The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against Elsevier.

thecostofknowledge.com

54 pointsllambda4 comments

Earlier discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501561

Yeah, what's with the noncanonical URL in the submission here?

Of llambda's 10 most recent submissions, three have the exact same pattern. Two more have do-nothing query strings.

Perhaps there's some other explanation, but much the most likely seems to be: When llambda finds something already submitted, s/he modifies the URL and submits again. Please don't do that, llambda: the dupe filter is there for a reason.

I really don't like Elsevier, but the alternatives don't exist

Most open Access databases are of dubious quality and don't provide an interface for peer-reviewing. Even worst, the harvesting standard (OAI) is implemented in many different ways depending on the site. Scopus also extract references, citations, addresses, etc. which are necessary to compute influence and impact.

Microsoft Academic and Google Scholar are starting to look as an alternative, but I'm wouldn't be surprised if they licensed their data from Elsevier&Thomson.

Until these services are duplicated in the Open Access community, Elsevier will still be needed.

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