Go open access!

Posted Feb 22, 2006 17:40 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
Parent article: Parallel universes: open access and open source

I have subscriptions to two science journals (Nature and Science), as good reading on science rather than from being a scientist, and it has been interesting watching their gradual tentative changes in response to the internet. They do add a lot of value that a mere archive can't duplicate, mainly in the form of explanatory articles that have been dumbed down for scientists in other fields who don't have the specialist background. Whether this will be enough to stay in publication, I don't know. It would be a shame if they had to dumb things down to the Scientific American level, or Discovery.

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Re: Go open access!

Posted Feb 27, 2006 17:13 UTC (Mon) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link]

I agree that Science and Nature offer a lot of value in addition to the peer-reviewed scientific articles they publish. The news articles regarding science policy and the intersection between science and politics/ economics/ etc are particularly valuable. That's one reason I have a subscription to Science myself. Open-access journals will have to show that their scientific standards are as high, and that they reach as wide an audience before they can compete with Science and Nature.

But it's worth noting that the PLOS journals (www.plos.org) are on their way to getting that kind of reputation and readership. In addition, PLOS Biology offers "synopses," summaries written for a general audience, for all research articles. They also have review articles, technical primers, and occasional news articles.

Wes