When publishing a paper one criterion is that all submitted data must be original. A second criterion is data cannot appear in any prior publications (basically a subset of the first criterion). It doesn't seem clear whether posting original research online, such as on a personal blog, is counted as breaking this second rule. I have no idea. Going to look into this.
It's too bad if this is the case, as publishing online quickly to your personal website might be a good way to have some instant feedback. Most professors will set up a correspondence with a co-author or discuss results at meetings. The first solution is a little closed door for my liking, the second is expensive and also closed door, in the sense conferences costs hundreds to attend. I'm not advocating that all labs publish on blogs, since for some areas publishing your data can be a dead giveaway to your entire project, assuming the idea is more important than the work. Then again, it could provide a shortcut for a 'me first' discovery claim.
My hope since the recent percolation of dissent against Elsevier, (ignited by Gower), there could be a similar bleed-off of productivity in the blogosphere the way the Hollywood writer's strike led to more shorts on YouTube, i.e. Childrens Hospital by Ron Cordry and Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, by Joss Whedon. Recall a few years ago when Perelman posted his proof of the Poincare conjecture on arXiv for free, essentially the same as if he had posted it on a personal blog (but with a wider circulation). Is Perelman such an isolated case to not happen again? Science is mostly about bragging rights. You don't double your personal salary for making a new discovery (although more grant money is awarded to you).
I believe both writers and scientists work well in a creative environment, and unnecessary copyright laws are stifle the free flow of ideas that science is supposedly about. Emphasis on the free. Since the whole idea behind science is you can't predict where the next big hit will come from you'd better keep your options open and minimize expensive subscription fees.
Once upon a time the only access anyone had to journals was in their university library. (Additionally personal subscriptions by professors were common, but usually just to one journal). Point is, the public is allowed access into to a university library. No-one checks your ID when you walk in. Now that online journals are the norm, paper subscriptions are being canceled or discontinued. If access to these journals isn't freely open on-campus, then a logon ID will be necessary. Hence the irony is online publishing has the potential for a more restrictive access than the prior print era. Also if rising subscription costs rise, it could mean medical students only have access to medical journals, environmental scientists have access to analytical stuff, etc, and barriers rise. From a top-down view we look like a highly divided, honeycombed community.
My thoughts are not 100% organized here, and will remain so until I can post an example of my own research I want to share in this way. Oh, there certainly is some, but I'll have to sort through it.
No comments:
Post a Comment