The demand for transparency in science has never been stronger. Today’s most influential publishers, professional societies, think tanks, and funders are all calling for open and reproducible research. The U.S. government has recently set new standards for Federally funded studies– and even the private sector has begun releasing data, analyses, and software (often associated with … Continue reading »
scholarly publishing
Open access is not the problem – my take on Science’s peer review “sting”
In 2011, after having read several really bad papers in the journal Science, I decided to explore just how slipshod their peer-review process is. I knew that their business depends on publishing “sexy” papers. So I created a manuscript that claimed something extraordinary – that I’d discovered a species of bacteria that uses arsenic in its DNA … Continue reading »
NASA paywalls first Curiosity rover papers; I am setting them free
The Mars Curiosity rover has been a huge boon for NASA – tapping into the public’s fascination with space exploration and the search for life on other planets. Its landing was watched live by millions of people, and interest in the photos and videos it is collecting is so great, that NASA has had to … Continue reading »
Door-to-door subscription scams: the dark side of The New York Times
An article appeared on the front page of the Sunday New York Times purporting to expose a “parallel world of pseudo-academia, complete with prestigiously titled conferences and journals that sponsor them”. The story describes the experience of some unnamed scientists who accepted an email invitation to a conference, which then charged them for participating, and … Continue reading »
The past, present and future of scholarly publishing
I gave a talk recently at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco about science publishing and PLoS. For the first time in my life, I actually gave the talk (largely) from prepared remarks, so I thought I’d post it here. (An audio recording of the talk with Q&A is available here.) —— On January 6, … Continue reading »
Open access explained
The conversation about scientific publishing has exploded lately, online, in print and in person. In March, the journal Nature released a special issue called The future of publishing. Also in March, Michael Eisen (molecular and cell biology professor and HHMI investigator at UC Berkeley, and co-founder of PLoS) posted a speech he gave on the … Continue reading »
No celebrations here: Why the White House public-access policy sucks
I am taking a lot of flak from my friends in the open access community about my sour response to the White House’s statement on public access to papers arising from federally-funded scientific research. While virtually everyone in the open access movement is calling for “celebration” of this “landmark” event, I see a huge missed … Continue reading »
How academia betrayed and continues to betray Aaron Swartz
As news spread last week that digital rights activist Aaron Swartz had killed himself ahead of a federal trial on charges that he illegally downloaded a large database of scholarly articles with the intent to freely disseminate its contents, thousands of academics began posting free copies of their work online, coalescing around the Twitter hashtag … Continue reading »