So, it seems that BioMed Central, commercial publishers of open access journals, were behind the letter mentioned in my last post, and the Royal Society are not best pleased.
BioMed state that it was a response to scientists upset by the Royal Society's position, and that all they did was help Fellows of the Royal Society write to the Royal Society. The Royal Society themselves say they're in favour of open access in principle, but not in a way that kills regular journals.
The Guardian covers this development here.
It's unfortunate that the Fellows' position does seem to be undermined by the input of an organisation that stands to materially gain if their side gets the upper hand. I think the Royal Society have good reason to be concerned about the way this has been conducted, and I hope that they don't use this as justification to pull out of the debate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment