I’m fascinated by behavioral science. But without academic credentials, I’m not allowed to view most papers published in scientific journals. Neither are you.

“Sorry Buster. No can do. Subscribers only. Subscriptions for institutions and academics only. Anyway you couldn’t afford it. Click here to go back to your plebeian hole.”

You and I have to make do with sloppy mainstream-press interpretations of science. The scientists hate it: they scream and cry about the quality of the coverage, and tell you how their study was misinterpreted. But ask them if you can look at the original study, and the answer is likely to be no.

My friend Peter Ayton turned me on to cognitive psychology, which has a lot to tell people who want to understand the Internet. It has been much in the news lately, partly because it’s undermining the notion of the rational economic actor, partly because it’s pointing marketers in new directions. There are some good sources out there, and it has reached the mainstream press, but many times I wish I could read the original research that people mention, or search or browse for interesting articles in academic journals.

The proximate culprit is copyright law, which allows the big journal publishers (Wiley, Elsevier, Blackwells) to restrict access to only those who pay — typically university libraries. They are scared to death of tinkering with what have been secure, predictable cash cows.

In fact, a lovely study on science journal publishers from the University of Utrecht shows that they’re quite happy jacking up prices even without significant increase in their costs.

The damning contradiction between the scientific establishment’s claims of openness on the one hand, and complete lack of public access on the other, is the reason (one hopes) that some scientists are poking their heads out from the Ivory Tower.

In a revolt against the big publishers, scientists are starting their own online open-access journals (most journals are online, just not available to you and me). The first I found is the Journal of the SJDM (Society of Judgment and Decision Making). The editor, Jonathan Baron, deserves credit for publicly setting out his Proposal.

Wired has a story about some academics who seem more concerned about the time it takes to get their paper peer-reviewed than about letting the public see the work their taxes are funding. Nonetheless, the Public Library of Science has set up has set up open-access journals where the public can not only read the papers, but criticize and dissect them prior to publication.

In this scenario, the good thing for scientists is that they get their stuff in circulation much sooner. The good thing for readers is that they have access.

Could bad science be released into the atmosphere and deceive an unwitting public? Possibly, but peer-review can be dangerous too. And it’s not as though crap science doesn’t sneak through as is.

I want original academic material online, whether it’s peer-reviewed or public-reviewed, so I can do research, learn a thing or two, and make up my own mind.

But more important, I want easy access to scientific-looking writing that I can use to bolster my previously-held opinions :-).

Tags: behavioral science, cognitive psychology, scientific journals, journal publishing, Peter Ayton, Jonathan Baron, peer-review, open-access journals

Posted by Antony in: Media + Marketing