How to “save” HowNet?

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Text / Feng Xiaoting Yu Chaojing

Source/burning dimension (ID: chaintruth)

HowNet, once again entered the whirlpool of public opinion.

On the afternoon of May 13, the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation released a concise message, “Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation, based on previous inspections, has filed an investigation into CNKI’s suspected monopolistic behavior according to law.”

As soon as the news was released, it caused heated discussions on the Internet, and the Weibo topic “HowNet is under investigation for suspected monopoly” immediately hit the hot search list. CNKI also issued an announcement in a timely manner, saying, “The State Municipal Bureau of Supervision has filed an investigation into CNKI’s suspected monopoly behavior, and we firmly support and fully cooperate.” .”

At the same time, Tongfang Shares (600100.SH), the parent company of CNKI, also issued an announcement saying, “The company will firmly support and fully cooperate with the above investigation.”

Undoubtedly, the sword of Damocles, which is hanging on the head of CNKI, is shaking and may fall at any time.

However, on the other side of CNKI, which was clouded by the investigation, there were netizens who applauded. Many netizens even linked to the incident of “Zhai Tianlin doesn’t know what CNKI is” four years ago, and ran around to tell them in the Weibo topic “HowNet is suspected of monopoly investigation”, “For four years of Tianlin, CNKI was investigated.”

In fact, this is not the first time netizens have criticized CNKI. Only in the six months since December last year, CNKI has not been able to retreat from the cusp of the storm.

In December 2021, media reports said that Zhao Dexin, a retired professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told the website that more than 100 papers had been included by CNKI without authorization. Although he had been defending his rights for many years, he had been waiting for CNKI’s apology and more than 700,000 yuan in compensation. Subsequently, CNKI removed all of Zhao Dexin’s papers from the shelves.

Once reported by the media, CNKI’s practice was like a thunderbolt, which instantly blew up the entire academic circle, and in a very short period of time, ripples continued to spread from the center of the lake to all directions. So much so that CNKI, which is in the center of public opinion, had to come forward to explain the matter. In addition to apologizing to Zhao Dexin, it also expressed its sincere acceptance of criticism.

“Comprehensively inspect the copyright protection and use authorization methods in the Internet format, carefully analyze the work deficiencies and flaws and loopholes in each link of the copyright authorization chain, humbly listen to the opinions and suggestions of legal experts, scholars and publishing institutions, and strictly implement relevant laws and regulations and Policy requirements, together with the editing and publishing units of academic journals, face up to and solve problems.”

However, CNKI’s timely response did not stop the matter. Subsequently, the news that the Chinese Academy of Sciences suspended CNKI due to a renewal fee of 10 million yuan was exposed to the public.

HowNet can be described as a wave of unresolved waves, and once the Damocles sword on the top of the head falls, it will “injury the muscles and bones”. As the most authoritative academic platform, why does CNKI, which holds a high position, step by step to the point where everyone is shouting and beating?

The answer to this question is obvious. On the one hand, CNKI’s high renewal prices that increase year by year make major universities and research institutes miserable; Infringement of unauthorized recording.

HowNet’s behavior of “ten fingers not sticking to the mud” but “living in the building with scales” is expected to be criticized. It’s just that while CNKI is in trouble, there is also an inescapable question before everyone. What can replace CNKI? Or, what kind of CNKI do users need?

“Inseparable Tools”

When it comes to HowNet, most people are not unfamiliar with it, especially for college students and scholars, HowNet is an indispensable “tool” in their study and work.

As stated by Tongfang, the parent company of CNKI, “In the field of knowledge content and services, CNKI operated by the company continues to maintain industry leadership in the total category and quantity of academic literature, the number of journals, and the quantity and quality of exclusive journals. .”

In addition to being an “industry leader”, CNKI can even be said to be an “absolute authority”. After all, CNKI is the most widely used academic resource library in China.

According to the latest CNKI database data, CNKI includes Chinese academic journals, Chinese academic journals full-text database, Chinese doctoral dissertation full-text database, China’s important conference papers full-text database, international conference papers full-text database, China Yearbook Online Publishing General Manager Database and other multiple knowledge network single database. Even the foreign language academic journal resources, CNKI can cover 96% of JCR journals and 90% of Scopus journals.

In addition, CNKI is also the only academic electronic journal unit in my country that has been approved by the state to officially publish doctoral dissertations. All doctoral and master dissertations must be uploaded to CNKI for duplication checking.

How large the database of HowNet can be imagined. It is also the data resources of CNKI that make it better than the similar Wanfang journals and VIP information database, and it has become the first choice of many universities and institutions.

Take colleges for example. Generally, schools use CNKI to check the duplication of papers, and will provide two free duplicate checking opportunities. In order to pass the weight check organized by the school, students usually pre-check it through other channels by themselves. It is worth mentioning that CNKI does not directly provide duplicate checking and testing services to individuals. Individuals can only download documents when they log in to CNKI’s official website. There is no official CNKI entry, only some academic institutions such as universities or magazines. to purchase and use.

Xiaoxiao, a 211 liberal arts graduate student who graduated this year, was deeply troubled by weight loss just before the blind review of her dissertation in March this year. “When I was writing my thesis, the left screen of my computer was the documents downloaded from Zhiwang and the right side was the word document, and there were professional books under the keyboard. These three things were standard.” When the topic was still writing a paper, Xiaoxiao relied on searching for literature from the Knowledge Internet, and was worried that she had an excessively high rate of checking.

The most common method for Xiaoxiao and her classmates is to rely on middlemen who have cooperated with CNKI. They often use e-commerce platforms to find such “middlemen”, but the actual price is not cheap. “The shop is divided into the first draft of undergraduate, the first draft of master’s degree, the final draft of master’s degree, the final draft of master’s degree and doctor’s degree, and the price is different. The first draft of master’s degree and doctoral degree I bought was priced at 230 yuan, and the customer service said that it was only 90 yuan if it was recommended by senior and senior.” Xiaoxiao introduced.

If you think that HowNet only relies on “duplication checking” to achieve income, it is a big mistake. The income realized by the review of papers is not an important source of CNKI’s income.

Recently, an email about the source of the news about the suspension of CNKI by the Chinese Academy of Sciences stated, “In 2021, the total subscription cost of the CNKI database of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Group will reach the level of 10 million yuan, and the high subscription cost of this database has become a ‘giant in the introduction of resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Group’. Mace’.”

It is not difficult to see from this that the database subscription fee collected by CNKI from universities and institutions is an important source of CNKI’s revenue.

Rancai searched “HowNet” by title from the government procurement network, and searched for half a year. There were 162 matching content. They are all procurement announcements between universities and institutions and CNKI. For example, Dalian Maritime University plans to spend 990,000 yuan to purchase CNKI database services of CNKI, and Beijing Language and Culture University spends 655,000 yuan to renew CNKI database…

In addition, the government procurement network can also find announcements that Beijing Normal University spent 1.98 million yuan and Tsinghua University spent 1.88 million yuan to renew the CNKI database.

The subscription fee for the HowNet database that universities and institutions pay annually also makes it easy for HowNet to make money easily.

It can be seen from the financial report data released by Tongfang Co., Ltd. that since 2005, when the financial data of HowNet was included, the gross profit margin of HowNet was above 50%, and reached the highest value of 72.05% in 2011. From 2020 to 2022, CNKI’s gross profit margins will be 57.58%, 53.93%, and 53.35%, respectively, and the year-on-year revenue growth rates will be 0.06%, 16.77%, and 10.41%, respectively.

HowNet is trapped

The biggest reason for HowNet to easily make money is the high-density resources that students and scholars rely on to “survive”. However, the reason why CNKI has been criticized is also largely derived from its proud resources.

In the single-source procurement announcement of the CNKI database project, the Shanghai School of Architecture and Engineering stated, “Since the introduction of CNKI series databases in 2017, our school has provided a strong literature for teachers and students to do scientific research and study. Guarantee and technical support have become an indispensable database for readers to do projects and research.”

Moreover, from the millions of yuan database subscription transactions signed by universities and CNKI every year, it is not difficult to see that CNKI’s resources are still “expensive”. The download fee of CNKI is shown in the “China CNKI Membership and Traffic Billing Standard Table” as shown in the figure below. The download fee for regular journals is 0.5 yuan/page, the master’s thesis is 7.5 yuan/book, and the doctoral dissertation is 9.5 yuan. /Book. According to people familiar with the matter, CNKI only lowered the download fee for dissertations last year. Before the reduction, the prices were 15 yuan per copy and 25 yuan per copy.

And this high price is above other similar products.

According to Shangguan News statistics, in 2021, Beijing Normal University will purchase CNKI databases at a price of 1.98 million yuan. When comparing CNKI and other databases horizontally, it will be found that CNKI is already an “astronomical price”. The purchase cost of Wanfang Data of Beijing Normal University is only about 510,000 yuan, which is equivalent to one-fourth of the purchase price of CNKI, while the purchase data of Chaoxing Duxiu of Beijing Normal University is as low as 260,000 yuan, which is close to the eighth of CNKI. one part.

The high price of CNKI has also caused controversy.

In January 2016, Wuhan University of Technology issued a notice of the suspension of CNKI. Wuhan University of Technology explained: “Due to the outrageous increase in the renewal price, the negotiation between our school and CNKI is very difficult, but the negotiation to protect the rights and interests of the school is equally important. The school will promptly track the progress of the negotiation and notify the negotiation result in time.”

In March of the same year, the official website of Peking University posted a notice that CNKI was about to be discontinued. After the expiration of the period, the database provider may interrupt the access service of Peking University at any time.”

If you dig carefully, you can still find relevant reports about universities announcing the suspension of HowNet, but none of them sparked continuous discussions. Even after a period of suspension of CNKI, colleges and universities will choose to continue to cooperate with CNKI when they find that other database products cannot completely “replace” CNKI.

However, the source of uniqueness in the HowNet database is also controversial. Through the reflections of different scholars on HowNet’s paper collection mechanism, it is not difficult to find that most of them are opposed to it.

For example, Professors Zhao Dexin and Professor Zhou Xiuluan who took up legal weapons to defend their rights, and writer Chen Yingsong accused CNKI’s behavior of being like “the apples planted by others, he sells in his own basket”. And there are many more authors whose works have been included by CNKI without knowing it.

Ranjing Finance found that a manuscript ” Milk Tea and Coffee Must Fight ” first published on this platform was also included in CNKI, and the download copyright belonged to itself without the authorization of this platform, or even without knowing it. Manuscripts have to pay absurdly for it.

Admittedly, this is by no means an isolated case. If all authors whose works are included in CNKI without their knowledge follow the example of Professor Zhou Dexin and his wife and choose legal means to defend their rights, it will bring “a lot of pressure” to CNKI.

Previously, CNKI filed an appeal against the court’s decision to compensate Zhou Xiuluan for 2100-2400 yuan for a single article of CNKI. CNKI entrusted an agent ad litem to express that if the compensation is based on the standard of 200 yuan per thousand words of Professor Zhao Dexin of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the company will know About 120 billion yuan should be compensated for works in the library.

However, even if CNKI showed weakness, it was ultimately unable to get what it wanted. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected CNKI’s appeal in the second instance and made a final judgment upholding the original judgment. This also means that if the compensation amount of 120 billion yuan mentioned by CNKI is true, then CNKI, whose annual income is only 1 billion yuan, is indeed a headache, and the total annual income is less than 1% of the compensation amount for the works in the library.

More than just “introspection”

As an authoritative company, HowNet has its inevitability of existence.

Initially, CNKI’s original intention was to build a knowledge service-oriented website. “CNKI project is an information construction project aiming at realizing the dissemination, sharing and value-added utilization of knowledge resources in the whole society.” However, the current CNKI has a stable annual operating income and Under the influence of the high gross profit margin, it is far from the original intention, and “value-added” has become “company value-added”.

A Ning, a master tutor at a 211 university, said that if CNKI is suspended, she will obtain literature through other databases purchased by the school, such as Wanfang and VIP. Some back issues on the official website can be downloaded for free, and you can even subscribe to the paper magazines to get access to the most cutting-edge articles.

However, for scholars in the humanities and social sciences, disabling CNKI will make the original one-click download start to twist and turn, and waste the precious time of teachers, students and scholars in colleges and universities.

Aning also mentioned that compared with science and engineering, humanities and social sciences are more dependent on CNKI. “The objective law of science and engineering research is that it will not change due to differences in the country, economic development level, social environment and institutional environment. Therefore, they can bypass CNKI and search for information directly through other resource libraries.”

“Humanities and social sciences are difficult to study without Chinese literature. China has special national conditions and unique historical culture. There are still more literatures in Chinese, and English literatures are relatively less abundant. On the other hand, science and engineering have For the humanities and social sciences, it is undoubtedly much more convenient to use Chinese to tell Chinese stories and study Chinese issues.” Aning emphasized that once Chinese literature is used, it is difficult to bypass CNKI.

Of course, some people think that HowNet is not so important, and it is also feasible to switch to other databases that replace HowNet. When a graduate student majoring in environmental engineering talked about CNKI, she said that CNKI is not her most commonly used platform, and if she can’t use it, it can be replaced by other academic resource platforms. “We mainly use Elsevier, Springer, and of course CNKI. About 40%.”

However, it cannot be ignored that CNKI still enjoys a certain status in the academic circle. It is precisely because CNKI enjoys an absolute market position that CNKI’s transactions with counterparties have become unequal. HowNet is always the party with the largest voice, and absolutely controls the price increase of the database.

However, it is obviously unreasonable for HowNet to deal with the widespread infringement of creators on the one hand, and to charge readers and institutions increasing subscription prices on the other hand. The identity of HowNet obviously needs to be re-determined.

More importantly, under the heated discussion, the voices of rectifying CNKI and replacing CNKI are very loud. Some experts suggested that CNKI needs to adjust the charging method. The model of charging readers should be switched to public spending.

At the same time, the copyright disputes of works in the library are still unresolved.

However, from the recent judgments against CNKI, it can be clearly seen that CNKI has not been able to deal with the infringing works in the database. It is clearly mentioned in the judgment that firstly, the existing evidence cannot prove that CNKI has used the works with legal authorization, and secondly, CNKI’s collection of works into its database for users to browse and download online is obviously not part of the relationship between journals. The act of reprinting or excerpting does not fall within the scope of the adjustment of the periodical statutory licensing system, and the statutory licensing system for online reprinting has been abolished.

For now, these are questions that CNKI has to think about. On the one hand, CNKI has been investigated for suspected anti-monopoly, and the next thing it can do is to actively cooperate; It should improve the collection mechanism of its own works.

Hopefully, HowNet will be able to clear the cloud and see the sun as soon as possible.

*Xiaoxiao, Aning and Yueling are pseudonyms in the text.

This article is reproduced from: http://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-05-14/doc-imcwipii9782250.shtml
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