- From: John Flynn <jflynn12@verizon.net>
- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:54:46 -0400
- To: "'ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program'" <metadataportals@yahoo.com>, "'David Booth'" <david@dbooth.org>
- Cc: "'Gannon Dick'" <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>, <leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk>, "'Phillip Lord'" <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>, <public-lod@w3.org>, "'semantic-web'" <semantic-web@w3.org>
- Message-id: <0a9c01ce40fb$aa092ca0$fe1b85e0$@net>
I have frequently performed a Web search on some technical subject and found papers that appear to address my technical interest - only to find that the paper was published by some company that charges for access to the paper. Since I'm not sure if the specific paper contains information that is actually meaningful to my inquiry, I normally won't pay to read it. I believe this process of charging to read technical papers is a serious problem for the advancement of scientific exploration and discovery. In general the internet, and specifically the Web, has opened the door to immense amounts of new information. However, the (IMHO) money-grubbing efforts of scientific Web publishing companies to charge for access to what would otherwise be public documents is closing the door to the wide distribution of ideas that could spark an even greater acceleration of new technical discovery. I doubt if there is any way to stem the activities of these "free enterprise" publish-for-money endeavors other than encouraging researchers who write technical papers to also make their documents available in the public domain. From: ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program [mailto:metadataportals@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 9:38 PM To: David Booth Cc: Gannon Dick; leon@dcs.shef.ac.uk; Phillip Lord; public-lod@w3.org; semantic-web Subject: Re: predatory journals and conferences article in NY Times The way science and research in general is financed has a great influence on academic and research publications. For scientists and researchers with tenure, those at work in independent research institutes and students and other staff often times demands are placed on publications in terms of "where and what" to contribute both to personal and institutional prestige and reputation. The European Union in its Horizon 2020 research funding program is espousing open science, which somehow changes the playing field for publishing. There is a similarity albeit superficial with intellectual property issues with audiovisual content (movies, videos and audio CDs). Maybe someone should start an iJournals store with articles costing a fixed amount and come up with a formula to pay each contributing journal for content. A radical idea, but definitely worth investigating, and an idea which I suspect both open access and traditional peer-reviewed academic journals would embrace. Milton Ponson GSM: +297 747 8280 PO Box 1154, Oranjestad Aruba, Dutch Caribbean Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT tools for NGOs worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and repositories of data and information for sustainable development
Received on Wednesday, 24 April 2013 14:55:24 UTC