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Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

badscience.net

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Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#11

Post by mhax »

brianobush wrote: post #9
Caligula wrote: post #3

One of the tremendous values of being in a masters program is having access to JSTOR and all the other journal sources. Before I would email the professor and request a copy, usually they would oblige.

Or you can go visit your local library, which has access typically to most journals in digital form.

Really? Perhaps the British Library, yes, but not my local. Not even my university has access to most journals. Thankfully I have two separate accounts at different universities so I can usually find what I'm looking for.

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#12

Post by pwaring »

brianobush wrote: post #9
Caligula wrote: post #3

One of the tremendous values of being in a masters program is having access to JSTOR and all the other journal sources. Before I would email the professor and request a copy, usually they would oblige.

Or you can go visit your local library, which has access typically to most journals in digital form.

Depends which country you are in - UK libraries don't usually have access to academic journals.

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#13

Post by jisaacstone »

brianobush wrote: post #9
Caligula wrote: post #3

One of the tremendous values of being in a masters program is having access to JSTOR and all the other journal sources. Before I would email the professor and request a copy, usually they would oblige.

Or you can go visit your local library, which has access typically to most journals in digital form.

At my local library (largest in my state) you have to be on one of the library computers to access any pay journals. Which is annoying, especially since I would have to wait for a spot.

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#14

Post by burgerbrain »

pwaring wrote: post #12
brianobush wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can go visit your local library, which has access typically to most journals in digital form.

Depends which country you are in - UK libraries don't usually have access to academic journals.

How about local university libraries then?

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#15

Post by pwaring »

burgerbrain wrote: post #14
pwaring wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends which country you are in - UK libraries don't usually have access to academic journals.

How about local university libraries then?

They are generally not open to the public, and when they are you are rarely allowed to access electronic journals because of the licence agreement which the university has signed with the publisher.

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#17

Post by brador »

keithpeter wrote: post #8
_delirium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I like that idea, but only if it's limited to the big lecture-style courses. Having taught some smaller classes, I'd be sort of annoyed if one of my lectures showed up online, without me having really prepared for it to be polished or well-thought-out enough to be permanently archived for worldwide broadcast. Talking to a group of 20-30 people somewhat informally would be hard to do if I knew that it were being…

Agreed. I teach lower down in the academic chain. Dyslexic students often ask if they can record (audio) lessons. We teach in small groups and I encourage people to ask questions, and take over the whiteboard &c. The deal with students recording the session is that the recordings are for personal use only. Noone has broken that understanding as yet so far as I am aware...

Why personal use only? Why not allow it's free distribution so many people can benifit?

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#18

Post by St-Clock »

Mizza wrote: post #2

Academic lectures are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action: http://lectureleaks.com

I am STRONGLY against this kind of service and I hope you will consider removing any recording that was not approved by the lecturer.

Otherwise, I want a recording of everything you have said while working. Actually, I want a recording of everything everybody said while they were working so my BigBrother TM audio processing technology can highlight anything that was out of line, incorrect, inappropriate, whatever.

I hope you understand that most lecturers/profs/researchers/people aren't concerned about their copyrights. They are concerned about their reputation and about what ill intentioned school administrators, students or politicians could do with these recordings. You just need one bad case of misuse of these recordings before some universities or unions sue the hell out of you.

I share your goal: education is good and the more people learn, the better the world will become. But if you start recording everything I say in my lectures, I promise you that they will be way more boring.

Re: Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

#20

Post by asolove »

Caligula wrote: post #3

One of the tremendous values of being in a masters program is having access to JSTOR and all the other journal sources. Before I would email the professor and request a copy, usually they would oblige.

This is actually the thing I miss the most from my graduate days.

JSTOR is a gold mine of wonderful knowledge: you can search for any word you like and instantly be connected with hundreds of years of very intelligent scholarship. You acquire a feeling of immense humility at the breadth of things known to humanity but not to yourself. Surely this is something sorely missing from contemporary civic society, and especially the freely-available discourse on the web.

Someone will make a lot of money if they can find a way to charge a reasonable monthly fee for temporary access to this knowledge without killing the golden calf of institutional subscriptions. It should be no different than the Encyclopedia, which was enormously valuable but didn't dry up demand for academic publishing.

It is my goal to have personal access to JSTOR by the time my kids can surf the web.

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