prism partnership for research

PRISM - Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine - Seems

like a spoof but it is real, and sad

I just came across this web site for something called the "Partnership

for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine." I looked through it

an thought - this must be a spoof. A good April 1 joke about the

dinosaurs of the publishing industry. The reason it seems like a joke

is well, the stuff there is so incredibly inane as to make one laugh.

In essence the whole site is an anti Open Access site. They are

against Open Access to publications it seems because Open Access does

things like

* "undermines the peer review process." Yes that's right. If an

article is freely available for all to read, that must mean that

peer review has been compromised. Nevermind that openness in other

areas (e.g., politics, law, etc) is well established to promote

critical review (anyone heard of freedom of the press). But

apparently in science, openness is bad.

* "opens the door to scientific censorship". Yup. Making

publications freely available apparently means that you will

stifle communication. Again, the logic here is completely silly -

how on earth is openness connected to censorship?

* "undermining the reasonable protections of copyright holders."

Yup, the publishers of scientific articles, who do not deserve the

copyright to articles in the first place, are now saying that

because they have stolen the copyright from many scientists, now

we should defend them because they have the copyright. Kind of

like saying that someone who steals some money should not give it

back because of finders keepers rules.

I could go on and on about the silly stuff there ... but lets just say

that everything on the site seems like a spoof. But alas, it is not.

PRISM is for real. It is the last gasp of a dying breed - publishers

who refuse to do what is the right thing for science and society. Yes,

I understand there are some issues with Open Access that still need to

be solved. But this McCarthy like tone of PRISM - basically equating

openness with evil and godlessness is ridiculous. I think this is a

sad day for the people behind PRISM - the AAP (Association of American

Publishers). I am sure they have done some good things over the years.

This is certainly not one of them and a good sign that anyone out

there with any common sense who might be involved in AAP should get

out or fight for change within the institution.

For more on Prism see

* Open Reading Frame

* Peter Suber