Biocurious

/ a biophysics blog

André on science and blogs

Posted 22 January 2008 by PhilipJ under &

From Matt Agnello’s vimeo page:

The SPARC-ACRL Forum at ALA ’08 entitled “Working with the Facebook generation: Engaging students views on access to scholarship.” Panelists discuss the merits of student activism, patent reform, blogs as a communication medium for scientists, and students as active members of a discussion about the right to access information for scholarly work. Features Andre Brown, Nelson Pavlosky, Stephanie Wang, and Kimberly Douglas as panelists.

I’m embedding Matt’s video here, and André is the third speaker up, at around the 42 minute mark.


SPARC-ACRL Forum ’08 from Matt Agnello on Vimeo.

Hat tip: PhysMath Central.

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Does AAP/PSP represent its member publishers?

Posted 7 January 2008 by Andre under

The latest appropriations bill, which was recently signed by the president, requires NIH funded researchers to deposit their work in an archive like PubMed Central within twelve months of the publication date. Predictably, the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing division has taken issue with the bill and has issued a press release [pdf] stating that they will fight the now mandatory policy. But is this what the members of AAP/PSP want?

Bill Hooker has drafted a letter to send to the members of the AAP/PSP whose policies were already compatible (not compliant) with the new NIH mandate even before it was passed. It asks them if the press release issued by the AAP/PSP is consistent with their views on the mandate and, if it is not, whether they would consider issuing a statement to that effect (as some of them did following the PRISM debacle).

The letter is polite and to the point and I support it. To read the full text go here. If you also agree or have a better idea, leave a comment at Bill’s site.

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Nature to use Creative Commons License on Select Genome Papers

Posted 5 December 2007 by Andre under

This week’s editorial in the journal Nature announces a move towards greater access for papers reporting complete genomes. Papers that report “the primary sequence of an organism’s genome for the first time” will be immediately available online but more interestingly, they will be released using a creative commons attribution-non-commercial-share alike license (similar to what we use for Biocurious). For more details on Nature’s licensing arrangements you can check the license information page.

Their reasoning is that this type of genome paper “represent[s] the completion of a key and fundamental research resource, describing and reflecting on what has been revealed but not usually providing insights into mechanism.” This makes perfect sense and papers reporting complete genomes are likely extremes in this sense, but even if a paper includes insight into mechanisms it doesn’t mean the work is done and that more access to its data wouldn’t still be beneficial.

It’s also noteworthy that Nature Publishing Group already publishes a freely available journal called Molecular Systems Biology that has also recently moved towards creative commons licenses (although authors still have the option of choosing to forbid derivative works). For a discussion of their decision (in response to this PLoS Biology editorial?) see the MSB blog.

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Consistency

Posted 17 September 2007 by PhilipJ under &

Dear PLoS,

Why do you have most of your journals on the web at journalname.plosjournals.org, but then give PLoS ONE and the new PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases their own domains?

Signed,

Confused.

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PLoS ONE is 1

Posted 1 August 2007 by PhilipJ under

Chris Surridge notes that PLoS ONE is now one year old, and lets us in on a lot of interesting numbers relating to the journal:

This is quite a feat for any new journal!

If you wanted to give a gift for their birthday, Chris outlines the things they’d like:

Whenever you write about a published paper, be it in a journal or on a blog, always provide a link to the freely available version of the paper if one exists.

Whenever you read a paper in PLoS ONE, always rate it before leaving.

And most importantly….

Whenever you write a scientific paper, always, always, always publish it Open Access.

A very hearty congratulations and happy birthday from us here at Biocurious to the whole team at PLoS ONE, and the PLoS in general.

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Elsevier to leave the defence business

Posted 3 June 2007 by PhilipJ under

We’ve previously criticised Reed Elsevier for their lack of open access and draconian pricing schemes, but also because they are an arms trader. As such, this is very welcome news. From the press release:

Sir Crispin Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Reed Elsevier, said:

“Our defence shows are quality businesses which have performed well in recent years. Nonetheless, it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in the defence exhibitions business.

“We have listened closely to these concerns and this has led us to conclude that the defence shows are no longer compatible with Reed Elsevier’s position as a leading publisher of scientific, medical, legal and business content.”

Now if only they’d address our concerns about their pricing schemes, too. Even so, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

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