[open-science] more fox researches hen research - this time in hen's clothing

Sat Apr 6 10:18:23 UTC 2013

Dear Heather – I just read your paranoid notes below (and blog) about the
Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (OBR), a student led organization - instigated
by our act of conducting a survey into Open Access Publishing (how dare
we?) and not living up to Paul Zuma’s standards of scholarship?

Heather: you asked: “Who are you really, OBR?”  (In what appeared to be a
McCarthy-esqe tone.)

Look, if you were capable of even the bare minimum of research into OBR and
looked at our executive committee you would see we’re led entirely of PhD
students and post-docs:
http://www.oxbridgebiotech.com/about-obr/executive-committee/

As the founder and President of OBR (and PhD *student* at Oxford) I do not
take exception towards Zuma for finding our survey methodology imperfect
(when it comes to OA he’s beyond biased, but obviously raised good points).

I do, however, take exception that you then pursue some whisper campaign
maligning our character and even claiming we’re not really student led.

We were founded in Oxford in June 2011, then opened a chapter in Cambridge,
then London and since we’ve grown to nearly 8,000 members with additional
chapters in Manchester, Glasgow (Scotland), and San Diego, Los Angeles and
SF-Bay.  Our goal is to foster a conversation between academics (from
across disciplines) and industry experts.  Look Heather, we actually don’t
think “industry” is an ugly word. We welcome commerce, the
commercialization of science, and the jobs and innovative products that
comes from it.  For you to suggest we’re just “smoke and mirrors” is
border-line slanderous and I highly encourage you to avoid these Holier
Than Thou witch-hunt campaigns.

But as OBR's mission is to educate, here are two simple steps to avoid
repeat episodes like this:

1) Research your facts
2) Remove the tin-foil from around your head

ps. Ok I’ll admit it: we have some post-docs on our exec committee. We
really are out to get to you.

best, Dan
-- 
*Daniel A. Perez*
CEO & Founder, Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable <http://oxbridgebiotech.com/>
+4407583873540  |  @danperez610 <https://twitter.com/danperez610>
DPhil Student, Biochemistry, University of Oxford

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>  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Heather Morrison <hgmorris at sfu.ca>
>> Date: Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 2:41 PM
>> Subject: [open-science] more fox researches hen research - this time in
>> hen's clothing
>> To: open-science <open-science at lists.okfn.org>
>>
>>
>> A curious case of open access "research" from "Oxford Biotech Roundtable":
>>
>> Thanks to Peter Suber for the tip about yet another misleading open
>> access survey. Following are my comments. In brief, this appears to be a
>> curious case of two layers of smoke and mirrors about who is behind the
>> survey that could make for an interesting question for a research methods
>> class. The survey preamble says that this is a student-led organization.
>> The about page claims that this is the health care and life sciences
>> industry. The description of gold and green OA reflect the biases of the
>> toll access scholarly publishing industry, which are at odds with those of
>> the health care and life sciences industry. Who are you really, OBR?
>>
>> Details:
>>
>> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2013/04/industry-pretends-to-be-student-led-or.html
>>
>> Heather G. Morrison
>>
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>>
>>
>
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