[Research Journal] PLAID – People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes

PLAID (People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes) is an open access, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research journal focused on people living with and inspired by diabetes.

Via an email from someone who subscribes to this blog. (Thank you for sharing news about this!)

PLAID: People Living with and Inspired by Diabetes. It is kind of unique in that it is trying to bridge the gap between physicians and patients. It is trying to get conversations started as well as provide access to new research in the diabetes community. Here is the link to its website: http://theplaidjournal.com/index.php/CoM

Scientists, Foundations, Libraries, Universities, and Advocates Unite and Issue New Recommendations to Make Research Freely Available to All Online

 

Those of you who follow my blog know this is one of my passions!

From the press release

September 12, 2012   Information Program

Scientists, Foundations, Libraries, Universities, and Advocates Unite and Issue New Recommendations to Make Research Freely Available to All Online

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2012

CONTACT: Andrea Higginbotham, SPARC, andrea@arl.org; 202-296-2296

Amy Weil, Open Society Foundations, aweil@sorosny.org; 212-548-0381

WASHINGTON—In response to the growing demand to make research free and available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, a diverse coalition today issued new recommendations that could usher in huge advances in the sciences, medicine, and health.

The recommendations were developed by leaders of the Open Access movement, which has worked for the past decade to provide the public with unrestricted, free access to scholarly research—much of which is publicly funded. Making the research publicly available to everyone—free of charge and without most copyright and licensing restrictions—will accelerate scientific research efforts and allow authors to reach a larger number of readers…

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• Whither Science Publishing? (the-scientist.com)
• Open access for development: a battle not yet won (scidev.net)
• UK government to make all publicly-funded scientific research freely available (rawstory.com)
• UK reseach to be freely available (bbc.co.uk)
• New open access recommendations ten years on from Budapest Open Access Initiative (okfn.org)
• Academic journals face a radical shake-up (economist.com)
• You: Free access to British scientific research to be available within two years (guardian.co.uk)

 

Impact of free access to the scientific literature, including empowerment of health care consumers

From the 21 July 2011 blog item at  Science Intelligence and InfoPros, by hbasset

An excellent review in the latest JMLA:

The paper reviews recent studies that evaluate the impact of free access (open access) on the behavior of scientists as authors, readers, and citers in developed and developing nations. (…)

• Researchers report that their access to the scientific literature is generally good and improving (76% of researchers think that it is better now than 5 years ago)
• Publishers (Elsevier and Oxford UP) reveal an increase in the number of journals available at a typical university and an even larger increase in the article downloads
• For authors, the access status of a journal is not an important consideration when deciding where to publish (journal reputation is stronger)
• The high cost of Western scientific journals poses a major barrier to researchers in developing nations
• There is clear evidence that free access increases the number of article downloads, although its impact on article citations is not clear
• Recent studies provide little evidence to support the idea that there is a crisis in access to the scholarly literature
• Author’s resistance to publication fees is a major barrier to greater participation in open access initiatives
• The empowerment of health care consumers through universal access to original research has ben cited as a key benefit of free access to the scientific literature
• overall, the published evidence does not indicate how (or whether) free access to the scientific literature influences consumers’ reading or behavior
• current research reveals no evidence of unmet demand for the primary medical or health sciences literature among the general public
• most research on access to the scientific literature assumes a traditional and hierarchical flow of information from the publisher to the eader, with the library often serving ans an intermediary betwwen the two. Very little has been done to investigate alternative routes of access to the scientific literature

Davis, Philip M. & Walters, William H. The impact of free access to the scientific literature: a review of recent research. J Med Libr Assoc 99(3):208-17 (2011).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21753913

available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133904/

Related posts

• How to obtain free/low cost medical articles in medical and scientific journals
• “Summaries for Patients” and other plain language summaries help patients and others understand medical studies and guidelines

 

 

 

Related articles

• Challenging the Access Crisis (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
• Peter Suber, Open Access Overview (definition, introduction) (earlham.edu)
• Do we need an alternative to peer-reviewed journals? (arstechnica.com)
• Science Longevity Paper Retracted (news.sciencemag.org)
• How the quality of the scientific literature impacts the evidence (kevinmd.com)
• Should scientific articles be available free online? (slate.com)