Scientists are talking, but mostly to each other: a quantitative analysis of research

Stavros

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This is not ceph related. It talks about how new knowledge circulates mostly between fellow scientists and never reaches the public.

I don't know how a journal can cover their expenses otherwise, but at some point, knowledge has to be free and accessible to all. With rising tuition costs, it seems that education is targeted to certain groups.

(The irony: this article is also not free).

Journal publication has long been relied on as the only required communication of results, tasking journalists with bringing news of scientific discoveries to the public. Output of science papers increased 15% between 1990 and 2001, with total output over 650,000. But, fewer than 0.013–0.34% of papers gained attention from mass media, with health/medicine papers taking the lion’s share of coverage. Fields outside of health/medicine had an appearance rate of only 0.001–0.005%. In light of findings that show scientific literacy declining despite growing public interest and scientific output, this study attempts to show that reliance on journal publication and subsequent coverage by the media as the sole form of communication en masse is failing to communicate science to the public.
 
*laugh*

I wouldn't have noticed this !
(The irony: this article is also not free).[/QUOTE]

That being said, the subject if scientific literacy is a complicated one, starting with trying to define it. I don't know that the general public having access to scientific research would improve the case - especially without first educating everyone how to discern a good study from a bad one (which would be a really good thing!) I do think that with the growth of the internet scientists are able to collaborate more outside of journals. Also, with the growth of so many online databases of back articles a lot more research has been combined to create meta-statistics, and that has to be forwarding science. While it is *intensely* frustrating to not have access to, or have to pay a limb for an article one wants, I think on the whole we have more access to scientific research than ever before.

Cindy in Portland OR
 
Peer review remains the solid foundation of scientifice knowledge dissemination. I personally am a staunch supporter of open access publishing. For those who are interested, simply start browsing the Public Library of Science journal PLoS1 to get to grips with its benefits.
 
Yes, I have several things I would very much (have) like(d) to make open access, but PLoS1 publication charges are US$1350 per article, and for Zootaxa they would have been $20/page ($3720). A little prohibitive :sad:
 
Whether your (institutional) library spends its funds on subscriptions, or on allowing its scientists to be published, shouldn't matter wrt the total amount spent: someone will have to pay for the process itself... The main difference is that the subscription based model only allows for limited access, while open access allows access for everyone at the same level of investment...
 
Tintenfisch;178990 said:
Yes, I have several things I would very much (have) like(d) to make open access, but PLoS1 publication charges are US$1350 per article, and for Zootaxa they would have been $20/page ($3720). A little prohibitive :sad:

OUCH! Prohibitive isn't the word! Maybe extortive? I suppose there is a need for some kind of pain threshold/gateway to maintain some intellectual integrity or risk the Wiki effect. I have always assumed the article price tag was coming from the institutions that funded the research, or the researcher and felt they had a right to benefit from the results. Thanks for the enlightenment!
 
Open access needn't be vanity publishing, peer review should be severe and sincere, either way!
 
Many journals can waive publication fees if authors don't have funding (and in the case of PLoS there's a particularly important reason for the paper to be open access).

Also- all publisher links to journal articles also list the contact info for the corresponding author. It's common to write the author directly to ask for for a free pdf reprint if they have one.
 
I'm only a layman, so for give the ignorance, but who owns the copyright to these papers? The authors? The institutions? The journals? What value do the journals provide that justifies the ransom they demand? Why can't the authors or the institutions just make these papers available for $1 each on ITunes? It seems like a rigged system that uses mostly public money to do research that produces results that are then sold back to the public at an extremely high price, effectively denying public access. Am I missing something.
 
Some related links to open access journals that OB mentioned above. Each quotation is taken from a different article on the matter.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust announced today that they are to support a new, top-tier, open access journal for biomedical and life sciences research. Continue reading...

This is great news. The more #openaccess journals we have the better. Clearly some of the text here is a dig at existing journals, including PLoS Biology. PLoS Biology definitely needs to work on some things - like transparency (e.g., if your article is rejected, the Academic Editor who advised the professional editors is not names). PLoS Biology is also run by professional editors. Thus it is not run by "active scientists" which is another one of the comments in this press release. Personally I think it would be better if PLoS Biology was run by active scientists. Continue reading...

It represents the triumph of open access. The most amazing thing about the announcement, and the discussions leading up to it, was how it was universally assumed that this would be a fully open access journal. As far as I can tell, at no point was any consideration given to any other possibility. What a change a decade makes. Continue reading...


On peer review:

‘If peer review was a drug it would never be allowed onto the market,’ says Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal Of the American Medical Association and intellectual father of the international congresses of peer review that have been held every four years since 1989. Peer review would not get onto the market because we have no convincing evidence of its benefits but a lot of evidence of its flaws. Continue reading...
 
good questions-

‘If peer review was a drug it would never be allowed onto the market,’ says Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal Of the American Medical Association and intellectual father of the international congresses of peer review that have been held every four years since 1989. Peer review would not get onto the market because we have no convincing evidence of its benefits but a lot of evidence of its flaws."

I don't agree- my papers have been greatly improved by the input of anonymous reviewers, and when manuscripts have been rejected, I've been grateful in hindsight. Editors have a good way of going outside an author's normal circle to solicit reviews, so you get insights beyond what your immediate research group will disclose. There's no shortage of information out there- NGO reports, government summaries, etc. But when it comes down to it, few publication types hold clout like the peer reviewed paper, scrutinized by numerous colleagues and editors-- you know it's gone through the ringer before you read it.

The journal process itself can definitely use a re-vamp. But I'd vote to keep peer review any day of the week.

Journals usually hold the paper's copyright. Authors can use the data, send pdfs, etc. But the whole published paper itself belongs to the journal. As for costs and re-sale- the system needs rethinking. I've seen journal articles for sale on Amazon. Does the author get royalties? Don't think so! Scientists write the papers, review the papers and serve as editors for free. But layout, copy-editing, etc. and even online support of an article does take expensive infrastructure.

Research is paid for in lots of different ways- some through government funding, but lots of research funding is private, either through foundations, private donors, self-funded, venture capital, industry, etc.

But most of all- most of this information is accessible for free if you just email the author and ask for a pdf. Papers that are not available as pdf are harder to track down, but authors may still have paper reprints available to send. Google Scholar is a great resource for obtaining pdfs, and finding out who is researching what/who to contact for electronic reprints.
 
Joe-Ceph;179723 said:
I'm only a layman, so for give the ignorance, but who owns the copyright to these papers?

The Publishing houses do, in the case of "classical" science publishing. The reasoning is somewhere along the lines of "we put in all the hard work and through peer review ascertain quality and modify content, so we PWN the place".
 
I think I get it; is this correct?:
The author/scientist typically owns the copyright initially, and could post it for free on the internet or sell it for $1 on Itunes if they wanted to, but the paper doesn't really have value until it has successfully passed through the "filter" that is a scientific journal. The value that the journals add is credibility. Right? We trust the journals to sort out the good science from the bad. An analogy would be the way we buy our perscription drugs through a pharmacy instead of from whomever decides to make and sell whatever potion they've cooked up. We trust that the FDA, and the drug delivery infrastructure has vetted the sources, and that only real and trustworthy medicine gets through. In exchange, the journals get the copyright, and can charge whatever they like.

If my assessment is correct, it's clear that the journals provide an utterly necessary service, but the opportunity for corruption and profiteering is kept in check only by the existential need for the journals to maintain their reputations. I'd like to see a better system, but I can't think of one.
 
Open access still involves peer review, it's just more logical from both the financial and the scientific point of view
 

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