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

Wed Apr 15 13:19:04 UTC 2015

It's not a question if whether it is discoverable in 1982 (which it wasn't)
but whether this paper could have been discovered in 2013. If the
literature had been Open and universal then it could have been.

Whether it would have been acted upon I cannot say.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Paweł Szczęsny <ps at pawelszczesny.org>
wrote:

> Thanks Mike. Indeed, how unfortunate you _have_ to agree with me... I'm
> really sorry for you. ;)
>
> OK, now seriously.
>
> Mike, really thanks for the support.
>
> I don't agree with Emanuil. We cannot advocate OA at the expense of
> credibility of science. This is as simple as that. Otherwise we are opening
> doors to magical thinking, pseudoscience or fraud.
>
> One of the areas of impact of opening science is increased public trust in
> science and credibility of research. Let's not waste this opportunity.
>
> Cheers
> PS
>
>
>
>
>
>
> śr., 15 kwi 2015 o 14:07 użytkownik Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com>
> napisał:
>
>> Unfortunately I have to agree with Paweł on this occasion. The failure
>> to benefit from the 1980s Ebola paper is a tragedy, but not one caused
>> by paywalls (which didn't even exist for at least the first decade
>> after it was published).
>>
>> There are plenty of good, solid points we can make about paywall
>> damage. Let's not dilute our case by making weak points as well.
>>
>> -- Mike.
>>
>>
>> On 15 April 2015 at 12:12, Paweł Szczęsny <ps at pawelszczesny.org> wrote:
>> > 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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>
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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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