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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Free access to papers for WCG members |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 6
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I was a little surprised to find out that papers that organisations publish based on research that receives support from WCG are not downloadable for free. I was under the impression that any research that gets supports from WCG should have its results published in the public domain. I know that I can spend the money and buy the published paper and therefore the knowledge contained within, but I find it a little awkward that I am giving my computing power to this research for free, and then they ask me to pay money for their paper. I had at least expected that WCG members that have participated in the project could get the paper. I am just an interested private person, not associated with an organisation in the field of the research and therefore the money they ask for their paper is a little steep for me to pay. I am merely interested in having a look at what they did with my computing power.
Why is the situation like this? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Frankly, no idea how to manage getting it for free to contributing members... [how much?]... and those who work in the field paying to the APS e.g. for making the paper available and coordinating the peer reviewing and other admin/editorial cost. We supply the data crunching, but the intellectual effort is still that of the scientists/researchers.
Thought it rather interesting that the Clean Water paper if that set you off, was August 2010 submitted, when the data processing started August 23, 2010. Can't have been from our crunching results that the paper was derived. Mind you, I'd be as interested to have a read of any WCG crunched data full papers. The data product / results was agreed to be public domain and that will happen. --//-- |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3315 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Frankly, no idea how to manage getting it for free to contributing members... [how much?]... and those who work in the field paying to the APS e.g. for making the paper available and coordinating the peer reviewing and other admin/editorial cost. We supply the data crunching, but the intellectual effort is still that of the scientists/researchers. Thought it rather interesting that the Clean Water paper if that set you off, was August 2010 submitted, when the data processing started August 23, 2010. Can't have been from our crunching results that the paper was derived. Mind you, I'd be as interested to have a read of any WCG crunched data full papers. The data product / results was agreed to be public domain and that will happen. --//-- Maybe it was data gathered from the Betas   - AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF 6C/12T 3.2 GHz - 85W - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 4C/8T 2.0 GHz - 28W - AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8C/16T 3.0 GHz |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi Baske,
Why is the situation like this? Academic journals became high-profit publishing businesses after WWII. There have been lots of articles about this since the late 50's. There are lots of different ideological doctrines that have arisen in my lifetime in response to this situation. One example are the PLOS journals that are publicly available. But the prestigious journals that most scientists actually read often charge a bundle. I have never spent much time reading the blizzard of articles about this, so I cannot tell you what the current situation is, but maybe Google can help you. I last read up on some controversy about Springer-Verlag in the early 80's. Lawrence |
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kateiacy
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 23, 2010 Post Count: 1027 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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... I find it a little awkward that I am giving my computing power to this research for free, and then they ask me to pay money for their paper. I had at least expected that WCG members that have participated in the project could get the paper. I am just an interested private person, not associated with an organisation in the field of the research and therefore the money they ask for their paper is a little steep for me to pay. I am merely interested in having a look at what they did with my computing power. Why is the situation like this? It is not the researchers who are asking you to pay money for their papers, and it definitely is not they who are getting money from scientific journal subscriptions. In order to be well-regarded in their fields and to qualify for the grants that let them do their research, the researchers have to publish in top-notch peer-reviewed journals. The authors generally do not get paid anything by the journals. In recent years, some online journals have appeared that peer-review papers and then make them freely available on the Internet. I hope this trend grows. By avoiding the costs of printing and mailing, these journals retain peer review, which is necessary to good science, while making the content available to anyone without charge and in a timely manner. If you live near a research university, you may be able to read the publications you are interested in in its library. The public universities that I'm familiar with let members of the general public read in the university library even if they can't check materials out.  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thank you all for your responses. I do understand now that the money is more of a compensation for the editing and publishing of the paper rather than for the actual knowledge contained within. I do still believe it would be better if the knowledge were more widely available. Perhaps less-edited and not printed on paper, for example on a website. I've read up on the PLoS journals and feel this is more like my view on how "it should be". I understand that being published in a renowned journal is essential for scientists but hopefully in the future organisations that work with WCG will consider (also) publishing their results in a PLoS journals or similar website, so everyone can read it, and not just those that have the money and resources. Perhaps I'm talking utopia now?
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