The first myth and its correction will give you an idea of the document's quality. The first myth is that "[traditional publishing], relative to open-access publishing, hinders the progress of science and medicine and reduces the benefits to the public." To show that this proposition from the PLoS web site is false, the document asserts that subscription-based journals add value, including date stamps and peer review (conceded, not at issue) and that they are more widely read than OA journals (conceded, not at issue). The answer simply misses the target, which is especially troubling since the authors got to pick the myth to which they wanted to respond. The claim in the PLoS quotation was that conventional journals hinder progress "relative to" OA journals, not that they hinder progress absolutely or offer nothing of value. Moreover, when the document points to the valuable features of conventional journals, it seems to forget that OA journals have all of them (date stamps, peer review, disseminating research, and archiving) with the possible exception of marketing.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/01/2004 08:36:00 AM.
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.
