Public Library of Science

Data access and the NHS - more research versus patient privacy?

Emma Veitch — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:00:51 -0800

The Guardian's front page story from a couple of days ago ("NHS medical research plan threatens patient privacy") looks like it has generated some healthy and opinionated responses from readers, but the government consultation that led up to it has now closed. The story here is that the proposed UK National Health Service constitution - enshrining the principles and values of the NHS - contained, buried amongst other important stuff on issues such as access to services, quality of care, and informed choice, a crucial nugget which could change the way that medical researchers get access to patients' data.

The Constitution Handbook says (p24): "...Therefore, the NHS will do all it can to give patients, from every part of England, with any illness or disease, a right to know about research that is of particular relevance to them and, if they choose, to take part in approved medical research that is appropriate for them. Patients can therefore expect that a health professional or a research professional who owes the same duty of confidentiality as a health professional may use care records, in confidence, to identify whether they are suitable to participate in approved clinical trials..."

According to the Guardian, Harry Cayton, the new chairman of the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care, has billed the proposal as "ethically unacceptable".

It's not obvious from the Handbook how it would be decided which researchers, and which research projects, could directly get access to medical records. It's also not stated whether researchers involved in commercially funded projects (eg, trials funded by drug companies) would be able to screen databases and directly contact patients. As some respondents have argued, the current system of recruiting patients may result in bias for some types of research. But if the proposals are to go ahead, it would be crucial to develop a secure framework to establish which research questions are in the greatest public interest and most in need of a broader approach to recruitment. This does seem to have been recognised by the National Health Service's own Patient Information Advisory Group, which has advised that the proposal be removed until fuller discussion has taken place.

Clearly, with centralised and (virtually) universal computerised medical records, the UK has enormous potential to strengthen its medical research culture; but I'd be interested to hear whether similar proposals are being developed in other countries, and what public reaction is developing.

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New Academic Editor Interview - Niyaz Ahmed

Peter Binfield — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:17:47 -0800

At the end of October 2008, Niyaz Ahmed (PLoS ONE Section Editor for Microbiology and Genomics) passed the milestone of 50 papers handled for PLoS ONE and by the time I caught up with him to congratulate him, he had reached almost 60. Given this great achievement, I thought it would be a perfect excuse to interview him for our ongoing series of ‘Discussions with PLOS ONE Editors”.

Niyaz is a group leader, in charge of a team of 10, at the “Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics” in Hyderabad, India. His lab is interested in the molecular basis of the acquisition and adaptation of chronic pathogens to their host niches, and the outcome of that adaptation in the long run. He kindly took time out of his schedule to speak to me at 11.30 in the evening (just 9 am in San Francisco, with a 13 ½ hour time difference) - this was a time when he would normally be working on PLoS ONE submissions!

PB: Niyaz – tell me what it is like to do research in India?

NA: Being based in India is a huge advantage for my work. India is unfortunately a hot spot for infections such as TB and enteric diseases where my main interests lie. In addition, there is a great deal of cultural and genetic diversity here that broadly influences the acquisition, maintenance and eradication of the diseases. . Therefore, my location is important from a host point of view as well as from a pathogen’s point of view. In addition, in the post genomic era there is a great deal of resources and collaborative interests percolating through to India. My group extensively collaborates with laboratories in Europe and elsewhere and we have a long term collaborative program running at the University of Sassari, Italy.

PB: What do you feel makes PLoS ONE relevant to scientists?

NA: I have spoken to many of the young leaders in science, and most of them think that PLoS ONE is making new headway in science communication, and that its’ most important function is to provide an inclusive forum (by which I mean one can publish topics between the disciplines and across the disciplines). This is the main thing that makes PLoS ONE so distinct. I would also highlight the tools that it provides for rating, evaluation, and post publication commenting, as well as the journal clubs. It is a very open, very inclusive, and yet very smart independent system of publishing – that is what attracts the attention of the new generation. Also some people are very interested in the swift speed at which papers are published. So I think the inclusive scope, the speed and being a platform for discussion are three of the most important things in my opinion.

PB: And tell me about your blog that you write - BLoG ONE

NA: I felt that I would like to air my own ideas about the papers that I am accepting and that I should somehow put what I feel about each particular paper on the web. And that is how I started the blog – as a way to highlight the best of those papers that I have been accepting. This was my way to advocate for PLoS ONE, and each post clearly links back to PLoS ONE. But I don’t just highlight papers that I handle, I also highlight many of the other PLoS ONE papers that are published every week. Although the sole intention of the blog is to advocate for PLoS ONE, I do feel that it highlights the contemporary approach to the OA debate that PLoS ONE represents.

PB: Well, we thank you for doing this – your blog is a very nice example of how to re-promote Open Access content. And what is your opinion on our acceptance criteria?

NA: As a journal we are promoting article level evaluation in the light of new generation, post publication metrics (cites, trackbacks, blog posts, media coverage, ratings, social bookmarking and journal clubs). Impact Factor only matters for the journal level evaluation of the literature. Here, we are inclusive in the sense that if the research is sound, it has adhered to the community standards, and it has been performed with a rigorous methodology then it should be accepted in the literature. So long as the research qualifies to be included in the literature, then we are not worried about its impact because its impact will be determined by the readers and the community. In this way, it is our part to let the content go before the readers and the community and only then to sit and analyze the trends.

PB: How many hours a week would you say you devote to PLoS ONE?

NA: Mostly in the evenings, after I come back from the lab I will be working on my editorial assignments. I typically spend 2 hours a day on my tasks as Section Editor and then for manuscripts that I am personally reviewing, I may work on them for more than a week before being able to submit a review. My institute gives me the freedom to make myself available for this work. They consider my time spent on editorial activities to be part of professional activity, and that is very supportive of them.

PB: What would you say is the ‘best’ paper you have handled and why?

NA: Well, all the articles that I accept are carefully considered after a rigorous peer review. The most noteworthy, however, is the case of a set of two related manuscripts on the topic of coral reef conservation (by Dinsdale and colleagues and Sala and colleagues) that I edited in February this year. My impression is that these papers would have been otherwise published in any of the frontline science journals if they were not fielded in PLoS ONE. Both the articles were based on the Scripps Institute expedition findings and were enthusiastically received by the international media. A commentary on these articles was simultaneously published in PLoS Biology and the articles were evaluated in Faculty of 1000. I have separately indicated why I have recommended publication of these articles and why I liked to handle these articles.

PB: And finally, what would you say is the thing about Open Access that most excites you?

NA: Developing countries are in great need of Open Access. The fruits of the scientific and technological revolution are not reaching them because they have to pay to receive the content. In an Indian case scenario, while the library budgets are dwindling, internet access has become affordable for masses, thanks to our technology driven economy. And that is where OA comes to enhance research productivity as well as the pace of discovery. Finally, I will say, that knowledge should not be kept bound. Knowledge is created to be open. It’s a free world!

PB: That is a great note to end on. Thank you for your time Niyaz, and congratulations again on handling so many papers for PLoS ONE.

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"There's no easy way to say this. . ."

Andrew Hyde — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 01:42:35 -0800

A Health in Action paper published in PLoS Medicine recently describes the success of an innovative project called inSPOT – an e-card notification system that enables people who have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease to inform their sexual partners that they may also be at risk.

Whilst news coverage reveled in the dark humour of some of the cards (“Roses are red, violets are blue. I've got the clap, and you may have too”, said The Times), it recognized that an easy and anonymous way of informing casual sex partners can help circumvent the stigma and embarrassment attached to sexually transmitted diseases and spread awareness of possible infections.

"We know inSPOT works," Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, one of the authors of the paper, told the Washington Post. "I see patients, they come in and say they've been notified [about having an STD], and their contact is through inSPOT." And as the Scientific American noted – with one of the e-cards illustrating its report - the e-cards provide specific and up to date disease information: 15.4% of the e-cards were sent for gonorrhea, 14.9% for syphilis, 9.3% for HIV, 11.6% for chlamydia, and 48.8% for other STDs. Given that 19 million new STD cases are diagnosed annually in the United States, this information is desperately needed.

In their evaluation of the project, which was conducted in 20 health jurisdictions in the United States, the authors analyzed rates at which e-card recipients clicked a link embedded in the card that connected to STD information, a map of local testing sites, and links to online resources. Of e-cards sent since December 2005 the “click-through” rates averaged at 26.8%, ranging from 20.4% in Los Angeles to 48.2% in Idaho, resulting in 29,137 people accessing STD testing information as a result of receiving an e-card.

Coverage in CNN and the Daily Telegraph report on the variety of styles that cards can be sent in: from the direct and serious (“Who? What? When? Where? It doesn't matter. I got an STD; you might have it too”) to those that use puns to catch the attention of the recipient (“I got screwed while screwing, you might have too”). College students across America at Vanderbilt, Northwestern, USC and Yale discussed the merits of the inSPOT website. And in case you were wondering about the site’s susceptibility to pranks, the LA Times health blog quotes the authors as saying “while we prepared for the possibility of misuse…fewer than 10 recipients have reported receiving a card in error."

The coverage was so extensive one could even speculate that the e-cards were being sent from news organization to news organization. CNN International’s story ranked as the most emailed and fifth most viewed story on October 21st. It quoted the authors to explain that the traditional system of notification through the public health department was struggling:

“Resources of the health department have been decimated. They don't have the capacity to do that kind of notification anymore. We needed to come up with something to serve the needs, to notify, that would be used and have an impact."

The authors believe the inSPOT website can have an international impact. It has been translated into Romanian and French, and will soon be available in Spanish as well.

Andrew Hyde, Darcy Gill, Nisha Doshi

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Academic Editor Interview - Ivan Baxter

Peter Binfield — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 10:36:07 -0800

To kick off our series of interviews with PLoS ONE Editiorial Board Members, I started with a phone call to one of our longer standing Academic Editors - Ivan Baxter, who is currently the Section Editor covering Plant Biology. Ivan is a Senior Research Associate at the Bindley Bioscience Center at Purdue University.

PB. I’d like to start with a bit more detail on your scientific background.

IB. I am a computationally oriented plant biologist and I am interested in how plants interact with their environment to regulate the mineral content of their tissues. I’ve been doing plant biology for 8 years now; looking at mineral nutrition for the last four, and before that I was working on ion transporters. Before getting into plants, I worked on RNA biochemistry. I am currently the Plant Biology Section Editor for PLoS ONE in addition to being an Academic Editor and I have been on the PLoS One Editorial Board since the summer of 2006.

PB. What was it that attracted you to PLoS ONE in the first place?

IB. I liked the fact that we don’t worry about trying to define what is significant – that attracted me right from the start as I’ve always felt that was extremely arbitrary. I’ve always been excited about the whole idea of Open Access, and another strong feature that attracted me to PLoS ONE was the fact that you can make the paper as long as you wanted as long as it is good and cohesive.

PB. How does the peer-review process on PLoS ONE work?

IB. Since joining the Board, I have also acted as a reviewer for three of the top plant journals, and the review process is similar at all of those journals. A paper is submitted to PLoS ONE and the PLoS Editorial team review it for formatting and quality control issues. Then they work to find an Academic Editor, frequently, this involves a section editor like myself. As a working plant biologist, I am able to identify which of the 15+ (and growing) plant researchers on the editorial board is the best match for the paper. Our plant biology editors span a wide variety of disciplines within plant biology and are located on five continents. Once a board member agrees to review a paper they also accept responsibility for ensuring the quality of the manuscript if it is going to be published in PLoS ONE.

PB. What is the standard of peer-review on PLoS ONE?

IB. The standards that we apply to papers are the same as I apply as a reviewer at other plant journals, with one major exception. We look for papers that present primary research that has been conducted to a high technical standard where the conclusions are supported by the experiments. We also, of course, insist that the experiments are conducted in an ethical manner, that the underlying data has been deposited in the appropriate repository, and that the writing is intelligible. What we don't do is apply an arbitrary significance standard (i.e. this paper is in the top 27.465% of those in its field), which is a highly subjective judgment. As a result of our strict standards, most papers are either rejected or returned to the authors for revisions. Some of the revisions end up as de facto rejections if the authors are not able to correct the identified deficiencies. However, a majority will be published after the authors address the reviewers' comments and concerns. Like the review process at other journals, the review process at PLoS ONE improves the quality of the papers that we publish, however since we will publish any paper that meets our standards, authors know they won't have to go through multiple rounds of reformatting and revision to resubmit to multiple journals.

PB How quickly does this process move?

IB. Regarding the speed of our processes, I think we are as good as any journal I know of, if not better and that overall it moves faster than anywhere else. I think we have established a different process and that it is good and rigorous.

PB. What’s the general quality of submissions like?

IB. I also think that in general we are getting very good quality submissions. Obviously there is a range, but I have handled several papers which I feel could have been published in the top journals in my field and for whatever reason were not.

PB. Why do you think so many scientists submit to PLoS ONE?

IB. I feel that these papers come to PLoS ONE because of the speed, but also the fact that if an author is confident that their science is good then they should feel that there is no reason why their paper would not be published in PLoS ONE. That is very reassuring because at most other journals you go to, you can persuade the reviewers to agree that the paper is correct and still even after making all their corrections they may come back to you and say that is it “not quite right for our journal". We are never going to say that, so if you go to PLoS ONE and you are confident that your science is good then you can be confident that you will be published. You may be wrong, of course, and you will find that out through our review process, however the knowledge that you’re not going to have to reformat, resubmit to multiple journals is very attractive to people.

If you think that you have the skills and expertise to join the Editorial Board of PLoS ONE, please let me know (pbinfield@plos.org). If you want to experience this process for yourself, please send us your work.

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New version of the Declaration of Helsinki

Virginia Barbour — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 04:28:16 -0800

Last week the World Association of Medical Editors announced the new version of the Declaration of Helsinki. This document, which was first drawn up in 1964, is essential reading for everyone doing research on human participants. The revision was the result of a huge amount of international consultation, and along with many other organisations, PLoS and the Committee on Publication Ethics, which I am also involved with, provided input into this document. Everyone involved in research on humans, as a researcher, author, editor or reviewer should look at this new document but I’d particularly highlight some of the new additions to the text.

Paragraph 30 now makes editors’ duty clear on the publication of research including the duty to make it “publicly” available. The paragraph in full is:

"Authors, editors and publishers all have ethical obligations with regard to the publication of the results of research. Authors have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human subjects and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports. They should adhere to accepted guidelines for ethical reporting. Negative and inconclusive as well as positive results should be published or otherwise made publicly available. Sources of funding, institutional affiliations and conflicts of interest should be declared in the publication. Reports of research not in accordance with the principles of this Declaration should not be accepted for publication." We were keen to have some wording on Open Access incorporated; perhaps next time …

Another key point made is in paragraph 19, “Every clinical trial must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first subject.”

And, finally, in these days of samples often ending up being used for studies far removed from the original reason for collection, the text in paragraph 25 notes that “For medical research using identifiable human material or data, physicians must normally seek consent for the collection, analysis, storage and/or reuse.”

What do readers think – is there anything essential missing from this last version?

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Low-Hanging Fruit: An Anti-Parasitic Drug Database

Shabnam Sigman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:30:08 -0700

A guest blog by Michelle Arkin and James McKerrow at The Sandler Center for Research in Parasitic Diseases and the Small Molecule Discovery Center, University of California, San Francisco

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but are largely ignored by the biopharmaceutical industry because the afflicted are usually poor people in poor regions of the world. As a result, the drug development pipeline for these diseases is largely empty. Furthermore, drugs currently used to treat these diseases may have frequent and severe side effects, efficacy limited to certain stages of the disease, or efficacy only in certain geographical regions. Target-directed drug development for NTDs is one logical approach to fill the pipeline.

A second and very cost-effective approach is “diversity” or “phenotypic” screens where drug libraries are tested directly against parasites in culture without regard to known or validated targets. In one variation of this approach, we searched for previously unrecognized antiparasitics among the drugs currently approved for clinical use. Such hits would be “low-hanging fruit”, with the advantages of proven human safety, and known dosing schedules and pharmacokinetics. Chris Lipinski has estimated there are approximately 2,000 such drugs (www.collaborativedrug.com/register/FDA - register, log in, and go to “data sets”), and an analysis by Chong et al. at Johns Hopkins University puts the number at 3,400 (Chong CR et al. Nat Chem Biol 2: 415-16, 2006). Some of these drugs can be obtained commercially or through material transfer agreements (Microsource, NINDS, Johns Hopkins Clinical Compound Library [JHCCL]). Additionally, Iconix Biosciences has donated to the Sandler Center its proprietary collection, which contains ~1,000 compounds, 218 of which are not found in the Microsource or JHCCL collections (P. Phuan, unpublished data). Close to 30 other companies have donated proprietary libraries to the Sandler Center for screening.

Two years ago, the first screen of the Microsource Spectrum Collection (1,995 compounds) against Trypanosoma brucei was published (Mackey ZB et al. Chem Biol Drug Design 67: 355-63, 2006). Since then, similar screens have been run for Leishmania donovani and Plasmodium falciparum (Weisman JL et al. Chem Biol Drug Des, 2006). The Low-Hanging Fruit site provides a portal by which the community can view hits from these screens and make decisions on which compounds represent the most suitable leads to take to the next step in the drug development pipeline. We have now carried out screens for T. brucei, L. donovani, Entamoeba histolytica, and Schistosoma mansoni using the Spectrum Collection. We are in the process of expanding our dataset using the Iconix library, and we will post this data in the coming months.

The apples on the tree at the website represent links to data for the parasites indicated. In some cases, this data is a simple list of hits to be viewed by those individuals and agencies interested in rapid follow-up. In other instances, a more complete database can be accessed under “protocols and statistics” as compiled by Pipeline Pilot (Accelrys) software.

We view this website as both a resource and a challenge. Through Low-Hanging Fruit, we provide our data on an open-source basis to the antiparasitic drug development community at large. We hope this encourages others to pursue these hits, either as potential drug leads or for target discovery and validation studies. We expect that some of the drug hits will interest researchers with expertise in particular biochemical pathways. We also challenge the community at large to provide their data in a similar open-source manner to encourage new collaborations and follow-up. We envision that this website may serve as one component of a larger community database “hub”, linking global efforts in all stages of the antiparasitic drug development pipeline to initiate new collaborations and minimize redundancy of effort.

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New interview with PLoS ONE author

Liz Allen — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:18:54 -0700

We are continuing our series in which we look at PLoS ONE articles that have a combination of good publicly available article level metrics (usage data: page views; citations (from Google), media coverage, comments and ratings etc).

Another such article is Aversive Learning in Honeybees Revealed by the Olfactory Conditioning of the Sting Extension Reflex. I asked the Author (and Editorial Board member of PLoS ONE) of this article Martin Giurfa of the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (CNRS), University Paul-Sabatier, France, about why he chose PLoS ONE to publish his work and what his experience was like. This is what he said:

Q. Please briefly describe the topic of this paper and how you went about the research?
A. For almost 100 years the honeybee has been a traditional invertebrate model for the study of learning and memory but so far a single modality was investigated: appetitive learning in which bees were always rewarded with sugar to support learning. In this paper we overcome this limitation and provide the first controlled demonstration of aversive learning in honeybees. We showed that this learning is amenable to the laboratory and explored its cellular basis. Using odorants paired with electric shocks, we conditioned the sting extension reflex, which is exhibited by harnessed bees when subjected to a noxious stimulation. In parallel, we identified dopamine as the biogenic amine that substitutes aversive reinforcement in the bee brain, as opposed to octopamine that was shown to substitute for appetitive reinforcement.

Q. Why do you think this paper attracted interest and what are you investigating now?
A. This would be too long to go into here. Suffice to say that people have realized that aversive learning can now be studied in bees for the first time and that it is possible to access the brain simultaneously. In my opinion a very important step in the case of an animal that for decades has been the model for just appetitive learning

Q. Why did you choose PLoS ONE?
A. Because I wanted to support the PLoS ONE initiative by sending what I considered to be one of my best works. Because I thought that PLoS ONE could become an extremely important and recognized journal where the fashion ("we are not sending your paper to reviewers because it is not of general interest...") is excluded.

Q. What was your experience of publishing with us like?
A. The experience was very positive. Good editor, good reviewers, constructive criticisms, etc.

If this experience sounds good to you and you’ve not tried PLoS ONE yet or you’ve only published with us once or twice, we would welcome your work .

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PLoS Genetics at ASHG 2008

Liz Allen — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:14:15 -0700

PLoS Genetics, the peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), is getting ready for this year's ASHG meeting (Philadelphia, PA, November 11-15), where you’ll find us at Booth 417 in the exhibition hall. Here is a sample of our most viewed research articles:

In addition, PLoS Genetics commissions Interviews, Reviews, and Perspectives of interest to the community.

On Booth 417 you can:

Meet the Team—PLoS Genetics Editorial Board members Wayne Frankel (Editor-In-Chief), Greg Gibson and Manolis Dermitzakis (Section Editors), and Jane Gitschier (Interviews Editor) will be at Booth 417 at selected times to answer questions on PLoS, open access, the NIH Public Access Policy, and publishing your work in PLoS Genetics (see the board at the booth for further details). PLoS Staff Members Andrew Collings (Publications Manager) and Catriona Silvey (Publications Assistant) will also be on hand to answer your questions.
Receive a FREE T-Shirt—We will be giving our 2008 t-shirt to delegates who sign up to receive free e-mail content alerts. This year’s shirt with its unique design is only available at this event, so be sure to call by, sign up, and claim yours while stocks last.
Get FREE Buttons/Badges designed for our authors, Editorial Board members, readers, and supporters.
Take-away fact sheets that showcase the Editorial Board and top papers and postcards to remind yourself and your colleagues why you should publish in PLoS Genetics.

We look forward to welcoming you at our booth at ASHG 2008.

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Interview with a PLoS ONE author

Peter Binfield — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:47:29 -0700

We've been looking at PLoS ONE articles that have a good combination of important article level metrics (usage data: page views; citations, media coverage, comments and ratings etc). One such article is On the origin and Functional Architecture of the Cortex which was also featured in a journal club discussion at The Sydney University Visual Physiology Group.

I asked the Author of this article, Dario Ringach of the University of California Los Angeles, why he chose PLoS ONE to publish his work and what his experience was like. This is what he said:

Q. Why did you choose PLoS ONE?
A. It allowed a venue to publish a controversial theory about the origins of the functional architecture of the cortex. PLoS would make these ideas widely accessible and also provided a forum for discussion which, in my mind, was very useful to get constructive criticism to guide the further development of the theory.

Q. Why do you think this paper attracted interest and what are you investigating now?
A. The paper has likely attracted some attention because some predictions of the theory have now been verified (a) the dependence of orientation bandwidth with the location of neuron within the orientation map, (b) the clustering of on/off afferents in layer 4, and (c) a direct relationship between the clusters of on/off afferents and the preferred orientation of cells at that site. Our theoretical work has concentrated on expanding and working on this model to come up with new predictions and tests that could be experimentally tested with available techniques.

Q. What was your experience of publishing with us like?
A. It was a piece of cake... rapid turn around, almost no mistakes in typesetting (despite the heavy math). I will likely do it again!

If this experience sounds good to you and you’ve not tried PLoS ONE yet or you’ve only published with us once or twice, we would welcome your work.

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Guest blog - A Poem for Open Access Day

Liz Allen — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:32:28 -0700

Open Access Day

They said:

"if you publish in an open forum your paper'd be rubbish and clearly hokum"

" pub's commercial know how to review with the peerage, how to make data flow and hurdles clearage"

"limited space on the page with every new edition so few make the passage, it's editorial selection!"

"we have always done and it's never been changed the readers we dunn and the paper's in chains"

"what is ought to be why change it now it is so plain to see must limit the flow"

"But in, PLoS chimed, and challenged that dragon everyone joined and the boycott was on"

"The authors we'll dunn when funding provides we'll have much more fun when all readers can chide"

"the new Open Access to everyone's work can be the new praxis and everyone's perk"

"with the previous method the work was all gratis publishers prod to maintain their status"

"the cash it did flow to the publishers coffers we were covered with snow from ingenuous offers"

"It's all in the model be it business or open pub's whine and they yodel but their way is broken"

"Open Access is true for me and for you the pub's they be blue but it's now, and it's new"

"they can keep their closed access and journals galore but we've a new process that we'll use ever more."

Open access matters to me because it is one of the pillars of the new world of the 21st century. It is the democratization of information. I've been aware of Open Access since before it existed, as I've always thought this is how it should be done. Research should be provided in an Open Access format (with no or only very minimal delays) because we expect society to support, through government, private funding, and free-riding on corporate profits, this research. It is not our research. To support Open Access, I blog about it, and my next paper will be submitted to an Open Access journal. Gotta go .... need to work on paper...

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