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Jennifer Leggat Post 1

• 21 October 2019, 11:44 AM

Accessing Journal Articles

Even with an academic login, I often find it frustratingly difficult to access journal articles that I require for my research. If I were a member of the public, I don't think there would be any way to access these types of publications. I think that not only does this difficulty hinder the progression of science by inhibiting access to necessary protocols/prcoedures/results, but also alienates the public from what we are doing. We need public support in order to raise research funds, and public input to guide our research in a way that will have real impact in our communities. I think Open Access is vital.

Ciara Lynch Post 2 in reply to 1

• 21 October 2019, 2:52 PM

I definitely agree with you that open access is essential for the future. However I do also think there is a difficulty for the public to understand the content in scientific journals. Slightly playing devils advocate here, but bare with me; It may even be detrimental if someone is attempting to understand concepts that they have no background in and therefore end up drawing the wrong conclusion. In science training, we are trained to be skeptical and critical of reports in order to ensure proper statistical significance and ensure good experimental technique. Who's to say the public won't end up taking completely the wrong information from journals? It's happened plenty of times before with vaccines scare-mongering, and misleading reports on the health consequences of nicotine or tobacco, among others. I believe there needs to be some form of separate version of open access for public engagement, with expert communicators whom can communicate complex ideas to a lay-audience without them drawing incorrect conclusions or at least conclusions where there are none for certain as of yet.

Menna Brown Post 3 in reply to 2

• 22 October 2019, 10:00 AM

I'm not sure I would even come have ever come across scientific journals if I were not working / researching in an academic environment.  Perhaps there is more to be done in raising awareness of the journals in the first instance, alongside open access to all.  

Sam Groves Post 5 in reply to 2

• 22 October 2019, 4:34 PM

I think you make a valid point showing the need for linguistically-accessible papers to exist before open access is valuable to the lay-reader in a lot of circumstances, however I would disagree with the notion that the lay-person's open access should be different to any extent. Unless you are suggesting all articles are written with the lay-reader in mind, or that all articles are rewritten with a lay-reader accessible version (which both have clear issues), then the only other method of disseminating scientific material to the lay-reader would be through summaries and reviews. Whilst that in of itself is good, then restricting access to the content the reviews' source material would only serve to keep them from material they may now be able to understand after reading the lay-reader centric review papers, or would prevent those who are scientifically capable/versed but not granted access from universities the ability to read the source material and make their own judgements from them. Materials specifically for public engagement is a great idea, but without open access alongside that what determines who can read scientific material is still determined by resources, not scientific capability

Aina Estany Post 7 in reply to 2

• 25 October 2019, 8:03 AM

Ciara, you have raised  a very interesting point for me here, how to communicate with a wide public who aims to understand current research (or the other way round, how can scientists make sure that their research is understood by the public).

Whilst I think the separate version of open access for public engagement it’s a great (an necessary) idea, from my point of view access to complete articles should definitely not be restricted to this wider public. I would put huge efforts into population education (on developing competences and skills for discerning between information and being skeptical and critical with it), rather than restricting access, as knowledge must be a common good available to everyone. So, for me these two open access options for the wider public should co-exist and are not mutually exclusive.


Olivia Tort Post 4 in reply to 1

• 22 October 2019, 1:44 PM

Related to this topic, I want to share with you a tool -that I find useful- that makes pdf downloads straight from pubmed.@Jennifer, maybe you can try this out ;) Mainly it avoids clicks if the paper is open access. It is called Unpaywall and looks like a locker and appears like this:

Unpaywall icon example

Stephan Reichl Post 8 in reply to 4

• 25 October 2019, 9:18 PM

very cool, thanks for sharing

Francisco Giner Calatayud Post 10 in reply to 4

• 29 October 2019, 1:21 PM

I send you the link of Kopernio, an application for Google's browser that searches for open access pdfs on different websites. Is free. I think it's similar to what Olivia has been through. I hope you find it useful.

https://kopernio.com/

James Mwamodenyi Post 6 in reply to 1

• 24 October 2019, 3:45 PM

I concur with you. It is quite frustrating sometimes when you find an abstract that appears to relate to the kind of information looking for only to find the whole article is not accessible with0ut paying some fee.

Jose Hermes Lopez Prato Post 9 in reply to 1

• 27 October 2019, 11:39 PM • Edited by the author on 27 October 2019, 11:45 PM

The actual model of publishing based on private journals is still the main obstacle to gain access to the world's knowledge. However is nice to see that different approaches are emerging. In fact, anyone can see how this is making old fashioned journals to offer some options to open a little window to open access. I liked the example that we see in this MOOC related with this scientist that have decided to publish all his works using preprints. If we made that kind of decision that would make a difference, I believe.

Discussion tags: open access