A website dubbing itself 'YouTube for scientists' has been launched, saying the intent is to bring science closer to the people, according to backers Public Library of Science (PLoS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).
SciVee allows scientists to upload published papers, as well as a podcast presenting the paper. The groups behind the initiative say they are confident that it will contribute to the widespread dissemination and comprehension of science.
First, we don't see how it's YouTube if you can only upload a podcast and a printed article. We don't really think of podcasts when we think of YouTube and it's a good bet Google didn't shell out all that money for its podcasting - it shelled out all that money for videos of Asian kids playing Pachelbel's Canon in D.
Second, authors must have published their paper in an open access journal in order to upload it to SciVee - so it's bringing science to the people by blocking out scientists who aren't published in an open access journal like, unsurprisingly, PLoS, one of the backers?
'SciVee, created for scientists, by scientists, moves science beyond the printed word and lecture theatre, taking advantage of the Internet as a communication medium where scientists young and old have a place and a voice,' explains the website.
Only if you have an article published in certain forums though.
They say the benefit for scientists is the opportunity to disseminate their research to a wider and potentially new audience. They are also able to create a professional profile and join science groups. The larger scientific community is able to access new scientific information, comment on what is published, and subscribe to relevant channels and groups.
Only if you have an article published in certain forums though.
Obviously we're all about open access here. JC Bradley talks about it, Berci talks about it, we all talk about it, but when we talk about 'open' access, we mean open.
Creating an open access site and then limiting it to people who have contributed their work in a manner dictated by a heirarchy is doing exactly what the open access community dislikes.
We're a Science 2.0 site - we're open access and our only limitation is that articles have to be science. If we created a video site and claimed it was open access but only for writers here, that would be rather hypocritical.
Probably a gold mine, but still hypocritical, and we don't need the money that much.
