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"... the labour of academics, freely give, paid for by the government and student tuition." Even more, it is student tuition that underwrites for the exorbitan

"... the labour of academics, freely give, paid for by the government and student tuition." Even more, it is student tuition that underwrites for the exorbitant annual license fees the university libraries are forced to pay. I always pondered how much of my tuition was going toward these subscriptions. I was probably one of the library's top users of expensive journals by volume; I knew how much it cost the library to provide access and I knew I was paying for it. At one point one of the scientific journal search engines gave me a prize. Students: use the library's journal subscriptions. You are paying for it. Download PDF's like there is no tomorrow. There are exceptions, but for most students, after you graduate, you will never again have such access to so much peer-reviewed research.

wodenokoto 11y ago
How do you decide what to download?
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  One strategy might be to look through the references of every paper you read, then download anything that looks remotely interesting for possible future use. TB hard drives are cheap nowadays. :-)
- loginusername 11y ago
  This is a good question. Obviously it becomes easier the more you understand the subject area. As student you might have little understanding. That's why you are studying! In my case, initial downloads were readings for my courses or papers referenced in handouts. I just let my curiousity guide me from there. But I'll admit I also had some background knowledge to begin with, gleaned from work experience. In some (most) scientific discplines, every paper begins by citing background material. You should gather and save those papers. No matter how old. When you read the more general papers, and the other background material, in chronological order, you are in a better position to understand more specific, recent work. Basically you are building a foundation for understanding the current state of research in a subject area. At least you will always be able to get up to speed more easily by having the proper foundation. Of course, when you're at university you may be busy with other pursuits and you may not have the time nor inclination to read all those older papers. This is what you download and save. Sometimes there are scientific "encyclopedias" or other compilations. These can be good in their own right and also a further source for references pointing to more worthy downloads. When in doubt a general rule is to download papers that are highly cited. There is a vast amount of general knowledge that will never be offered on Wikipedia.[1] It is the best kind: peer-reviewed. Wikipedia and clones (Knol, etc.) wanted or tried to become "peer-reviewed" sources but this idea has never really succceeded on the open web. That is why this issue with academic publishing will continue to simmer. 1. At least, not until academic publishing undergos some changes.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  As a first approximation: the topics you're interested in. Citations indices, bibliographies, etc., are hugely useful. Finding widely-cited and influential papers is a good start. The better approach IMO is to simply download it all, though selecting for corpii of more relevance. Journals which are embargoed, for example, as a first target. That was pretty much Aaron Swarz's approach.

wodenokoto 11y ago

How do you decide what to download?

Turing_Machine 11y ago
One strategy might be to look through the references of every paper you read, then download anything that looks remotely interesting for possible future use. TB hard drives are cheap nowadays. :-)
loginusername 11y ago
This is a good question. Obviously it becomes easier the more you understand the subject area. As student you might have little understanding. That's why you are studying! In my case, initial downloads were readings for my courses or papers referenced in handouts. I just let my curiousity guide me from there. But I'll admit I also had some background knowledge to begin with, gleaned from work experience. In some (most) scientific discplines, every paper begins by citing background material. You should gather and save those papers. No matter how old. When you read the more general papers, and the other background material, in chronological order, you are in a better position to understand more specific, recent work. Basically you are building a foundation for understanding the current state of research in a subject area. At least you will always be able to get up to speed more easily by having the proper foundation. Of course, when you're at university you may be busy with other pursuits and you may not have the time nor inclination to read all those older papers. This is what you download and save. Sometimes there are scientific "encyclopedias" or other compilations. These can be good in their own right and also a further source for references pointing to more worthy downloads. When in doubt a general rule is to download papers that are highly cited. There is a vast amount of general knowledge that will never be offered on Wikipedia.[1] It is the best kind: peer-reviewed. Wikipedia and clones (Knol, etc.) wanted or tried to become "peer-reviewed" sources but this idea has never really succceeded on the open web. That is why this issue with academic publishing will continue to simmer. 1. At least, not until academic publishing undergos some changes.
dredmorbius 11y ago
As a first approximation: the topics you're interested in. Citations indices, bibliographies, etc., are hugely useful. Finding widely-cited and influential papers is a good start. The better approach IMO is to simply download it all, though selecting for corpii of more relevance. Journals which are embargoed, for example, as a first target. That was pretty much Aaron Swarz's approach.