Slashdot Mirror
Half of All Research Papers Published In 2011 Already Free To Read
ananyo writes "Search the Internet for any research article published in 2011, and you have a 50-50 chance of downloading it for free. This claim — made in a report produced for the European Commission — suggests that many more research papers are openly available online than was previously thought. Previous best estimates for the proportion of papers free online run at around 30%. Peter Suber, director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says the report confirms his optimism. 'When researchers hit a paywall online, they turn to Google to search for free copies — and, increasingly, they are finding them,' he says."
If I was a real researcher with a real budget, I would be happy to fork over a couple bucks to read an
article I needed to reference in my research but I would guess that there are alot more non-researchers
like typical slashdot reader than actual real researchers. I also turn to google when I hit a paywall
because it's usually more of a passing interest and I'm not going to pay $5 to $35 to read an article
that I might only understand half of anyways but it would sure be nice if there was a way to give
access to the non-professional general public as a way to pass on useful knowledge instead of hiding
it behind a paywall where only a select few people in the same field are willing to pay for it.
Now how many of the "free" copies crawled by Google are actually free, and how many are just "pirated", e.g. posted by an instructor as reading material for a class, without permission from publishers?
Will this finding lead to some DMCA takedown notices?
Considering that in the EU a nontrivial amount of research grants are paid by taxpayer money, I'd say "already" is not the term I was thinking of. "only" would be more the qualifier that qualifies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Also ironically, this study presumes (and confirms the opposite, IMHO) that research papers are a commodity that can be compared quantitatively and not qualitatively, which isn't true. Not all papers are created equal--have equal peer review, editing, data pools, important(expensive) topics..
to give permission to third parties to republish print versions of the Article or a translation thereof, or excerpts therefrom, without obtaining permission from AIP Publishing LLC, provided the Publisher-prepared version is not used for this purpose, the Article is not published in another conference proceedings or journal, and the third party does not charge a fee.
In other words, as long as you're not using the corrections you get back from AIP's peer review process, you can put your article anywhere that doesn't charge a fee and isn't a journal. The agreement goes on to EXPLICITLY grant you the right to the journal-edited version on your own personal webpage or on arXiv.
Sadly, half of them are also probably wrong (yes, I work in the life sciences).
Half of all research papers are not worth the paper they will never be printed on.
How many peer-reviewed papers are free to read?
Interesting point.
(*) the pirates who distribute them are often the original authors (**)
(**) the original authors are not the copyright holders.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Many of these papers are obtained from authors personal web pages. That's great for current papers but won't help in 10-20 years when those web pages are gone. The legal long-term solution is for authors to publish their papers in preprint repositories, like the arxiv, that will outlast them. Funding agencies should make this mandatory for all publicly-funded research.
If Google with the title of the paper and filetype:pdf fails just email one of the authors. So far I have been able to get papers that way.
For example I am interested in scorpions and am in contact with several professionals who answered in the beginning my questions and helped me to ID species I encountered. Now, years later, I have found a few new species and we've been on field trips to collect those. But before that I was already on a mailing list to which new papers where mailed on a regular basis before official publication.
Possibly, not every researcher has the time or patience to deal with laymen / amateurs but so far my experience has been great. The arachnid researchers I've emailed with (and still am in contact with) and been on field trips have been extremely friendly and respectful to me. To me a very fresh breeze compared to the IT world where a lot of people who think they know something are constantly out there to stamp down on people thinking they look smarter that way :-( (Hello, Slashdot!)
Perl Programmer for hire
There are journals that let you see their current articles for free, and then lock them up after 6 mos or a year. Even at my school there are online subscriptions which only let us see things back to like 1996, then if we want to see past that we have to pay (or the university could pay for a more deluxe subscription).
In any case, there needs to be a concerted effort to download all this stuff and torrent it or something.
This is rather the norm in many journals (even those of the much-hated Elsevier). You don't even have to leave the peer review corrections out! "Publisher-prepared version" means the formatted version with all the graphs, logos, layout etc. that will be found verbatim in the published version. The text of the "preprint" is still owned by the author.
1. Term limits, including for justices.
I'm a big fan of the idea of 18 year terms for SCOTUS justices, to give the benefits of lifetime appointment without the stupid "I'll retire when my team has the presidency" BS.
2. Repealing Amendment 17 and returning the election of senators to state legislatures
We changed that for a reason. Changing it back might give is a couple of years while the lobbyists set up shop in the state houses, but ultimately I think that will lead to more state-level corruption.
3. A congressional supermajority to override Supreme Court decisions (overruling what could be a stacked court)
The congress can impeach - that's enough.
4. Spending limit based on GDP
Yup. It'll never happen until the "we can print infinite money" bubble bursts, but bet idea in the list.
5. Taxation capped at 15%
Too low, I think, if that's a flat tax that everyone pays. Capping spending would solve the problem anyhow, but most business owners and other high earners are fine with paying 20% for the infrastructure the state provides.
6. Limiting the commerce clause, and strengthening private property rights
Now those amendments might actually pass! If only someone would propose them.
7. Power of states to override a federal statute by a three-fifths vote.
No thanks, we already fought that war once.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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