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

Sun Apr 7 08:12:56 UTC 2013

I think that this discussion should terminate here. It is not in the
intended spirit of this list which IMO is to develop a constructive
approach to Open Science. I am disappointed that there has been a public
accusation of lying - I have met some of the OBR people and they are not
dissembling - they are undergraduates/postgraduates who are setting up
science-based businesses. I am sorry to see them leaving the list.

This list is deliberately unmoderated and relies on constructive discussion.

Peter
(OKFN Advisory Board)

On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:08 AM, Heather Morrison <hgmorris at sfu.ca> wrote:

> 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<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<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/<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<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
>> +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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>> open-science mailing list
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>
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-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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