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

Sat Apr 6 22:23:46 UTC 2013

Heather:

I am disappointed that you appear to have an inability to read or
comprehend even rudimentary facts and arguments.  And that you continue
this process of innuendo.

1) In your first email and blog post you quite flippantly accused OBR of
being some kind of front-organization, suspiciously asking: "so who is
OBR?" and suggesting there were "smoke and mirrors".  You could have
deduced who we are by looking at our website.  I responded to your paranoid
and unfounded arguments.  Instead of apologizing for your rumors and
correcting your errors, you asked more "questions" and tried to spin this
as simply questioning our academic scholarship. (ahem?)

2) RE: "Research Ethics":  Again, alas, you haven't researched your facts.
Who said we were doing this as part of a student's normal research project?
You need to chillout and (as mentioned in step 1 below, remove the tin
foil)

Look:  There are two student teams working on this project, one at Oxford
and one at Cambridge. Each are composed of 4 life science PhD students that
are aiming to take their academic talents into industry (management
consultancy is a popular destination) and as such are honing their
professional and transferrable skills before graduating.  As Tom Morris
correctly pointed out, the survey clearly indicated it was industry
sponsored.

Honestly, Heather - please, for the sake of the group: think before you
spout, email, or blog any accusations, and try to look up your facts.

For a crash course on innuendo please watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSA4ItcezAA

Tom: I don't really have any interest at all in open access. I only joined
this list today to defend OBR from baseless attacks.  I'll be unsubscribing
now to focus exclusively on plotting lucrative new paywalls around taxpayer
funded research articles ;)

But, since you asked: yes, we were contracted by a publishing company to
look into Open Access and how that will affect the industry. We weren't
looking to construct a flawed or biased survey - that disappoints me  Our
client (who are themselves a non-profit) wanted to understand these rapidly
fluid industry trends better. and the students involved were all themselves
interested in building real-world skills while becoming more informed
around OA. (They've done a great job and have learned a bunch!)

In terms of OBR overall: this survey was small component of a small
project. The project represents  maybe 1% of OBR's revenue this year.
(though probably even less than that.)

Our overriding goals are educational - and to spark an on-campus
conversation between academics and industry.

best, Dan

ps. I think I've made my point(s), so I'm unsubscribing
pps. Heather, OBR is not yet in Canada, but fear not, we're coming to a
Paywall near you.

On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 10:39 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Heather - It says right on the survey page that it's paid for by sponsors,
> so I don't think there's much mystery as to whether it's a commercial or
> academic survey.  You can find their corporate registrations here:
> http://opencorporates.com/companies?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=oxbridge++roundtable&commit=Go
>
> Daniel - Congratulations on building your company to this scale at such a
> young age.  Since the focus of this thread is open access, can you tell
> who's paying for the survey?  That should help provide insight into it's
> construction and administration.
>
> I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about your funding in overall, so
> if you'd like to share a more general revenue picture, that'd be awesome.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:18 AM, Daniel Perez <dan at oxbridgebiotech.com>wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>> Register HERE <http://www.oxbridgebiotech.com/join/> to join OBR *for
>> FREE* and receive the *Roundup*, OBR's weekly e-mail newsletter.
>> Follow us on: Twitter (@OxbridgeBiotech<https://twitter.com/#%21/oxbridgebiotech>)
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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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>>
>

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

Register HERE <http://www.oxbridgebiotech.com/join/> to join OBR *for FREE* and
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