In an article for BBC News on the Hwang Woo-suk stem cell scandal, Paul Rincon and Jonathan Amos digress from the problem of fraudulent data to the problem of plagiarism, which allows them to make a point about OA.
Some scientists say that one of the benefits of the "open access" business model for journals - where scientific papers are free for all to read in a web-based database - could be beneficial for picking up plagiarism and possibly other forms of misconduct.
A great many scientific journals are subscription-based, so that readers have to pay to view research.
"We think it would be harder for people to plagiarise work once you can do extensive word searches and access more material free on the internet. You'll be able to spot where someone has lifted their work much more easily," says Robert Terry, senior policy adviser at the UK medical charity, the Wellcome Trust.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/10/2006 10:58:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
