5 ms·

Royal Society journals are free to access until Oct 27

119 points by SQL2219 7y ago

dddddaviddddd 7y ago
Why not be open access always if it can be done for a week?
- mxuribe 7y ago
  For the same reason those with power flaunt it over/in front of those who lack it; because they can.
- acollins1331 7y ago
  Money
- mhandley 7y ago
  The Royal Society is a non-profit organisation - the income is used mostly to fund research, but also to fund scientific collaboration, and on public policy to try and ensure governments are making decisions that are not completely ignorant of the scientific evidence (of course they can then ignore that evidence). From the RS financial statements, the income from its publishing side raises about £7.5m per year, and the publishing expenditure costs are about £3.5m per year. So that's around £4m/year that is invested in science that otherwise wouldn't be. I think many RS fellows would like to see the RS journals become open access all the time. But it would mean that less research could be funded. Disclaimer: I'm a fellow, but I don't have any insight into future plans on this front.
  - godzillabrennus 7y ago
    Put all the back catalogue of research into a zip file and throw it out there via bit torrent. Let the downloaders become the sharing infrastructure.
    - dddddaviddddd 7y ago
      Sci-hub is already available, no need to send zip files around for distribution
    - mhandley 7y ago
      Much of the back catalogue is already available open access direct from the Royal Society: Most of our oldest content is now freely available, specifically, all papers older than 70 years. In addition, papers published between 10 years ago and either 12 months ago (biological sciences) or 24 months ago (physical sciences) are freely available. For Biographical Memoirs all issues are now freely available, apart from the most recent issue.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - earenndil 7y ago
        That's odd. What about the papers published between 70 and 10 years ago?
        londons_explore 7y ago
        Ancient organisations like the Royal Society have arcane rules and oddities. This is likely one of them.
  - imglorp 7y ago
    Sounds like a different funding model is needed. Retarding or advancing the progress of humanity is the bigger picture here.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
    Is £4M of research funding worth more than the impact removing the friction and cost of accessing past articles would have on research (in terms of both cost and speed)?
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    The £4m was mostly spent by other scientists, so there's no net benefit to science research spending.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  Because if you're not the customer you're the product. For-profit publishers have abused the reader-pays model into disrepute, but author-pays and sponsor-pays is an awful way to run a journal.
userbinator 7y ago
The contents might already be on SciHub and other sites, but I can already see the bandwidth spike they're going to receive from doing this... from those sites wanting to complete their collection, among others.
nintendo1889 7y ago
Aaron Swartz could have just created sci hub and he'd still be here.
- Iolaum 7y ago
  Scihub exists because its creator lives outside the jurisdiction of courts that are making rulings against her.
- micmil 7y ago
  He could also have taken the six month plea deal he was already offered, done the three or fewer months he actually would have, and not killed himself.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    I think the issue was he felt that by taking a plea deal to a felony he wouldn’t be able to run for public office
codeulike 7y ago
So they are doing 'Open Access Week', I tried to figure out why, and why this week, which led to me this page https://royalsociety.org/journals/free-content/ https://royalsociety.org/journals/free-content/ and then to here: http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/about http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/about
tokai 7y ago
This is not open access. The Berlin declaration states it quite clearly. It is about usage rights.[0] Publishers really love co-opting the OA movement. Scheming up increasingly convoluted colour OA categories. Or deluding the concept with campaigns like this. [0] https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration

119 points by SQL2219 7y ago

dddddaviddddd 7y ago

Why not be open access always if it can be done for a week?

mxuribe 7y ago
For the same reason those with power flaunt it over/in front of those who lack it; because they can.
acollins1331 7y ago
Money
mhandley 7y ago
The Royal Society is a non-profit organisation - the income is used mostly to fund research, but also to fund scientific collaboration, and on public policy to try and ensure governments are making decisions that are not completely ignorant of the scientific evidence (of course they can then ignore that evidence). From the RS financial statements, the income from its publishing side raises about £7.5m per year, and the publishing expenditure costs are about £3.5m per year. So that's around £4m/year that is invested in science that otherwise wouldn't be. I think many RS fellows would like to see the RS journals become open access all the time. But it would mean that less research could be funded. Disclaimer: I'm a fellow, but I don't have any insight into future plans on this front.
- godzillabrennus 7y ago
  Put all the back catalogue of research into a zip file and throw it out there via bit torrent. Let the downloaders become the sharing infrastructure.
  - dddddaviddddd 7y ago
    Sci-hub is already available, no need to send zip files around for distribution
  - mhandley 7y ago
    Much of the back catalogue is already available open access direct from the Royal Society: Most of our oldest content is now freely available, specifically, all papers older than 70 years. In addition, papers published between 10 years ago and either 12 months ago (biological sciences) or 24 months ago (physical sciences) are freely available. For Biographical Memoirs all issues are now freely available, apart from the most recent issue.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - earenndil 7y ago
      That's odd. What about the papers published between 70 and 10 years ago?
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        Ancient organisations like the Royal Society have arcane rules and oddities. This is likely one of them.
- imglorp 7y ago
  Sounds like a different funding model is needed. Retarding or advancing the progress of humanity is the bigger picture here.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  Is £4M of research funding worth more than the impact removing the friction and cost of accessing past articles would have on research (in terms of both cost and speed)?
- Symbiote 7y ago
  The £4m was mostly spent by other scientists, so there's no net benefit to science research spending.
ocschwar 7y ago
Because if you're not the customer you're the product. For-profit publishers have abused the reader-pays model into disrepute, but author-pays and sponsor-pays is an awful way to run a journal.

userbinator 7y ago

The contents might already be on SciHub and other sites, but I can already see the bandwidth spike they're going to receive from doing this... from those sites wanting to complete their collection, among others.

nintendo1889 7y ago

Aaron Swartz could have just created sci hub and he'd still be here.

Iolaum 7y ago
Scihub exists because its creator lives outside the jurisdiction of courts that are making rulings against her.
micmil 7y ago
He could also have taken the six month plea deal he was already offered, done the three or fewer months he actually would have, and not killed himself.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  I think the issue was he felt that by taking a plea deal to a felony he wouldn’t be able to run for public office

codeulike 7y ago

So they are doing 'Open Access Week', I tried to figure out why, and why this week, which led to me this page https://royalsociety.org/journals/free-content/ https://royalsociety.org/journals/free-content/ and then to here: http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/about http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/about

tokai 7y ago

This is not open access. The Berlin declaration states it quite clearly. It is about usage rights.[0] Publishers really love co-opting the OA movement. Scheming up increasingly convoluted colour OA categories. Or deluding the concept with campaigns like this. [0] https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration