Comments

Friends,

please refrain from commenting at this point in time please. Google hasn't figured out how to actually display comments that were posted. At this point in time their software displays below a given post the profile name of whoever posted a comment, but displays no actual comment. I hope they'll come to grips with this sooner rather than later, or else I shall change the template that I'm using. My apologies for any inconvenience caused.

udo schuklenk

Ps: Note added Mach 06: Google's dynamic blogs do not seem capable of displaying comments posted, so I decided to disable to much cleaner dynamic blog design I chose and revert back to an old-fashioned, static design.

Webmedcentral - an early 1st April joke?

A few days ago I received an invitation from a computer to review a manuscript. The computer's name is Webmedcentral, it seems, and it's the latest incarnation of Open Access file uploading. At the moment you can publish (ie upload a file to said computer) free of charge, but that's gonna change by January 2012. None of the computer's content is indexed in any databases at all, except tragically by google scholar. 


The paper I was asked to review consisted of 427 words and 2 references. The computer explained to me that the paper had been published already, and that the review would take place after publication of the article in question. Authors could then publish revised versions of their article in response to the reviews received, or ignore the reviews altogether. Either way, said computer (hardwarewise not that different from other Open Access 'journals' - and neither quality wise in all too many instances) explains on its website that it has 'have full faith in the honesty and integrity of the scientific community and firmly believe[s] that most researchers and authors who have something to contribute should have an opportunity to do so.' Despite strong evidence of widespread cheating in academia trust is what drives this computer.  


How does this thing work then? 'We have introduced a novel method of post publication peer review, which is author driven. It is the authors' responsibility to actively solicit at least three reviews on their article. During the submission stage the authors are asked to provide details of three reviewers who are contacted by the WebmedCentral team when the article is published. Authors can seek more reviews, if they so wish. We discourage authors from choosing their reviewers selectively.'


'Our peer review process is author driven. With our innovative method of publishing, peer review takes place after publication. It is authors' responsibility to organise at least three reviews for their articles. We aim to generate an open debate on the article after its publication. WebmedCentral reserves the right to invite additional reviews as and when necessary.


All pretty clear: any crook can pick his or her best mates to 'review' content they have already 'published'. They're strongly encouraged not to be crooks, of course. That should just do the trick.


The computer mentions in passing  that it has neither an Editor nor an Editorial Board: 'With our model of publishing, we do not need an editor or editorial board for our journal. Authors are completely in charge of the entire publication process including soliciting reviews and submitting revised versions of the manuscripts if needed.' It's kinda unclear how a journal without Editor or Editorial Board is going to solicit  further reviews, 'if needed', but hey, minor detail in the big swing of the Webmedcentral universe.


There is a bit of confusion, too (well, I remained confused about the modus operandi). It seems as if you'd upload your papers free of charge to the computer, then have the article send to your three best mates whose compliments will also be 'published'. If they review more than three other files they can send more of their own non-reviewed drivel for publication purposes to the Webmedcentral server. Basic maths would suggest that soon review co-operatives identifiable by one's three best mates will monopolize much of Webmedcentral's file uploading activities. According to Webmedcentral the comments are also considered publications. It goes without saying that in this uploading orgy minor details such as doi identifiers are missing, but hey, it's a minor detail while you 'publish' a paper per hour to beef up your publications record. 


It's all pretty random and no doubt databases controlled by people as opposed to algorithms will not index stuff emanating from webmedcentral. Google scholar at least is happily indexing the contents on the Webmedcentral server. The price you pay for letting machines do the job humans arguably should be doing. 


The only nice thing is that webmedcentral could easily be confused with biomedcentral. It couldn't hit a nicer 'publisher' :-). 


Oh, the list of shame, aka academics prepared to be associated with this charade, is here. What people confuse with academic publishing here is academics publishing anything they feel like. No different to my blog really... feel free to comment (aka 'review' in Webmedcentral lingo).

Promises, promises, promises - when will Rupert Murdoch DO as opposed to promise

Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of right-wing propaganda outlets such as the SUN and New York Post newspapers, and not to forget Fox 'News' promised the world that he would remove content from these and his other media from google. I think that's excellent news.

There is always the risk that accidentally I click a link found on google news and suddenly find myself on a New International site, thereby being inadvertently subjected to News Corp propaganda as opposed to actual news. If Rupert was to remove this challenge in order to charge (laughter) for access to his agitprop, he would do the world a BIG favour. Please Rupert, go for it...

Microsoft buys Yahoo buys my Image Storage Facility

Capitalism makes it increasingly difficult to escape the tentacles of the larger of the software companies these days. I have to be honest, I belong to the crowd shouting fire whenever it comes to Microsoft, and all of Bill Gates charitable giving can't help me get over ongoing frustrations about truly inferior products that he dumps on customers buying a new PC. I like Apple, but only because their machines are more stable and their software is plain more elegant. I am not a great fan of Mr Jobs and his company's unpleasant copyright hurdles either, when it comes to i-tunes, for instance, or the nonsense of the i-phone tied to an inferior service provider.

I like google a lot, because at least they offer free access to their services (well, not entirely free, as everyone concerned about privacy and data-mining knows). I've also since discovered open source replacements for MS Office, and truth be told, they work just fine (except... bummer ... they are free). Just search for StarOffice 8, download it free of charge and you'll see see what I mean. Equally, googles online word processing software and what it offers for collaborations is pretty cool. Still, I am concerned that pretty much all of my professional life (email, documents) sits on google servers, and is continuously analysed by the company's software. Fair enough, there is nothing there that I would be concerned about if it ever ended up by some accident or other in the public domain, but still, to entrust one company all of that content is a worry to me.

So, I was quite happy that instead of having to use google's Picasa's web albums to store my images there was an alternative, independent operator out there, not beholden to any kind of quasi-Orwellian outfit like google. I was delighted with the services Flickr provided. I am still delighted about Flickr. Sadly, a year or two ago Flickr was bought by another Silicon Valley internet behemoth, Yahoo. It bothered me a bit, but I didn't mind, at least it wasn't Microsoft, or so I thought.

Well, I'm sure you will have heard that Microsoft is now on the verge of gobbling up Yahoo, and with it Flickr and with it my photos (some 4000 or so, and counting). Try as hard as you may, it seems somehow that it's all just a matter of time until the small fish are either killed or incorporated into some larger company, until only few players will be left that pretty much own facilities most people use to store their content, edit documents etc.

Wasn't it an old bearded guy by the name Karl Marx who predicted that such is the nature of capitalism that invariably this would be the outcome? I am not a Marxist, not by a long stretch, yet he seems to have got it right on this one.