Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Should people comfortably sitting on high pedestals sell knowledge?
When I was a Ph.D. student, people told me publishing in foreign journals gives more weight to your work than publishing in Indian journals. So I tried to do that but was shocked when I had been asked to pay to get published and realized I was ill-advised! I was also asked to pay huge amount of money to get and read research papers authored by other researchers in the West. Imagine my situation , when I was just a student and depended on a fellowship for my work which was not even enough to buy lab equipment and chemicals. But still I bought some important papers from my pocket money my father gave me then.
When one US $ equals 68-70 Indian Rupees, how can any student here buy a paper for around 30-40 dollars? This is really ridiculous. Universities here too will not have funds to buy all the journals available in the market for their libraries. And this is a Himalayan problem each and every science student faces in developing countries. Should students here suffer for the greed of a few rich researchers of developed countries? No wonder, science here is less developed.
Recently I came across a story in Nature ( Ref 1). It says a Student may be jailed for posting scientist’s thesis on web.
A Colombian biology student is facing up to 8 years in jail and a fine for sharing a thesis by another scientist on a social network.
Diego Gómez Hoyos posted the 2006 work, about amphibian taxonomy, on Scribd in 2011. An undergraduate at the time, he had hoped that it would help fellow students with their fieldwork. But two years later, in 2013, he was notified that the author of the thesis was suing him for violating copyright laws. His case has now been taken up by the Karisma Foundation, a human rights organization in Bogotá, which has launched a campaign called “Sharing is not a crime”.
I agree, if something is shared to educate people and not for profit, it is not a crime- provided you acknowledge the authors and give credit to them. To hell with copyrights that are not specific in this regard.
And I gave a reply to the article:
1. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/08/student-may-be-jailed-for-post...
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PS: Only a student who undergoes this difficulty can empathise with others. Read this inspirational story from BBC:
PhD student adapts cheap microscope and saves £100,000
25 November 2014
A PhD student from Brunel University London has saved himself £100,000 by 'hacking' his own kit.
Adam Lynch created his own inverted microscope by adapting a cheap instrument he bought online.
Adam realised a USB microscope he had purchased could be clamped upside down on a table to produce the same images as its much more expensive official equivalent.
He estimates his invention cost around £160, but does not want to patent it because he believes science should be open source.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on
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http://www.karisma.org.co/compartirnoesdelito/?p=256#comment-123
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Are High Price Journals the Most Influential?
No, say these articles :
Price doesn't always buy prestige in open access
Online comparison tool reveals which journals provide the biggest bang for the buck.
http://www.nature.com/news/price-doesn-t-always-buy-prestige-in-ope...
http://www.enago.com/blog/are-high-price-journals-the-most-influent...
http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-pub...
http://www.quora.com/Why-are-most-scientific-papers-behind-a-paywall
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https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/12/copyright-paper-science-jail/
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Is Sci-hub portal illegal by providing free access to research papers and books without respect to copyright?Is Sci-hub portal illegal by providing free access to research papers and books without respect to copyright?Sci-Hub is a shadow library website that provides free access to millions of research papers and books, without regard to copyright, by bypassing publishers' paywalls in various ways. Sci-Hub was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan in 2011 in Kazakhstan in response to the high cost of research papers behind paywalls (1).
I wrote and posted a story about six years back on my network:
Sometime back I came across a story in Nature ( 4). It says a Student may be jailed for posting scientist’s thesis on web.
A Colombian biology student is facing up to 8 years in jail and a fine for sharing a thesis by another scientist on a social network.
Diego Gómez Hoyos posted the 2006 work, about amphibian taxonomy, on Scribd in 2011. An undergraduate at the time, he had hoped that it would help fellow students with their fieldwork. But two years later, in 2013, he was notified that the author of the thesis was suing him for violating copyright laws. His case has now been taken up by the Karisma Foundation, a human rights organization in Bogotá, which has launched a campaign called “Sharing is not a crime”.
I agree, if something is shared to educate people and not for profit, it is not a crime- provided you acknowledge the authors and give credit to them. To hell with copyrights that are not specific in this regard.
Should people comfortably sitting on high pedestals sell knowledge?
When one US $ equals 68-70 Indian Rupees, how can any student here buy a paper for around 30-40 dollars? This is really ridiculous. Universities here too will not have funds to buy all the journals available in the market for their libraries. And this is a Himalayan problem each and every science student faces in developing countries. Should students here suffer for the greed of a few rich researchers of developed countries? No wonder, science here is less developed.
Sci-hub is a good thing that has happened to researchers from developing countries who cannot buy knowledge. Not sharing something important severely impedes knowledge development.
Sci-Hub, the website that provides free access to millions of proprietary academic papers, might be illegal for some people, but it is good for the general research and the public.
Some academics talk openly about their use of the repository -- a small number even publicly thank Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan for her contribution to their research. Most academics who use the site, however, choose to do so discreetly, seemingly aware that drawing attention to their activities might be unwise (2).
I and several people in the developing world support Sci-Hub . Why?
"Nations having scientific superiority and technological capability should not be selfish, because in selfishness lies the seeds of dispute and human misery" - Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Minister Harsh Vardhan (India)
Scientists argue that they spend huge amounts of money for their research. So what is wrong with expecting some thing back? ( I am sure they are parroting the words of the commercial establishments)
I know most of the funds come from either the governments - public (tax-payers) money or commercial establishments. People who get the first type of funding have no right to say they have the copy rights as they are not spending from their pockets. And the whole problem arises with the second type of funding. Business people can think only from one point of view.
Scientists in the developed countries also say they do all the hard work. Therefore they want to get a few benefits from it. Oh! Are these scientists doing the work for free? Aren't these people being paid for lending their grey matter? Isn't that enough? Greed for more and more money is not good. Moreover, what is wrong with a little bit of sharing your knowledge with people with disadvantages? Are your hearts so small?
Free access to research results is very important to have a level playing field. If knowledge is locked in forts and given to only people who can afford it, science is going to degrade. Highly qualified people should not be so selfish (3).
(These are my own words from my article mentioned below)
Had I been so selfish like the people who fight about copy rights, I would have just worked in a lab and not considered coming here and sharing my knowledge with people outside for free. I am spending from my own purse to educate people on my network and various other portals too. Why am I doing this? Think about it!
Should people comfortably sitting on high pedestals sell knowledge?
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Some good news:
Nature makes research papers open-access to the publicResearch papers published by the journal Nature will be made free to view online in an effort to make it easier for scientists to share their work with their peers and the public.
Publishing company, Macmillan has announced that it’s making 48 of its journals free to access, including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Nature Physics. Citing on-going library and individual subscriptions as their primary source of income, the publishers are now planning on using an iTunes-like online repository called ReadCube to host and display read-only, PDF versions of the journal articles.
The PDFs will only be viewable on a web browser, will be annotatable, and copying and printing will be disabled. Share and repost links will be made available for use in news articles in social media. Institutional subscribers will have access to every paper dating back to the very first edition of Nature in 1869, while personal subscribers get access from 1997 onwards. Those who don't want to pay for a subscription can access the articles for free via a URL provided by a subscriber.
http://www.nature.com/news/nature-makes-all-articles-free-to-view-1...
One criticism the move has been met with is that they’re still not offering complete open access to their journals in the way that PLOS One has been since its launch in 2006. Libraries still have to pay hefty fees to provide access to their visitors, and the public will have to pay if they want to access anything that was published earlier than the late ‘90s. Plus some scientists may find the ReadCube system to be awkward to use on an everyday basis.“To me, this smacks of public relations, not open access,” senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the US and open-access advocate, John Wilbanks, told Nature News & Comment. “With access mandates on the march around the world, this appears to be more about getting ahead of the coming reality in scientific publishing. Now that the funders call the tune and the funders want the articles on the web at no charge, these articles are going to be open anyway.”
But it’s certainly a step in the right direction. As Rich McCormick writes at the Verge, “Despite ... the caveats to true open access in Macmillan's new policy, this move by one of the biggest scientific journals in the industry means that anyone can technically get their hands on 140 years of peer-reviewed research - a definite win for the scientific community at large."
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"People outside the developed world cannot pay huge amounts of money to get knowledge. I myself faced this problem. I was asked to pay to publish my papers and pay to read the Papers authored by others when I was a student. Imagine my situation when one US $ is equal to 70 Indian rupees- which is like 70 dollars for us- how can a student buy just one paper for around 40 dollars? This is gross injustice. How can you give knowledge to only rich people who can pay ignoring students from the developing countries?
Therefore, I started my own network now which gives knowledge free for everybody on this planet.
I support this guy and what he did. Knowledge should be given free and it should not be put for sale. People placed on high pedestals should realize this."
"Nations having scientific superiority and technological capability should not be selfish, because in selfishness lies the seeds of dispute and human misery" - Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Minister Harsh Vardhan (India)
Scientists argue that they spend huge amounts of money for their research. So what is wrong with expecting some thing back? ( I am sure they are parroting the words of the commercial establishments)