Tuesday 4 January 2011

When Online Open Access is a Good Thing: Free 25 Year Anniversary Issue of the Journal Bioethics

Well, well, isn't this timely?

Just the day after I have been (seemingly) trashing online open access publication in the field of bioethics, we have an example of the very opposite of what I was talking about! Mind you, I did say that online, open access journals can be high quality, but that operations of the sort described in yesterday's post unfortunately function as the rotten apple that tends to spoil the barrel. So, perhaps the best way of being sure that an online, open access journal is top rate is when it is, in fact, a regular, well recognized, highly rated, non-open access journal that publishes occasional open access issues. Such as this one, I mean (ironically an issue of the very same journal that was the victim of the plagiarism described in yesterday's post) – the rest of what follows is a crosspost from Udo Schüklenk's Ethx Blog:


25 Years of Bioethics (the journal)

here's the ToC of our 25th anniversary issue. The commissioned
contributions have been made available in Open Access format, so no
subscription to the journal is required.

The content can be accessed here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bioe.2011.25.issue-2/issuetoc


EDITORIAL (page ii)

UDO SCHÜKLENK

ARTICLES

PUBLISHING BIOETHICS AND BIOETHICS – REFLECTIONS ON ACADEMIC
PUBLISHING BY A JOURNAL EDITOR (pages 57–61)
UDO SCHÜKLENK

PERSONAL GENOMES: NO BAD NEWS? (pages 62–65)
RUTH CHADWICK

WAS BIOETHICS FOUNDED ON HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL MISTAKES ABOUT
MEDICAL PATERNALISM? (pages 66–74)
LAURENCE B. MCCULLOUGH

LOOKING BACKWARDS, LOOKING FORWARD: HOPES FOR BIOETHICS' NEXT
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS (pages 75–82)
SUSAN SHERWIN

LOCALIZED PAST, GLOBALIZED FUTURE: TOWARDS AN EFFECTIVE BIOETHICAL
FRAMEWORK USING EXAMPLES FROM POPULATION GENETICS AND MEDICAL TOURISM
(pages 83–91)
HEATHER WIDDOWS

IN WHOSE INTEREST? POLICY AND POLITICS IN ASSISTED REPRODUCTION(pages 92–101)
ANNE DONCHIN

MORAL ENHANCEMENT AND FREEDOM (pages 102–111)
JOHN HARRIS

LITERATURE, HISTORY AND THE HUMANIZATION OF BIOETHICS (pages 112–118)
NATHAN EMMERICH

5 comments:

  1. well, thank you christian! kind of you! udo

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  2. I just think, psychologically, an open acces may reduce the value of science, I mean something like: we usually enjoy less when we buy fruit without skin although it is easier to eat.

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  3. I presume that you mean that many people would value science less if all journals were OA. Not sure about that. I doubt that very many people value science because its dissemination channels are inaccessible. Maybe some value science because the science itself is often inaccessible to the layperson, but that would remain with OA.

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  4. I actually don't mean that some value science because the science is inaccessible to the lay person. Basically, all the people value science because it is science.
    It's not a decision to value something because it is hidden, but sometimes being hidden strengthen the valuing process psychologically, and maybe no one care to this factor.
    And another thing: I myself prefer to work at university because I have open access to most of journals there...otherwise I prefered to work at home which would bring other problems.
    A strong motivation pulling me out of bed in this winter is: going to university to have easy open access. So here, not having open access from home, can help me to fight winter depression:D
    However these are some small ideas of mine, may be doesn't worth to even mention, in comparison with the "important benefits of public open access"

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