Today, "the Chinese Academy of Sciences stopped using HowNet" was posted on the microblog hot search. The source of the topic came from a notice released by the literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 8, saying that tongfangzhiwang Technology Co., Ltd. (CNKI database publisher) suspended the access of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the CNKI database.
In this regard, the reporter immediately called the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tongfang HowNet Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China HowNet) for confirmation. The documentation and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences made it clear that it would not accept any interviews. China HowNet said the matter was not true. The company has noticed the contents of the notice posted on the Internet and contacted the literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the first time. At present, it is also waiting for the reply of relevant parties.
product price is too high
According to the online notice, "the total cost of ordering the China HowNet database of CAS group has reached the level of ten million yuan in 2021, and the high ordering cost has become the 'Big Mac' in the introduction of resources of CAS group."
A staff member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who asked not to be named, told the Securities Daily that he had heard of the matter, but had not been officially notified, and the database interface of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was still in normal use.
Before that, many colleges and universities suspended the use of relevant products because the renewal fee of CNKI was too high.
For example, Peking University Library, Wuhan University of technology and Taiyuan University of technology all chose to suspend the use of relevant services due to the price rise of CNKI for years. Wuhan University of technology once pointed out that the quotation of CNKI increased by 132.86% from 2010 to 2016, with an average annual increase of 18.98%.
On the other hand, according to the data of China government procurement network, the contract transaction price of China HowNet is much higher than that of Wanfang and other data platforms.
For example, in December 2021, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, Southeast University, Fudan University and Central South University for Nationalities signed database contracts with CNKI, with contract amounts of 1.12 million yuan, 1.034 million yuan, 1.034 million yuan, 825000 yuan and 724000 yuan respectively.
Wanfang database signed contracts with Central South University for nationalities, a university in Xi'an and Shenzhen University Town Library with the amount of 130000 yuan, 149800 yuan and 320000 yuan respectively.
Bai Wenxi, chief economist of IPG China, told reporters that in recent years, CNKI has been deeply involved in the storm of public opinion. The reason behind it is related to its dominant and less competitive business situation. At present, there are similar formats in the Chinese market, but there is no data platform that can compete with HowNet in the field of academic literature collection, retrieval and download.
database business is a good business
In recent years, CNKI has been deeply involved in the storm of public opinion. In 2019, Suzhou university students won the case of suing CNKI for setting the minimum recharge limit.
At the end of 2021, Zhao Dexin, an 89 year old retired professor, sued CNKI for reprinting more than 160 articles without authorization, and won the lawsuit. This matter has also triggered a discussion on "whether China HowNet is suspected of industrial monopoly".
With regard to the behavior of CNKI, Bai Wenxi said that the database platform industry needs to clarify whether it is a business, an enterprise, an institution managed by an enterprise, or a franchised enterprise. If it is a public institution or a franchised enterprise, the charging level should fall within the scope of government control and should focus on services; If it is an enterprise, it needs to form sufficient competition, and market competition to price and define products and services. This is the main problem of the industry at present. In the future, we need to determine the development direction in line with its nature on the premise of clarifying the nature of the business form.
According to public data, in 2020, the main business income of China HowNet was 1.168 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company was about 193 million yuan, with a gross profit margin of 53.93%.
In response to this incident, Zhang Xiaorong, President of the deep science and Technology Research Institute, pointed out to the reporter of Securities Daily that to some extent, HowNet has caused certain obstacles to the process of knowledge sharing. Its operation mode not only does not respect the author and users, but also damages the rights and interests of knowledge workers.
