A tweet from one of our researchers was recently brought to my attention – it was regarding Sci-Hub and accessing full text articles. This was the incentive I needed to share some information about Sci-Hub and provide a librarian’s viewpoint on this controversial website.

Sci-Hub was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan, a neuroscientist, whose intent is/was to remove barriers that would impede progress in science. The website she developed now hosts 50 million (and counting) pirated scholarly research papers that can be accessed by all researchers (actually by anyone with an Internet connection)!  While one can discover “open access” papers on this website, many, if not most of the papers are still under copyright and therefore behind pay walls.

So the question worth asking is – How are these copyright-protected full text papers obtained and made available on Sci-Hub?  Continue reading →

I recently read with interest a blog post by Christopher Morley, PhD, published in STFM (Society of Teachers of Family Medicine) that really struck a chord with me.  In his post, he lists ten steps to help spot a publisher that an author should definitely not engage with.

Predatory or deceptive publishers continue to plague the scholarly communication landscape, with some publishers truly behaving like wolves in sheep’s clothing. This is not the first time I blog about this topic, as awareness into this dubious practice is vital for all of us who provide access to scholarly research journals. The most important thing we can do for researchers, whether they are just starting their publishing careers or are seasoned authors, is to highlight this issue and make them aware of unscrupulous publishers. Below is a summary of Dr. Morley’s ten steps which researchers can use as a checklist, whether they receive an email solicitation or if they are searching for a possible place to publish.  You can read his full post here. Continue reading →

In July 2014, without any fan fare, we embedded the donut-shaped Altmetric Badge as a new feature on Synapse (MSK Publication database). What this new feature provides to the viewer, when available, is a way to measure the online attention received by a particular work, with the option to be alerted whenever the work receives any new mentions. The Altmetric score is “derived from an automated algorithm, and represents a weighted count of the amount of attention ….. picked up for a research output.” Readers and authors can click on the donut score to be taken to the details page for that specific work where they can further explore all the original mentions and sources. The Altmetric Donut Badge is not unique to Synapse; it can also be found on a variety of publishers’ platforms including Elsevier, Springer Nature, and PLoS.

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, introduced a new approach to determine the value, impact, or popularity of research within the digital scholarly ecosystem. These web-based metrics come in the form of tallied views, downloads, cites, saves, bookmarks, tweets, shares, likes, recommends, posts, comments, and tags.  Tweets, for example are displayed in the context of a map showing the global Twitter reach of the work. You can also review the News tab to see which news outlets picked up the published research to share beyond the scientific community.  Available information is delivered in real time and can change daily.  Continue reading →