Science of the Common Man

Closed access publishing is an artifact of the bygone era during which it was largely believed that only a few, great men were the pioneers of knowledge, and the masses of the "common man" were mere spectators along the river of science. In the past, every effort was made to limit the demographic diversity of university and professional populations. Notions of racial and gender superiority encouraged institutionalized discrimination. Women were only able to become full members of the University of Oxford in 1947. US law allowed public schools to remain segregated until the US Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Now, I am by no means comparing closed access publishing with racial or gender discrimination. I am noting, however, that the basic result (that of limiting participation within a certain arena of academic pursuit) remains the same. In fact, closed access publishing is blind to the color, creed, and nationality of those whose quest for knowledge it inhibits. And although the matriculation barriers of the past took the form of laws, monetary and reproduction restraints are little different in my mind.

One of the beauties of scientific publishing is that there is no educational, socioeconomic, or gender prerequisite for contributing to the body of scientific knowledge. All that is required is a novel idea. On the surface, at least. Here, the distinction arises between what is de jure (of set requirements, i.e. law, standards, directives, etc.) and what is de facto (of fact).

On one point, all can agree: there are few to no de jure limitations to contributing to science. While these were present in the past (with specific references in the first paragraph), they have all but died out in today's age. Unfortunately, de facto barriers, some of which inescapable, remain. The average American (lets call him Alvin) does not have access to a well-equipped lab, not by the virtue of any federal, state, or local law decreeing it (as would be in the case of de jure) but rather by the virtue of Alvin's not being employed (and not having the qualifications necessary to be employed) by a university or company with said facilities. This widely acknowledged situation is quite acceptable by all standards. However, the fact that Alvin cannot read the latest research on dark matter because it was published in a closed access journal and not self-archived in a free repository IS a problem.

Now Alvin may have been able to contribute, at least in some small way, to the understanding of dark matter. But instead he was frustrated, and in general turned off, by the constant presence of pages demanding payments he cannot afford with his sub-median salary, and thus he abandons his scientific pursuit.

While I am sure many of you will scoff at this notion that closed access snowballs into lost contribution to science. But even those who doubt that de facto problems are problems, or even that people like Alvin can offer any valuable insight, I have to ask: is continuing along with the status quo worth the risk?

It is clear that barriers in science remain from those older times, the only difference being that they have successfully hidden themselves within the paradigm of social acceptability. They have shed their ostentatious de jure robes and have chosen instead the de facto ghillie suit. Their purpose remains unchanged.

Nathan

Misfortune Strikes

Hi all,
I have some bad news. Hosting problems have required me to relocate to Blogger, hence the new format. All of the post dates are gone as well. Unfortunately, no comments were able to be transferred over. However, I will continue posting on the pertinent issues concerning Open Access. I am working diligently to restore OAB to its full potential.

Nathan

PLoS ONE @ Two

In a recent PLoS ONE paper, The Role of Medical Language in Changing Public Perceptions of Illness, Meredith E. Young and her colleagues investigated the effects of disease label on perceived seriousness. Two general categories of label were used: “medicalese” (the technical term for the disease used in the medical community) and the lay language. The researchers based their assessments on a survey of 52 McMaster University undergraduate students.

The researchers also considered the effects of the point in time at which the medicalese label was introduced, separating the diseases into two categories of recently medicalized disorders and established medical disorders based on data from Lexis Nexis. The results of this investigation demonstrate a significant difference in perception depending on the label attributed to the disorder.

This research defines inter-disciplinary. It touches upon the fields of medicine, linguistics, statistics, and even a subset of philosophy. That subset being epistemology — the theory of knowledge. Epistemology recognizes that language (including names for medical disorders) affects what we perceive to be true, what we believe, and what we know. This paper quantifies that epistemic phenomenon, and helps answer the question: how do different labels affect our perception of the same thing?

Nathan

External Pressure to Produce Internal Change

Some stalwarts of the anti-OA camp remain unwavering in their opposition. Chief among these are the likes of Nature, which produced editorials highly critical of the OA movement. While OA has made significant strides, especially with the great success of OA publishers such as PLoS and Biomed Central, its progress is slow.

The forces at work are in a near stalemate, locked in an internal struggle within the scientific community. We find ourselves at a tipping point, perched upon the peak of the mountain of choice. On one side we are presented with the barren desert of the closed access status quo; on the other we have the verdant forest of OA progress. However, neither combatant can generate sufficient momentum to surge over the edge.

Into this quagmire must the public come. Take, for example, a plumber (whom, according to Sarah Palin, represents the American “Common” Man). Now this plumber, lets call him John to avoid any confusion with the “real” plumber, he hears a mention of the OA debate and is overwhelmed with apathy — an expected result. Not only does the topic initially seem uninteresting; to him, it is like a war between the Zorgons and Blastothons on the planet Marsas. (This shabbily written example is purely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual aliens is incidental and does not express the views of the author on what surely are peace-loving creatures.)

However, John might well find a certain Quote of a certain Doctor from a certain Civil Rights Movement quite interesting: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In other words, it DOES matter. The OA discussion DOES matter to John, not only for the sake of justice itself, but also for the improvement of science as a whole, which will inevitably improve John’s life in one way or another.

So now I make my plea. I call on all the Johns of the world, all of the Jills, all of the non-scientists and all of the public. This fight is your fight as well. Make your voice heard and throw your support in for the OA movement. Disregard the myopic assumption that not caring is for the best faring. Call your Representative, write a letter to the editor, throw a fundraiser for PLoS, do ANYTHING. Just don’t do nothing at all.

Nathan

Obama and Open Access

With Barack Obama’s historic election to Presidency of the U.S. on November 4th, new opportunities for advancing OA arise. With fresh faces and new insights in the White House and Congress, further critical legislation either supporting or mandating OA can come about.

The mandate concerning NIH-funded research represents the first step in a very long journey toward complete OA for all. The interconnectedness between government and research is quite tangible. Therefore, government policy can be a major impetus for greater momentum for the OA movement.

For this reason, I encourage all of you to contact the President-elect to demonstrate your support. If we can bring OA into the spotlight in Obama’s science policy, these next four years may bring many great victories for the movement.

Nathan

PubMed Central and arXiv

PubMed Central (or PMC) is a digital archive of biomedical research that makes these papers freely available to the public. It is owned and operated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and thus is a public resource.

PMC lends itself to comparison with arXiv: both are free digital archives of research papers helping advance the cause of OA. However, the differences abound. Firstly, PMC emphasizes the biomedical aspects of research while arXiv focuses upon the physical and quantitative sciences. Secondly, PMC is a resource funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH) but arXiv is operated by the private Cornell University.

Thirdly, papers are added to PMC by the journals that publish them; manuscripts are uploaded onto arXiv by the authors themselves. Finally, PMC ensures that the papers it archives have been subjected to thorough peer review (thus making Indexing by PMC a mark of validity). In contrast, arXiv does not impose any sort of review onto uploaded papers.

PMC and arXiv offer unique strengths and limitations and emphasize different fields of scientific endeavor. However, it appears clear that they are two very different approaches to the same ultimate goal: increasing access to scientific literature.

Nathan

Spotlight on arXiv

In my most recent post, I noted the disproportionate emphasis of OA publications on the biomedical sciences. However I failed to mention one critical player in the field of open scientific publishing: arXiv. The X represents the greek letter chi, thus making the pronunciation of the site “archive,” which is exactly what it is. Researchers may deposit e-prints of their manuscripts on arXiv in order to make them freely available for all to see.

While this is certainly a great positive, the more interesting aspect of arXiv is its emphasis. Its focus encompasses those areas often not found in many OA publishers, such as mathematics, physics, computer science, and statistics. It does not impose any sort of peer review, it truly is an archive of e-prints, a very successful one at that. According to its homepage, as of the 3rd of October arXiv has posted over 500,000 articles online under open access.

Cornell University currently owns, operates, and largely funds arXiv, however it does recieve some funding from the National Science Foundation. Paul Ginsparg established arXiv in 1991, and it was originally hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Nathan