Elsevier...has announced the launch of DoctorPortal, an online repository of the most current medical information. DoctorPortal is advertiser supported and based around enhanced online versions of the respected and freely available Doctor and Hospital Doctor magazines. Aimed at the UK's 150,000 primary and secondary care doctors DoctorPortal promises to be the news source for UK doctors.
As UK doctors rely increasingly on the internet for clinical information and Medicine 2.0 becomes today's tool for busy health professionals, Elsevier's DoctorPortal is a central source of information and online discussion for doctors. Free to users, it provides a wide variety of news and clinical content of interest to both GP's and Consultants....
Content previously available only in the print editions of Doctor and Hospital Doctor magazines is now online and delivered via an efficient e-workflow tool. Users of the DoctorPortal can search and download both clinical and practice-orientated information, including:
Extended, authoritative daily news coverage;
Clinical, medico-political news and financial information;
Detailed analysis and opinion;
Coverage of professional journals and national press;
Growing and searchable archive of content aggregated across 26 key clinical practice areas....
Comments
This is much like OncologySTAT, which Elsevier launched one month earlier (September 7, 2007). Both provide free online access to Elsevier content formerly behind a price wall and both are ad-supported. But while OncologySTAT provides access to a large range of peer-reviewed journals, DoctorPortal provides access to two magazines, Doctor and Hospital Doctor, neither of which publishes peer reviewed research articles. OncologySTAT is open to everyone, DoctorPortal only to doctors. Both require registration, allowing Elsevier to sell the list to advertisers and spammers.
Here are some of the terms and conditions, to which Elsevier believes users are bound simply by "accessing or using" the site: "You may not copy, display, distribute, modify, publish, reproduce, store, transmit, create derivative works from, or sell or license all or any part of the Content, products or services obtained from this Site in any medium to anyone, except as otherwise expressly permitted.....You may print or download Content from the Site for your own personal, non-commercial use, provided that you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. You may not engage in systematic retrieval of Content from the Site to create or compile, directly or indirectly, a collection, compilation, database or directory without prior written permission from Elsevier...."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/08/2007 02:50:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
