Category Archives: Publications

Comments on ‘The open research value proposition’

These are some comments on The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed, shared through Twitter.

151: I find this a very controverse section. On the one hand you say: IF = stupid (I agree). On the other side, you support the IF by giving numbers. Wouldn’t a statement á “we will not give IF for the journals…” be better? Another question: Is there a better way of comparing the quality (content!) of journals? What about indicators for Visibility such as Altmetrics – do they differ for OA/non-OA? (You have “visibility” in the title of this section but all you talk is “journal impact factor here”. This is not good, I think. Sorry 🙁 )

268: I really “love” the Eigenfactor list, where almost all “Chemistry”-journals are in the category of “physics” (do not even dare to start a discussion) and most of the journals are very specific to certain regions (“Turkish Journal of…”, “Indian Journal of …”, …). Additionally, the list looks not very polished (I can sort, but only descending category, for example). I know, you are not responsible for this list. However, presenting this list could scare me (and maybe others) off instead of attracting to open science. Do not know how to improve this, however 🙁

271: Maybe emphasize that PeerJ is 99$ per article PER AUTHOR, i.e. an average paper with 3 authors costs $297 dollars, which is more useful for comparison. Maybe check the other prices, too. Actually, a table for the average paper (is it actually 3 authors? it is not ONE author, for sure) scenario would be nice. Question: What does it cost to publish a 3-authors-paper in…? (with and without special membership options maybe). You have the data, so present it to the reader! 🙂

303: The DFG (German Research Foundation) has special programs for OA to support Universities (and in turn authors). Maybe want to add this: http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/programmes/infrastructure/lis/funding_opportunities/open_access_publishing/index.html

Somethings strange in the (academic) neighbourhood. Who ya gonna call?

(Warning: Rant incomming.)

Some weeks ago I finished my new proposal and submitted it to Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; English: German Research Foundation). Among others I applied for some non-personnel costs – including publication costs. You can apply for € 750 per year, which should suffice for submitting papers but also for printing costs (posters). In sum, that are € 2250 for a 3 year project.

I wonder. How am I ever able to pay any article processing charges with this kind of funding? For instance, the new Science Advances Journal charges $ 3000-4000 per article! Of course, this is an extreme case. But even the ‘moderate’ charges are around € 1500. The flagship of open access, PLOS ONE, is not cheaper

This not a sole problem with open access journals, though. If you look at more traditional journals such as the Journal of Separation Science, you will find charges for everything. Pages. Color figures. Everything.

What is the solution for a early-stage researcher like me? Save money to only publish one or two papers per 3-year-cycle? Underpay graduate students even more (not that I will!), so they can publish? Use your own money?

How comes that I pay for (gold) open access – i.e. transparent science – but the publisher can’t transparently tell me what the money is for? Applying for a doi? Paying the reviewers? *cough* Of course, they have to pay servers, some personal, etc. But couldn’t that be covered by fixed deals like BioMedCentral has with the University of Regensburg?

University of Regensburg is a member of BioMedCentral. No charges for authors! Hooray!

University of Regensburg is a member of BioMedCentral. The charges are completely covered by the membership, i.e. no charges for the authors! Hooray!

I have a problem here. The very first question for me at every journal is: what will it cost me to publish in there. Not the quality. Not the audience. Not the content. The costs are top priority. Should that be the case?

Somethings strange in the (academic) neighbourhood. Who ya gonna call?

Thomson Reuters, spamming you since 2008!

The last few days I got two spam mails from Thomson Reuters. Same wording. Searching the web, I found out that a) other got these mails, too, and b) that the wording of this emails have not changed since 2008! Only the links, which now point towards thomsonreuters-authorconnect.com (I removed them and some HTML from the message below):

Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 19:50:11 -0400
Reply-To: “ISI Research” <...@thomsonreuters-authorconnect.com>
From: “ISI Research”
To: “S Kochmann”
Subject: Urgent: Breaking news for publishing authors
MIME-Version: 1.0

ISI Opt-in

View as a Web page

Dear S,

Please be aware that newly enacted e-mail legislation prohibits
future contact with you if we do not receive a reply to this
communication. To ensure that you receive critical breaking
news and information about your field, please reply promptly
by clicking here.
I am certain that you will find this information intriguing and
essential to your work.

As a publishing author represented within Current Contents®,
Biosis Previews®, or Web of ScienceSM, from Thomson Reuters,
you require the latest news and resources to stay current in your
area of research. That’s why we think you’ll benefit from getting
valuable research information right at your desktop. At no cost
or obligation!

From time to time, we would like to e-mail you:

  • “Call for Papers” requests from scholarly publishers
  • News related to your field of research
  • Information about journals and books in your areas of interest
  • New scientific applications relevant to your field of research

From time to time, Thomson Reuters works with other companies to provide you with information about relevant third party product and service offerings that may be of interest to you. Your business contact information may be made available to such other companies to facilitate communications.

If you would like to receive information from Thomson Reuters or
other carefully selected organizations,
click here.

We hope you will find this information intriguing and essential
to your work.

Sincerely,

George Kowal

Web of Science & Biosis Author Connect®
Thomson Reuters
1500 Spring Garden Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
USA

Looking at the salutation and the to-header, viz. ‘Dear S’ and ‘S Kochmann’, it is clear to me that they are generating the mails from some publication database (probably Web of Science?). Bernd-Christoph Kaemper suggests that they are one of the biggest address dealers in the scientific world. They do their business by exploiting the names of ISI & co. I think he is right…

No, Thomson Reuters, I do NOT want you to mail me. Never.

From a for atto to z for zepto

Todays detection limits are very low. Using various methods such as amperometric detection [1], surface plasmon resonance [2], and laser–induced fluorescence detection [3] it is possible to sense few attomolar (10-18 mol·L-1) concentrations of analytes.

Continue reading

References

  1. W. Gao, H. Dong, J. Lei, H. Ji, and H. Ju, "Signal amplification of streptavidin–horseradish peroxidase functionalized carbon nanotubes for amperometric detection of attomolar DNA", Chemical Communications, vol. 47, pp. 5220, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C1CC10840A
  2. J. Ferreira, M.J.L. Santos, M.M. Rahman, A.G. Brolo, R. Gordon, D. Sinton, and E.M. Girotto, "Attomolar Protein Detection Using in-Hole Surface Plasmon Resonance", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 131, pp. 436-437, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja807704v
  3. D.B. Craig, J.C.Y. Wong, and N.J. Dovichi, "Detection of Attomolar Concentrations of Alkaline Phosphatase by Capillary Electrophoresis Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence Detection", Analytical Chemistry, vol. 68, pp. 697-700, 1996. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ac950650z