Featuring the paywalls hiding the research of Nobel laureates, a report on Europe’s open access landscape and the latest on ‘ResearchGate-gate’.
Research by 2017 Nobel laureates hidden behind paywalls via The Wire
This article looks at the published research papers that contributed to this year’s Nobel Prize winners’ awards, many of which are behind paywalls. How, the piece asks, can this research be ‘for the greatest benefit of humankind’ when it is not freely accessible to all?
The open science movement should not fear for-profit supporters via LSE Impact Blog
Written in response to a critique of the involvement of for-profit organizations in open science initiatives, this article suggests that, on the right terms, investors and industry could lend great support to the open science movement.
Introducing the world’s first open science platform via StarBios2
Denmark’s Aarhus University has removed itself from the ‘rat race’ of academic publishing and industrial patenting and teamed up with a number of leading Danish industry groups to support an open science platform designed to enable basic research to be shared quickly and cheaply.
Making the most of ‘plain English’ summaries via Research Involvement and Engagement
The importance of plain English summaries has grown in recent years and this is nowhere more evident than in the pharmaceutical industry, with trial registries requiring that a lay summary be posted alongside the trial summary for all studies. This paper suggests two ways in which the quality of plain English summaries could be improved: provision of clear guidance for authors and the use of professional medical writing support.
What is open peer review? via F1000Research
The authors of this systematic review analysed the ways in which the term ‘open peer review’ has been used in different contexts and reached a pragmatic conclusion: that it is an umbrella term encompassing various methods by which organizations have attempted to open up the peer review process.
Open access in Europe: how do eight leading research countries compare? via InformationToday Europe
This article maps open access policies in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. For each country studied, the funding and business models and other related features of open access are evaluated.
The ongoing ResearchGate saga via Coalition for Responsible Sharing
To the dismay of many open science advocates, the Coalition for Responsible Sharing (an association of publishers that has been pressuring ResearchGate to remove papers subject to journal copyright) has announced that ResearchGate has bowed to their threats to sue and begun the process of removing millions of offending papers.
