Thursday, January 30, 2014

Concussions at NCP: Open access granted

Many, many thanks to Dr. John Corboy* and his colleagues at Neurology Clinical Practice for their decision to provide free and complete access to the public of their recent editorial on recommendations to increase the incidence of concussion reporting by athletes, along with the underlying article that supports the recommendations.  As I mentioned the other day, the journal had a number of important recommendation on this topic, but wide scale dissemination of those recommendations was being held up by the journal's subscription requirement.  Now, these thoughts are there for the world to see. Please take a look!

Equally important, let's see if we can now all act on these these thoughts.
--
*Professor, Neurology, University of Colorado School of Medicine

4 comments:

  1. Kudos to Dr. Corboy et al. It makes perfect sense to enable the public to read and learn from our profession on a subject of such importance. I hope this practice spreads far and wide.

    In addition, it is an excellent editorial.

    nonlocal MD

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  2. Terrific! As a pediatrician, I think this is an important article to circulate, and Paul has done a great service in opening it up. Kudos and thanks!!

    Budd Shenkin MD

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  3. It's great that the general public can have access to professional articles of this sort. Generally we only have morning TV or the science times to give us an insight into topics such as concussion. Neurological issues, in particular, impact all of our lives. The more we can learn from your blog and the scientific community the better. Thanks to all involved!

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  4. On the face of it, this is a change for the positive. However, what gives me pause is the question of the future business plan of academic journals. If free and open access is required, how to keep the lights on? Most models that I have seen look to advertising (raising concerns about COI) or higher publication fees for authors. This could create the COI of a journal needing to publish more - regardless of quality of the study - to stay in business, thus undermining peer review. Maybe we need to look at other models? Am interested if folks in nonmedical sectors might have ideas. Public libraries are supported by public funds. Where is the support for these journals if they are also serving the public good?

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