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Nearly 50 million research papers freely available

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posted on Feb, 12 2016 @ 06:29 PM
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I tried to search about this and I found nothing, I don't know if it was banned or maybe just overlooked (in the former case remove this post) and given the number of science guys on this site I feel like many of you could really use it.
I read this article from www.sciencealert.com...
and ended up learning a few things about how gated is the availability of scientific papers for researchers. The site in question is sci-hub.io... and is a sort of pirate bay of scientific papers.
From the article on sciencealert


A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles - almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published - freely available online. And she's now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world's biggest publishers.

For those of you who aren't already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it's sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn't afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it's since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court - a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.



journal subscriptions have become so expensive that leading universities such as Harvard and Cornell have admitted they can no longer afford them. Researchers have also taken a stand - with 15,000 scientists vowing to boycott publisher Elsevier in part for its excessive paywall fees.


I suggest to those interested to read the article and since it may not be legal to get access to it in your country (I don't really know worldwide legislation sorry!) I encourage you to first learn if there are some kind of consequence for accessing it.

I hope this helps anyone trying to build a career or simply educate himself. I do strongly believe in public knowledge of every scientific subject, including the controversial ones, and I couldn't do much more than laugh if these greedy gatekeepers go bankrupt in months (it's not like they pay the uni or the researchers despite their 1b$ annual income).

Enjoy

p.s. the link didn't work with usual url tags
edit on 12 2 2016 by Mastronaut because: (no reason given)

edit on 12 2 2016 by Mastronaut because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 12 2016 @ 06:48 PM
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Get a Government grant then lose your research after you publish, aint life Grand!!! This Racket has been around a LOOOOONG time, publish or parish, either way, You lose!

This is what happens when everything has copyright!!



posted on Feb, 12 2016 @ 07:19 PM
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I heard about similar things wanting to be done legally because other scientists felt that their would should be public access. I too find it a bit ridiculous and personally know a few scientists who ended their careers simply because everything was so focused on business rather than research and knowledge.

I would like to know where this money goes when accessing research papers. If the vast majority goes to the scientists themselves (highly unlikely) then this news may actually be in poor taste. But on the other hand, a system like that would naturally make more research be made on 'popular' topics and the less popular areas may get far fewer researchers than needed.

Freedom of knowledge should be the top goal of all.



posted on Feb, 12 2016 @ 08:12 PM
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a reply to: Mastronaut

Honestly, this should have happened ages ago but the issue is that stuff can be published without any moderation or peer review and we'd never really know.

The publishers of most academic papers use the money to ensure the peer review process occurs properly.

Yet there have been instances of those who make claims of 'peer reviewed papers', pointing to articles published in the 'letters' section of major science magazines. While the magazines' standard articles are peer reviewed, letters aren't.

For instance, the majority of 'papers' authored by Richard Dawkins as noted in his Wikipedia article are actually "letters". To some, this is sufficient.

edit on 12/2/2016 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 13 2016 @ 08:21 AM
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Great find.

Is this related to another site that shutdown last year? I think it was called Library Genesis.

I was able to download a number of papers from there that would have otherwise cost me a fortune. A cost I can't justify to read a science paper just because I'm interested in the topic.

BTW: I'm not sure how the ATS T&C's relate to this, but it's possible your direct link to the "pirate bay of scientific papers" may be problematic. You can probably get around that by allowing those reading your OP to follow the link to the article and get the sci-hub link from there. Just my 2 cents...

-dex



posted on Feb, 13 2016 @ 09:04 AM
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a reply to: DexterRiley

Thanks for the suggestion, I can't edit anymore the post so I guess I need to ask a mod if it's needed.



posted on Feb, 14 2016 @ 01:50 AM
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originally posted by: Mastronaut
a reply to: DexterRiley

Thanks for the suggestion, I can't edit anymore the post so I guess I need to ask a mod if it's needed.



I go to the site sci-hub.io click on the key ( open ) and I get nothing. Excuse my ignorance, but what am I doing wrong ?



posted on Feb, 14 2016 @ 05:06 AM
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a reply to: dazbog

I don't know, yesterday it was down every now and then. It may be that the article sparked a lot of views and many people are trying to download the most they can in case it goes down.



posted on Feb, 14 2016 @ 05:54 AM
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originally posted by: Mastronaut
a reply to: dazbog

It may be that the article sparked a lot of views and many people are trying to download the most they can in case it goes down.

Haha that's probably exactly what happened because that was the first thought which crossed my mind when I read this. It seems like the site is still searchable by using Google with the 'site:sci-hub.io' parameter but unfortunately it looks like the vast majority of the papers are from medical journals, which is probably because those types of papers are most likely to be behind a paywall. Kind of ironic really, what should be the most noble area of science is the area with the least empathy.
edit on 14/2/2016 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)



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