(disclaimer: I worked for Molecular Systems Biology)
The last issue of PLoS Biology caries an editorial about Open Access written by Catriona J. MacCallum. It addresses the definition of Open Access and what the author considers an "insidious" trend of obscuring "the true meaning of open access by confusing it with free access".
I agree with the main point of the editorial, that we should keep in mind the definition of open access and that the capacity to re-use a published work should have more value to the readers.
However, it is very unfortunate that the very fist example MacCallum picks on is the Molecular Systems Biology journal for the simple fact that very recently they have changed the publishing policies to address exactly this issue. Authors can choose one of two CC licenses, deciding for themselves if they want to allow derivatives of their work or not. See post at MSB blog. As it is explained in the blog post the discussions about the licenses actually started several month ago and I think the final implementation is a very balanced decision on their part.
Thomas Lemberger, editor at MSB wrote a reply to the editorial that PLoS decided to publish as a response from the readers. These can only be seen if readers decide to click the link "Read Other Responses" on the right side of the online version.
I am obviously biased but for me this is not really giving the right to equivalent response. It would not have cost them much to issue a correction or publish the letter as correspondence where it would have the same visibility as the editorial. This would signal that they are indeed committed to collaborating with other publishers and journals that support open access (as stated in PLoS core principles).
Thursday, November 01, 2007
The right to equivalent response
Posted by Pedro Beltrão at 1:47 PM
Labels: open access, publishing
3 comments:
I wasn't aware of that - I've just updated the Bio::Blogs edition to include your post as a important comment to that editorial.
But with this welcome trend comes a more insidious one to obscure the true meaning of open access by confusing it with free access.
Something about that sentence sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it, except with "source" instead of "access"? The suggestion that the two notions are just *so* different that anyone using one to refer to another is obviously part of a sinister conspiracy?
I do understand her point, but the reality is that reading a paper and being able to obtain 100% of the references is what's really important. Being able to make dance remixes from someone's paper, or explicit permission for fair use that's already legal and routine, is gravy.
When I think about open access I also think about that old idea that scientific works should be reproducible. In some areas, they are not.
One thing that concerns me a lot is "materials and methods". Most of the time that part is really difficult to reproduce:
1. Sometimes the description of the "methods" is not complete. Important bits are missing. Note that I don't blame it all the time on reviewers: It really requires trying to actually repeat the method to notice something is missing, one cannot require a reviewer to simply repeat the experience (although, most of the times, review is poor). I actually know some researchers that have made a good deal of their CV redoing dataset analysis and pointing gross mistakes on published work. This is a good thing, only possible if datasets and the most possible supplemental information is available.
2. Most of the material should be available. I know that in many journals, sequences, SNPs or microsatellites are required to be available, in many cases they are not.
It is interesting that many "scientists" consider genetic datasets to be private property of themselves after publication. It is not only the needs of being able to repeat the experience that are at odds with this; it is, above all, that the experiments were made with public money, and some "scientists" are appropriating themselves of public funded materials (which they happen to produce, and from which they have taken their "reward" in the form a pub). This is, at the very least, unethical.
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