6 ms·

The article (and the discussion here) seems very focused on the legalities of Sci-Hub. But this misses the real question: Has there been a noticeable impact on

The article (and the discussion here) seems very focused on the legalities of Sci-Hub. But this misses the real question: Has there been a noticeable impact on general scientific progress as a result? I feel like there must at least be anecdotal stories of people reading, exploring and making connections they otherwise would not have been able to because free > $35/paper.

icelancer 9y ago
Yeah, me. My company is publishing six papers this year and a large mover forward is the ability to read all the papers in our industry fee-free. Elbakyan's work moved us so dramatically that I instituted a no-fee publication policy; we will only publish in fee-free, open access, and open peer review journals - providing all data and supplementary material openly to everyone either through the portal's site (if supported) or a public repository. EDIT: In my opinion Elbakyan should be considered one of the most important people of her generation. It is my belief that academia will see fit to write her out.
pcnix 9y ago
For any student not part of a university with a journal access program, Sci-Hub is a massive boon. I've not personally had this issue, but there are quite a few amazing post graduates that I know of who rely on Sci-Hub a fair amount.
tzs 9y ago
> I feel like there must at least be anecdotal stories of people reading, exploring and making connections they otherwise would not have been able to because free > $35/paper. And I wonder how many of those people don't know about DeepDyve.com? It's essentially Spotify for journals. The $49/month ($30/month if you buy a yearly subscription) plan gives unlimited online access to most papers from a huge list of journals [1] from a huge list of publishers [2]. (There are also group plans available, but they don't list the prices for those on their website, as far as I can see). You can also buy 5 packs of rental tokens for $20. A rental token gives you access to an article for 30 days. People on the free plan get 5-minute full text previews, so you can at least skim an article to get a better idea if you want to consume a token to rent it. Open access is much nicer, of course, but most cases I've seen where someone says that the cost of non-open access, such as the $35/paper so many publishers charge if you buy directly through them, was a serious issue to their research would have been able to get those papers through DeepDyve at a cost well within their budget, but for some reason very few people in the wild seem to have heard of it even though it has been around for quite a while. [1] https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/journals?page=all https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/journals?page=all [2] https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers
- icelancer 9y ago
  Hadn't heard of DeepDyve and I'm always willing to look into paying for something using that type of model. Out of five major journals in my discipline, four are "Preview Only." What a surprise. "Huge list," indeed.
  - tzs 9y ago
    > Out of five major journals in my discipline, four are "Preview Only." What discipline? > What a surprise. "Huge list," indeed. The journal list there lists ~13100 journals, of which ~9200 are available and ~3900 are preview only. Seems reasonable huge to me.
    - noddy1 9y ago
      Just as spotify for music has almost everything, "spotify for journals" needs to have 80-90%+ coverage or it is an annoying waste of time.
    - jamessb 9y ago
      It seems to be missing all of the ACS journals (a big chunk of chemistry) and IEEE (a big chunk of electrical engineering and computer science). Also, I find the idea of merely 'renting' a paper objectionable. Deepdyve charges individually for PDF downloads, and otherwise only allows you to print 20 pages a month.
Vinnl 9y ago
Apart from the personal anecdotes by people, it also allows university negotiators to take a tougher stance when negotiating prices with the traditional publishers, as their threat of cancelling subscriptions has become more credible. This has been most noticeable in Germany, where universities have come together in Projekt DEAL through which many have, this year, cancelled their Elsevier subscriptions [1]. The Dutch are likely to follow [2], and several rumours of other countries have surfaced as well. [1] https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/ https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/ [2] https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/01/we-are-prepared-for-a-no-deal/ https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/01/we-are-prepared-for-a-no...
nickpsecurity 9y ago
Most of the stuff I mention in comments that I forward to developers came from several years of free access to ACM and IEEE where I could follow-up on any line of research I wanted. I had to read hundreds of papers, esp experience reports, to get an idea of what would or wouldn't work in a variety of contexts for INFOSEC, high reliability, productivity, and maintainability. There have been countless people stunned by some of the prior works wishing they'd known about them before for their more recent explorations. Supports idea that having them available with something like SciHub for those without free access would've boosted researcher or programmer effectiveness for those using them. EDIT: The CompSci people themselves that are pushing progress often cite paywalled works. That may also support that access to them would accelerate progress outside CompSci if its a prerequisite to developer certain ideas evolving from older ones.
noddy1 9y ago
I'm a medical doctor and frequently use sci-hub to review papers relevant to care of my patients. Prior to sci-hub, I would often have a clinical question, look it up, find a paywalled article, attempt to access it via the hospital's access, find it usually wasn't, give up, and then have spent 10 minutes of precious time doing this, feel like an idiot for wasting time, and just make a decision without the best information. Now I get the DOI/pubmed #, go directly to scihub (or at least one of the scihub domains that isn't blocked by the hospital for being "unethical") and have the paper in 20 seconds.

icelancer 9y ago

Yeah, me. My company is publishing six papers this year and a large mover forward is the ability to read all the papers in our industry fee-free. Elbakyan's work moved us so dramatically that I instituted a no-fee publication policy; we will only publish in fee-free, open access, and open peer review journals - providing all data and supplementary material openly to everyone either through the portal's site (if supported) or a public repository. EDIT: In my opinion Elbakyan should be considered one of the most important people of her generation. It is my belief that academia will see fit to write her out.

pcnix 9y ago

For any student not part of a university with a journal access program, Sci-Hub is a massive boon. I've not personally had this issue, but there are quite a few amazing post graduates that I know of who rely on Sci-Hub a fair amount.

tzs 9y ago

> I feel like there must at least be anecdotal stories of people reading, exploring and making connections they otherwise would not have been able to because free > $35/paper. And I wonder how many of those people don't know about DeepDyve.com? It's essentially Spotify for journals. The $49/month ($30/month if you buy a yearly subscription) plan gives unlimited online access to most papers from a huge list of journals [1] from a huge list of publishers [2]. (There are also group plans available, but they don't list the prices for those on their website, as far as I can see). You can also buy 5 packs of rental tokens for $20. A rental token gives you access to an article for 30 days. People on the free plan get 5-minute full text previews, so you can at least skim an article to get a better idea if you want to consume a token to rent it. Open access is much nicer, of course, but most cases I've seen where someone says that the cost of non-open access, such as the $35/paper so many publishers charge if you buy directly through them, was a serious issue to their research would have been able to get those papers through DeepDyve at a cost well within their budget, but for some reason very few people in the wild seem to have heard of it even though it has been around for quite a while. [1] https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/journals?page=all https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/journals?page=all [2] https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers

icelancer 9y ago
Hadn't heard of DeepDyve and I'm always willing to look into paying for something using that type of model. Out of five major journals in my discipline, four are "Preview Only." What a surprise. "Huge list," indeed.
- tzs 9y ago
  > Out of five major journals in my discipline, four are "Preview Only." What discipline? > What a surprise. "Huge list," indeed. The journal list there lists ~13100 journals, of which ~9200 are available and ~3900 are preview only. Seems reasonable huge to me.
  - noddy1 9y ago
    Just as spotify for music has almost everything, "spotify for journals" needs to have 80-90%+ coverage or it is an annoying waste of time.
  - jamessb 9y ago
    It seems to be missing all of the ACS journals (a big chunk of chemistry) and IEEE (a big chunk of electrical engineering and computer science). Also, I find the idea of merely 'renting' a paper objectionable. Deepdyve charges individually for PDF downloads, and otherwise only allows you to print 20 pages a month.

Vinnl 9y ago

Apart from the personal anecdotes by people, it also allows university negotiators to take a tougher stance when negotiating prices with the traditional publishers, as their threat of cancelling subscriptions has become more credible. This has been most noticeable in Germany, where universities have come together in Projekt DEAL through which many have, this year, cancelled their Elsevier subscriptions [1]. The Dutch are likely to follow [2], and several rumours of other countries have surfaced as well. [1] https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/ https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/ [2] https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/01/we-are-prepared-for-a-no-deal/ https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/01/we-are-prepared-for-a-no...

nickpsecurity 9y ago

Most of the stuff I mention in comments that I forward to developers came from several years of free access to ACM and IEEE where I could follow-up on any line of research I wanted. I had to read hundreds of papers, esp experience reports, to get an idea of what would or wouldn't work in a variety of contexts for INFOSEC, high reliability, productivity, and maintainability. There have been countless people stunned by some of the prior works wishing they'd known about them before for their more recent explorations. Supports idea that having them available with something like SciHub for those without free access would've boosted researcher or programmer effectiveness for those using them. EDIT: The CompSci people themselves that are pushing progress often cite paywalled works. That may also support that access to them would accelerate progress outside CompSci if its a prerequisite to developer certain ideas evolving from older ones.

noddy1 9y ago

I'm a medical doctor and frequently use sci-hub to review papers relevant to care of my patients. Prior to sci-hub, I would often have a clinical question, look it up, find a paywalled article, attempt to access it via the hospital's access, find it usually wasn't, give up, and then have spent 10 minutes of precious time doing this, feel like an idiot for wasting time, and just make a decision without the best information. Now I get the DOI/pubmed #, go directly to scihub (or at least one of the scihub domains that isn't blocked by the hospital for being "unethical") and have the paper in 20 seconds.