The Great Science Publishing Scandal

A 28 minute radio programme in which Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology at the University of

Manchester, explores the hidden world of prestige, profits and piracy that lurks behind scientific journals.
If you want to know about how the business of academic publishing works, then this programme provides an insight. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004l7k

How might Plan S affect chemistry research?

Plan S aims to make publicly funded research openly available after 1st January 2020. 

With this in mind the Royal Society of Chemistry has prepared a five-minute video that discusses Plan S, and the wider implications of the move to open access for the chemistry community.

Plan S, and how it could shape open access as a whole, is a developing topic, and it is one that the Royal Society of Chemistry aims to help you navigate. 

Watch the Royal Society of Chemistry's video about Plan S and chemistry research.

Wellcome Open Research

Wellcome Open Research is an Open Science platform: all articles are published open access; the publishing and peer-review processes are fully transparent; and authors are asked to include detailed descriptions of methods and to provide full and easy access to source data underlying the results to improve reproducibility.

Wellcome Open Research provides all Wellcome researchers with a place to rapidly publish any results they think are worth sharing. All articles benefit from immediate publication, transparent refereeing and the inclusion of all source data.

Top Ten Trends Driving Science from ACS Axial

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Axial team has written a report: Top Ten Trends Driving Science which is an introduction to 10 of the biggest ideas affecting scientists today. Have a read and see if you agree with them...

Biome - keep up to date with a new online magazine

 

Check out Biome - a new online magazine showcasing recent medical and biological research.

 

"Biome is an online magazine that will provide biologists, medical researchers and clinicians with the latest research topics, discussions and community news from the entire spectrum of medicine and biology. Published by BioMed Central, Biome will regularly report on specially significant research articles, reviews and commentaries that appear daily in BioMed Central’s open access journals, all of which are fully peer reviewed. Biome brings together a selection of new insights from across the entire spectrum of biology and medicine."

See the latest articles here http://www.biomedcentral.com/biome/. You can also sign up to receive monthly highlights.

2014 - International year of Crystallography

Those of you who pursue studies, research and careers in Crystallography, you will be very pleased to know that 2014 has been declared as the International year of Crystallography (IYCr2014 for short) to celebrate a century since M. Von Laue was awarded the Nobel Prize for the Diffraction of X-rays by crystals and Kepler’s observation in 1611 on symmetry of ice crystals.

The celebratory year will commence with a "glittering" Opening Ceremony in UNESCO's HQ, in Paris, in 20-21 January 2014.
UNESCO and the International Union of Crystallography launched a new website where you can follow up events, announcements and learning materials such as Audio/Visual presentations and a plethora of educational websites. The website will be sustained after the end of 2014 as a permanent resource of the International Union of Crystallography's web presence.

It is valuable to note that a new peer-reviewed open access journal will be launched as part of the 2014 celebrations. The International Union of Crystallography Journal (IUCrJ for short).

The journal will cover:

• biology and medicine
• chemistry and crystal engineering
• materials and computation
• neutron and synchrotron science and technology
• physics and free electron laser science and technology[1]

Image credits: All the images are hyper-linked and not saved on the website.


Note:
[1] Source: http://www.iucrj.org/m/

Open Access Week

This week is Open Access Week - promoting open access to publicly-funded research.

Want to know more?

It's all at http://www.openaccessweek.org/ where you can find out more about open access, watch videos, find out about events that are taking place as part of Open Access Week and even buy the tee-shirt!

UK scientific research to be open access

Greater access to the results of scientific research

A new policy announced by the Science Minister, David Willetts, will ensure that all publicly funded scientific research will in future be available on open access - this article in the Guardian explains more

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/08/publicly-funded-research-open-access