[open-science] Crucially overlooked Ebola research article is paywalled at... Elsevier

Wed Apr 15 11:12:03 UTC 2015

Ross and others,

As this happens again, I will reiterate my previous arguments:

1. You have no hard data showing that "closed access kills". The whole
Ebola story is more like "search failure", "no liberian scientists
were coauthors", etc than "closed access" per se (the article you cite
is easy to find using Google Scholar). Unless you factor other things
in, back it by rigorous research, the statement is unscientific.

2. Lots of people around the world are working hard on introduction of
science-based policies into the way governments are run. Sometimes
it's working - for example, Europan Comission's unit on Open Access
has an evidence-based protocol in use to assess the real impact of OA
(at least that's what I was told).

3. By repeating unscientific statements, you are making the community
fragile to publishers' lobbyist (and any other that has a need to
attack science) that can state to governmental officials: "Look, these
scientists cannot even make a proper study on impact of closed access.
The truth is that ... ".

4. It undermines the credibility of research community. Credibility
that I think is needed to advance both open science, and science-based
policy making as a whole.

Please, stop. Or better, make a research showing that "closed access
kills". I believe that indeed there's an effect to measure and show
(although that it smaller than other factors), but that doesn't mean I
can use my "belief" as an argument in public debate.

Best wishes,
PS

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I hope you've all read the interesting piece in the New York Times last week
> about global & local knowledge of Ebola being hampered in part by paywalls
> and publisher-imposed restrictions:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/opinion/yes-we-were-warned-about-ebola.html
>
> What I've only just learnt is where the crucial paper is - PMR & the
> ContentMine team struggled to find it ourselves!
>
> The paper containing crucial, overlooked knowledge, hidden behind a paywall
> is for sale at Elsevier for $31.50 + tax:
>
> Knobloch, J., Albiez, E. J., and Schmitz, H. 1982. A serological survey on
> viral haemorrhagic fevers in liberia. Annales de l'Institut Pasteur /
> Virologie 133:125-128.
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0769261782800282
>
> Peter Murray-Rust has said before that "Closed Access Kills". This may be
> another reasonably concrete example.
>
> :(
>
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