OA papers encourage a critical discussion
Aug 28, 2008 Highlight
In an April 2008 paper, The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States from PLoS Medicine, Majid Ezzati and his colleagues made a shocking revelation. While the overall average life expectancy for the United States has been increasing, Ezzati et al. found that many counties did not experience this increase, and some even suffered from a decrease in their average life expectancy.
Additional studies, published in OA, have further examined similar critical aspects of health disparity. One paper, published in September 2006 in PLoS Medicine entitled Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States, described the division of America into eight distinct groups with significantly varying disease burdens. Christopher Murray and his colleagues brought to light a shocking problem that must be dealt with by the U.S. public health system.
These are only two of several papers published via OA that delve into the study of the effects of race, location, and income on disease burden and life expectancy. By ensuring that all are able to view this research, Open Access has encouraged discussion on this very important topic.
Nathan
Tags: disease, medicine, mortality, Open Access, public health
Peer Review — What exactly does it mean?
Aug 18, 2008 Discussion
There has been significant debate recently as to the exact definition of “peer review”. Depending upon who you ask, you will likely get very different opinions. A commonly accepted definition involves the anonymous review by two selected reviewers with expertise in the area, and then a final decision by the editor in charge.
However, with the dawn of the OA movement, it is necessary to open up the discussion again. Several OA publishers focus on technical scientific soundness as opposed to perceived importance. As many peer review methods focus on weeding out the “unimportant” papers, new methods were developed. Unfortunately, some OA publishers take advantage of the movement (as discussed in Publishers Tarnishing OA), and quality control is critical in order to maintain the good image of the entire OA movement.
In other words, while we must understand that one strict definition is insufficient given the broad spectrum of journal focuses, it is also critical that rigorous scientific standards are upheld. Without these standards, OA could devolve into a pseudoscientific profit-making venture for unethical publishers.
Nathan
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Publishers Tarnishing OA
Aug 7, 2008 Discussion
As all of you know, I have lavished extensive praise upon the entire Open Access movement. However, some recent reports have greatly worried me. The entire movement is only as strong as its weakest link, at it appears that some of these weaker links have been engaging in less-than-honorable practices.
A recent report by Richard Poynder examined Bentham Science Publishers, which had recently begun publishing several open access journals. While on its face this development seems quite positive, the methods through which Bentham recruited authors and editors seem rather questionable. According to Poynder, several researchers were receiving bulk mail invitations to submit research to, or even edit for, journals entirely outside of their fields of expertise.
Unfortunately, the list of questionable OA publishers is quite longer than Bentham alone. Poynder has now focused his efforts on Scientific Journals International, another OA publisher apparently engaging in unsolicited bulk mail and other offenses. If any of you have more information on Scientific Journals International, please contact Richard Poynder.
The truth is that OA publishers engaging in questionable activities are harming the entire Open Access movement, as they provide OA opponents with greater ammunition to criticize the movement. It is quite possible that unethical OA publishers are greater enemies of the movement than closed access publishers themselves.
Nathan
