In support of NIH’s open access proposal
The proposal of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make available for free the study reports funded by it is a welcome step, says the author. It will benefit the citizens whose tax money is invested in scientific researches. Greater spread of scientific information will provide an economic… Read More
Knives out as Lancet and Royal Society trade insults
The six-year old spat between the Royal Society of the UK, an eminent and historic scientific establishment, and the prestigious journal, The Lancet, took an ugly turn as Richard Horton of the Lancet described the Society as lazy and being of little public value, in a recent issue. In turn,… Read More
In search of online authenticity for medical research
Abundant online sources for medical literature have raised the question of authenticity. Nevertheless, reliable and readily accessible Web sites do exist that provide quality peer-reviewed articles and journals. The author of this article explains the essential services of reliable online medical sources such as PubMed and HighWire Press. Read More
Open source goes beyond software
In this article, S. Sadagopan, Director of IIIT, Bangalore, explains the importance of open source, a trend that has the gained attention of major industries such as automobile, healthcare and oil and gas. Newer technologies such as the Linux operating system, mySQL (database), Perl (scripting language) and Apache (powering Web… Read More
Books@Ovid — EContent Decision-maker review
Ovid Technologies’ new product, Books@Ovid, is reviewed by EContentMag.com, describing the various functions of the search tool. The search platform can be used to identify and track science, technology and social sciences content within textbooks Read More
LOCKSS paving the way for a paperless office
Sun Microsystems, US and Stanford University are working on preserving STM journals in electronic format. A paperless office seems to be unconceivable at present. The demand for paper is steady as data on the Internet are ultimately printed to obtain a hard copy. LOCKSS has been developed to retain web… Read More
Journalists on trail of niche scientists
With the increasing complexity and specialisation of science, scientific reporting, too, demands similar rigours. Earlier, journalists approached a general scholar for assistance in writing a science report. Now, they are confronted with the task of finding specialists such as biogeneticists, nanoscientists or quantum physicists to validate their stories and ensure… Read More
Meeting changes in user requirements and expectations in STM publishing
STM publishing confronts few challenges aside from pricing policies. With improved revenue models, technology, offshore production and distinct publisher services, publications have to make efforts to satisfy the end-user, the reader. With the advent of the Web, it is the responsibility of the publisher to instantly provide the content, direct… Read More
The implications of IT for scientific journal publishing
The role of information technology (IT) in scholarly publishing (scientific literature in particular) cannot be understated, and has always proven better than traditional publishing facilities. With IT as a value adding tool, dissemination of scientific content has never been so easy. Today, authors self-publish their research papers in the Web,… Read More
Competition leads to innovation and quality upgrade
While the not-for-profit and commercial publishers continue to debate on free access of scientific content, there are other players in the market awaiting their due. These are the “for-profit but reasonably priced” publishers, universities and scholarly societies. The author here opines that competition triggers innovation, which in turn upgrades quality. Read More
