'Mummi' Thorisson

"The world's most valued plant database faces extinction because its funding is being phased out by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and no alternative source is on the horizon. [..] The NSF has suggested that TAIR develop its own self-supporting funding model, based on user subscriptions and other sources of income. But TAIR director Eva Huala told an international meeting on... more... - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Now isn't that a great opportunity to seriously cut subscriptions from journals and invest the left-over funds towards decentralized literature and data databases hosted by the libraries? Two birds with the same stone? - Björn Brembs

More in editorial: Access denied? - http://www.nature.com/nature... "[..] It is time for a whole new approach. Front-line biology cannot function without these resources, so solutions must be found at both national and international levels. Governments must ensure that at least one of their national funding agencies has money specifically set aside for the long-term support of bioresource infrastructures.[..]" - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Umm... just make it Open Data and the data is preserved by the community? Why is the *data* at risk? I think they really mean that the *scientists* are at risk! - Egon Willighagen

Indeed, Egon! Left a comment there. Maybe a bunch of us should contribute to the discussion there, this should raise the profile somewhat. Incidentally, we may think of writing a letter to the editor, if there is some consensus in the comments. - Björn Brembs

@Björn, I like those ideas... I'll log into my NN account and leave a comment too... - Egon Willighagen

I think the data is already open - the issue seems to be that TAIR is a centralized resource for the community. If I understood correctly, in the absence of a centralized resource they are afraid of fragmentation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since over time certain providers may/will become preferred providers - Rajarshi Guha

Argh... just about to commit my reply, has the page disappeared... nice comment lost :( - Egon Willighagen

I wonder how their $1.6M budget breaks down (IT infrastructure, curators, admin etc)? - Eric Jain

Blatant self-plug here! My response to a number of recent editorials, regarding the importance of making datasets citable to encourage researchers to publish their data and 'data DOIs' being a potential key factor in bringing this about. Comments/criticism welcome. - 'Mummi' Thorisson

"author can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)" says SHERPA/ROMEO re Nature Biotechnology/NPG - in case your contractual agreements go beyond this, you might be able to enhance the size of your readership, the amount of feedback, and most likely also your citation rates by OA green of the final version - (where) have you self-archived this article? I would like to recommend it to colleagues whose institution cannot afford a subscription of Nature Biotechnology - can you help? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Claudia - can you give more specific guidance regarding self-archiving? I can't make much out of your comment. I did check the NBT website and according to http://www.nature.com/reprint... I can self-archive 6 months after publication. - 'Mummi' Thorisson

In any case, if anyone doesn't have access to NBT then by all means contact me directly (FF message) and I'll E-mail the PDF. - 'Mummi' Thorisson

pleasure: on more specific guidance regarding self-archiving see here (example repository software EPrints): http://www.eprints.org/openacc... and here, in the case of your current research instiution: Leicester Research Archive https://lra.le.ac.uk/ or maybe DORA https://www.dora.dmu.ac.uk/ who both are run on DSpace http://www.dspace.org/ (my source: http://roar.eprints.org) - tuck in :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

thank you for the direct delivery service offer, Mummi. Actually, with a paper of THIS topic I would prefer to recommend an open access version that is downloadable from the web by anyone and now :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

in more detail: SHERPA/ROMEO http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ lists the NPG general license to say (see my quote above) "author can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)" - and adds: "This summary is for the publisher's default policies and changes or exceptions can often be negotiated by authors. All information is correct to the best of our knowledge but should not be relied upon for... more... - Claudia Koltzenburg

Why is it, when I try to download the PDF, that I get Correspondence on "The market value of GM products" instead? :) - Allyson Lister

Allyson - good one ;) my bit starts near the bottom of that 1st page - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Claudia - Thanx again. I shall try and sort this out ASAP. - 'Mummi' Thorisson

@Mummi - I should have trusted the PDF - I didn't even scroll down - just saw the top and figured it was a bum link - my bad! :) - Allyson Lister

Nature journals' policy is that authors can put their submitted version online eg on a preprint server whenever they want - before, after or during submission. The version that is accepted for publication can be archived in a repository 6 months after publication. The published version stays on the publisher website. http://www.nature.com/authors... and http://www.nature.com/authors... - Maxine

Quote from first URL above: "Our policy on the posting of particular versions of the manuscript is as follows: 1. You are welcome to post pre-submission versions or the original submitted version of the manuscript on a personal blog, a collaborative wiki or a preprint server at any time (but not subsequent pre-accept versions that evolve due to the editorial process). 2. The accepted... more... - Maxine

@Mummi of course you could have published in an open access journal instead :-) - Duncan Hull

Duncan - excellent point (was kinda waiting for someone to kick my arse about that...). Honestly, I would have done this, but the backdrop to this is that I was approached originally by the NBT editor about writing a short letter on this topic, following a comment I made on a Nature blog post (http://blogs.nature.com/nautilu...). - 'Mummi' Thorisson

I *promise* to make an effort to submit to an OA journal next time! - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Responding to OA chiding by Claudia and others. Here's a link the self-archived MS: http://hdl.handle.net/2381... - 'Mummi' Thorisson