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

Sun Apr 7 01:08:01 UTC 2013

Daniel,

Facts - on the survey it says:

Preamble:

"Thank you very much for taking part in this study on European trends  
in Open Access Publishing by the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable, a UK- 
based student-led organisation. It should take ~7 minutes to complete.  
Your answers will help us to gain valuable insight into the Open  
Access use among academics in your field."

Fine print at the bottom:

"Our sponsors pay a fee to OBR for gathering, aggregating and  
collecting the data as well as for preparation of a Summary Report of  
the data compiled. In participating in this survey, the participant  
recognizes that the information provided in this survey will be used  
in an industry aggregate report and therefore grants OBR unrestricted  
use of this information".

The preamble says that this research is being conducted by a student- 
led organization for its own purposes "help us to gain valuable  
insight..." while the fine print makes it clear that you are  
conducting this research on behalf of industry.

This is not paranoia; this is an industry survey disguised as a  
student-led survey. This proves my original point, that this is a  
deceptive survey - industry (fox) pretending to be the group studied  
(hen).

I encourage you to change the preamble to reflect the nature of the  
study. This is a small matter for an opinion study like this. However,  
since your group is in biotech (and you are the CEO), I am hoping that  
it is obvious to you how problematic it would be to take this approach  
with medical research (take money from industry to do research which  
is then conducted as a student-led organization but without bothering  
with things like research ethics).

Thank you for the information about the students involved in the study  
- I fully support well-paid student and graduate employment! I'd still  
very much like to know who commissioned the research.

best,

Heather Morrison

On 6-Apr-13, at 3:23 PM, Daniel Perez wrote:

> 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
> +4407583873540  |  @danperez610
> DPhil Student, Biochemistry, University of Oxford
>
> Register HERE to join OBR for FREE and receive the Roundup, OBR's  
> weekly e-mail newsletter.
> Follow us on: Twitter (@OxbridgeBiotech)     -     LinkedIn      
> -     Facebook
>
>
>> ---------- 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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>
>
>
> -- 
> Daniel A. Perez
> CEO & Founder, Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable
> +4407583873540  |  @danperez610
> DPhil Student, Biochemistry, University of Oxford
>
> Register HERE to join OBR for FREE and receive the Roundup, OBR's  
> weekly e-mail newsletter.
> Follow us on: Twitter (@OxbridgeBiotech)     -     LinkedIn      
> -     Facebook
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