Those who publish research behind paywalls are victims not perpetrators | Chris Chambers | Science | guardian.co.uk

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-01-23

Summary:

Last week, Mike Taylor eviscerated scientists for 'hiding' their work in traditional journals that can only be read by taking out a subscription. It's difficult to dispute the position that publicly funded research should be freely accessible to the public. But do scientists who follow accepted publishing practices deserve to be labelled 'immoral', as Taylor claims?  At best, this position paints a simplistic view of the incentive structures in academia. At worst it demonises the most vulnerable victims of the current system – junior researchers – and threatens to prejudice whole communities of scientists against open access publishing.  Taylor's position is derailed by one issue that permeates university-led science across the world. In many (if not most) fields, the journals in which we publish are judged to be an indicator of professional quality. This isn't a good thing, as the evidence linking journal rank with the merit of individual articles is weak to moderate, at best. But here science is bad at being scientific: the actual quality takes second place to the perception of quality, which is so strong that journal rank creates its own biosphere..."

Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2013/jan/23/open-access-publish-paywalls-victims-perpetrators

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.gold oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.comment oa.advocacy oa.impact oa.quality oa.prestige oa.rankings oa.ref oa.journals

Date tagged:

01/23/2013, 10:54

Date published:

01/23/2013, 05:54