Encircled around the edge of the £2 coin is the phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants” or in simpler terms: “building upon what others have already done”.
This is a phrase most applicable to research where for century’s scientists, researchers and innovators have used each other’s work to enhance their own, come up with new ideas and challenge traditional views. The latest view up for challenge is the traditional publishing process where researchers submit articles to journals and they do the reviewing and publishing of them.
This is a method that worked perfectly and reflected what researchers wanted in getting work published and being able to see what others have done also. Nowadays corporate greed has come in and the price of journals has shot up significantly causing people to question whether this is beneficial and reflects what the contributing researchers want.
If you become a researcher for the financial gain then you have chosen all the wrong reasons to be a researcher. It is a job that people do because they’re fascinated about their field and love what they do and want to better the world.
This is giving rise to more papers being published under open access so anyone anywhere can freely access and use these materials allowing developing countries to expand the pool of knowledge. One woman hasn’t waited and has took it into her own hands by making many publications available free online through her pirate website Sci-Hub (Russon, 2016). Whilst pirating has been happening for a long time in the film and music industry the step into research publications is certainly an indication of what the feeling is in the community about it.
For education purposes MOOC’s are leading the way and giving anyone a chance to participate in many different courses from educational institutes around the world (IFLScience, 2013). There is a complete list of MOOC courses here.
Here is a PowToon with some of the advantages and disadvantages of open access:
For more information on scientific papers being used for crime here is an article with more details.
The problem is that it is hard to change people’s traditions even if the change is for the better and without wanting to cause offence it is generally older people who have been using these ways are the main culprits for this. This is an extra problem because many key figures who can lead the change are older more experienced people who can become out of touch and be stubborn when it comes to changing their ways.
References
IFLScience, 2013. Take College And University Courses Online Completely Free. [Online]
Available at: http://www.iflscience.com/technology/take-college-and-university-courses-online-completely-free
[Accessed May 2016].
Neslen, A., 2016. Poachers using science papers to target newly discovered species. [Online]
Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/01/poachers-using-science-papers-to-target-newly-discovered-species
[Accessed May 2016].
PHD Comics, 2012. Open Access Explained!. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L5rVH1KGBCY
[Accessed May 2016].
Russon, M.-A., 2016. Sci-Hub: Russian neuroscientist running ‘Pirate Bay for scientists’ with 48 million free academic papers. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sci-hub-russian-neuroscientist-running-pirate-bay-scientists-48-million-free-academic-papers-1543926
[Accessed May 2016].
Jumping Into The Internet 
Hi,
I really liked your blog. You clearly have a strong stand on where your preferences lie. I agree that with open access there is an inevitable risk of false information being published which can snowball and dramatically affect someone else’s research.
What do you think about the idea that it it’s not fair for content publishers to not be rewarded for their hard work? Research projects can be very demanding so shouldn’t those who work so hard be getting something out of it also (something other than just doing a good deed for the people or industry recognition)?
Speaking of which however, there is a big chance that if the content is published online for free, not only it might not be recognised by the industry, but also not be seen and utilised by those working in a similar field. What is your opinion on that?
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Hi Kate
Thank you for your comment, I feel that publishers should be rewarded for their work but at the moment they don’t usually get paid for their work being published in journals so a different system would need to be implemented all together for this to work.
With regards to work not being utilised I hadn’t thought of that during my research or when writing this blog. It’s an interesting point and you’d have to hope that with enough people reading papers that they’d share the ones that are useful among themselves.
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