing, institutional budget for document production and distribution, correct use of GL by lay people and the general media, etc.); - ethical issues (authorship, editorship, appropriateness of peer review, disclosure of conflict of interest, etc.); - document preparation (items to be included in the title page, abstracts, document structure, tables and figures, references, levels of revision editing, etc.). In this period of metamorphosis of GL, an open question concludes our reflections: Will "Nancy style" contribute to change the traditional grey bug into a colorful butterfly?Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

Awareness and empowerment as a "must" for open access: sharing experiences in the creation and development of the "Nancy Style" to guarantee quality in document production and distribution

** BACKGROUND – The debate on Grey Literature (GL) has now a very long tradition going from uncertainty and confusion, in the last century, to new certainties and appraisal in the open access era. This implies the general acquisition of the awareness of the importance of GL as a fundamental primary source of information, hence the necessity to empower authors and issuing organization to guarantee quality both in the production and diffusion of GL. During the last international conference on GL held in Nancy in 2005, the proposal for the adoption of an ad hoc style was discussed and most welcome by the grey community. This led to the creation of the Grey Literature International Steering Committee (GLISC), which issued, in March 2006, the Guidelines for the production of scientific and technical reports (freely available from www.glisc.info) informally known as "Nancy Style". ** GOAL – The paper will point out some key points in the creation of the Guidelines with the objective to exploit and further develop them at best, according to the aims for which they were created and keeping pace with technologies and Internet requirements, mainly as regards open access and metadata. In particular, as promoters of the Guidelines and members of the GLISC, the experience of working with national and international realities will be reported to reflect on the importance of: a) creating a useful reference document applicable to different realities and contexts, b) investigating on the strategies to promote the adoption of the Guidelines involving authors and issuing organizations, c) keeping alert on the evolving necessities of the information market. Research method – The major points of discussion and difficulties encountered for the creation of the Guidelines will be analysed to reflect on the selection process required to reach consensus at international level, even within a small group of experts within a specific field. During the working process, leading to the Guidelines, the authors of this study came in touch with other standards, guidelines, house styles, etc. Comparisons will be made with such documents in view of a future updating of the Guidelines. In particular, the recent ANSI Z3918 standard on the production of scientific and technical reports (released in 2005) will be compared with the present "Nancy Style", and new items for a possible integration will be proposed. ** RESULTS – Traditionally editorial rules and ethical considerations were disregarded in the production of GL with negative implications on its quality. The Guidelines represent a basic step to improve quality in the different stages of GL production in view of a wider circulation. The results obtained after the first period of their use will be given with the expectation that they contribute to create the right awareness for a responsible production and diffusion of GL. Thus, the Guidelines shall be regularly updated with shared consensus to respond to the changing environments and host the most qualified expert advice. The members of GL community should promote their diffusion mainly within GL issuing organizations that are less aware of existing standards regulating GL production and distribution.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa